ok seriously fandom

[schmevil]

What is UP with all post-hipster, glorification of conspicuous consumption in AUs these days? And what is UP with all the bourgeois cultural product placement, disguised as characterization?

I do not think that the cut of a character's suit, or the name of his favourite furniture line is particularly important, unless you make it integral to the story or the character. Details like that add colour and lend versimilitude, but it's incredibly easy to cross the line into vomiting up brand name after brand name in a bland fetishistic orgy. And Gaga help me, if I have to read another smugly insider, impenetrable paen to x person-place-thing, I will... I don't know, be annoyed or something. Ugh.

Comments

[valtyr]

Are we post-hipster now? How... how does that work.

[schmevil]

I'm still working out what post-hipster means but it just seemed to fit. *scooby doo hands*

[valtyr]

Hipster is like... apathy as a lifestyle choice? So post-hipster would be... pretending we've moved beyond the need for apathy?

[outlawpoet]

I'm like, very sincere about things. You wouldn't understand it.

[schmevil]

A++

[bossymarmalade]

ahahaha, this is ANY GIVEN ARTHUR STORY in Inception fandom. *g*

(Okay, I'm exaggerating, but seriously -- reading a lot of Arthur fic is like a crash course in high-end fashion houses, good lord.)

[schmevil]

OMG SRSLY. I actually enjoy reading about and looking at couture, but the name dropping kills it for me. Also the short-cut characterization. "Arthur likes Zegna; that's all the motivation he needs!"

[bossymarmalade]

AHAHHAHA! I would like a story where the entire thing relies on your knowledge of fashion houses/luxe goods:

"Arthur scrunched the back of his bespoke (Dermeuil) Salgado, was not careful with his Atelier Yozu as he sat, and summarily kicked his Bruno Maglis across the room. Ariadne gasped so hard her Aurora Diamante fell askew, and Eames' secret La Perla twisted in despair."

[schmevil]

Yesssss. And of course there should be illustrations.

[bossymarmalade]

Of Arthur as a catboi. Who likes to wear Comme des Garçons.

[schmevil]

There should be a fan comic where everyone is a Disney-esque talking and walking on two legs cat. In couture. Eames has perma-dyed paisley fur. They talk about coffee and post-modern art.

[gloss]

Ugh. Inception makes me growlyfaced.

[schmevil]

Ha ha, so obvious I was talking about Inception, wasn't it?

[gloss]

:D
Dude, I tried to read one of the most recced fics in that fandom and lost my shit in about the second paragraph as "he smelled like crisp poplin". WTF DOES THAT EVEN MEAN POPLIN SMELLS LIKE WHATEVER YOU WASH IT IN OMG.

...I have issues.

[valtyr]

Well, some fabrics do actually have a smell of their own. But I don't think cotton poplin is going to smell different from cotton sheeting.

[gloss]

Well, some fabrics do actually have a smell of their own.
Yes, I know. Not poplin, though. Even linen's stinkier.

[schmevil]

I remember that line but I can't place it!

You know what else I'm over? Russian futurists. Unless we're talking about this hilariously misnamed band. The meme. Needs. To die.

[dhara]

I think the poplin line actually refers to Mal and is from Presque Vu by rageprufrock.

ETA: Ditto Russian futurists, oh my GOD.

[schmevil]

It took me a couple of tries to get through Presque Vu. I don't know... massively uneven tone, or something. I can see why it's so popular though.

It's like there's a rule that all Arthur stories must contain references to Zegna suits, Russian futurists, and Auerbach.

Inception fic!

[jazzypom]

Dude, it's a rash. I thought that the movie, for all its faults, would have had a ... different fandom, that's all.

Re: Inception fic!

[schmevil]

Yeeeeah, Inception has surprised me in so many ways. I'm still looking for the epic Mal/Dom fic and the Dom&Saito Go To Limbo stories.

Yeah, this.

[jazzypom]

The concepts intrigued me, no lie, and I was willing to give the fic a shot, just to see what it would explore. But it's all curtain fic, or my little pony or catpeople drawings. It's been... special.

I'm not ragging on the fandom, but *sighs * there's so much that could be explored, but *sighs again*.

Re: Yeah, this.

[schmevil]

I'm kind of pottering away on a couple of stories and I've got one going on the kink_meme, but I'm not heavily invested in the fandom. I read because there are lots of great stories, but... I tend to crave action stories, psychological thrillers, or backstory.

Re: Yeah, this.

[schmevil]

PS. Write something short and just for you. I mean, why not? Explore one cool theme. You'll be guaranteed the three or four Inception people on your flist/circle as readers. ;)

[ratcreature]

Brand names in fiction suck, because I often don't recognize them, and then can't imagine anything, so all the intended effect of atmosphere is lost on me anyway. At least these days I can google the stuff, but I remember when I first went online (around 1995) -- with no good search engines and no wikipedia, and also on dialup per minute so I wasn't reading while online anyway -- I had no clue what all this stuff was, I was supposed to recognize. And people don't even stick to global brand names, but do things like describing food only by local US brand names, none of which exist here. Or chain stores by their less than descriptive names, which often don't exist here either.

(randomly browsing in through network...)

[schmevil]

Yeah, this part of what makes it obnoxious. It's a sign to readers that this story is Just Not For Them, whether deliberate or not.

[outlawpoet]

I dislike piling in Twilight, because it's the thing to do, but this was one of the more obvious and cheesy moves I'm glad the movies probably won't include, where Edward is giving her a Mercedes Guardian(super bullet proof car! to protect when he can't stalk her) and a Visa Black Card(unlimited line! soo awesome).

It's just such grasping consumerism reaching towards imagined class, it becomes hard to take seriously and knocks you out of the story.

(Although this may be worsened by my inner snob-nerd knowing that the 'Mercedes-Benz S-Guard' (the only armored car they actually sell) is a giant, heavy sedan, not a sex-machine sleekoff the books sells. And the Visa Black Card was an urban myth that was so prevalent that Visa introduced a real one with massive fees to bilk idiots who wanted one)

[schmevil]

Twilight is grossly classist, even with those bits removed. Perfect storm, really. ;)

[pseudo_tsuga]

It's interesting you call fic like that post-hipster, because I would have thought personality-through-products and the glorification of insider knowledge is the definition of hipster.

Oh, Inception fandom. You have a cool new piece of technology, a bunch of interesting backstory, intriguing characters, and all you do is twist Arthur/Eames into every other slash fic wirtten in every other fandom. *sigh*

[schmevil]

I think hipster requires 'ironic' distance and a certain disdain for sincerity. What we used to call yuppies are a slightly different breed. They're basically what happens when hipsters grow up and get real jobs, ~sell out and so forth.

But lol. Inception is so strangely uber-domestic for a pure action/idea-based movie.