The term "cultural appropriation" seems to be very popular as of late. I'm sure it's pretty self evident what the term means, but in case you're completely dense, simply put, it is when one culture (race) borrows elements of another culture, which can be its fashion, food, language,music, etc. By definition it seems innocuous, doesn't it? It seems like just some old academic term that for decades has sat dormant inside dusty old sociology books. Today, however, cultural appropriation is a controversial topic because it is almost exclusively used to describe a dominant culture adapting the elements or traits of an oppressed minority culture. In other words, if you really want to piss off a college kid in Birkenstocks and a "Coexist" T-Shirt, show him a GIF image of a blonde named Amber dressed as sexy-Indian girl for Halloween! It is now considered insensitive to don those costumes because the far-leftists intercepted and ran with it past the forty, the thirty, the twenty, the ten...
I went online and performed a Google search for "List of costumes that are considered culturally appropriative" and the list that came back was as follows ( and I'm telling you it is fucking ridiculous!) This list came from some website called bustle.com:
Sexy Ninja, Egyptian Queen (Cleopatra), Voodoo Witch Doctor, the aforementioned Sexy Indian girl, Sugar Skull (Mexican Day of the Dead),
Mariachis, Mexican hat and poncho, or Señorita, A Geisha, Bollywood star (wearing a Sari and Bindi), A Gypsy, and basically anything that can make a chick look smoking hot. And by the way, get a load of the model for the Ninja costume, the offensively blonde model, who's sizzlin' like a Benihana's grill... ma' donna!
Is the ideological war that is being waged one that is fought for the cause of social justice or is it an assault on adolescents' and young adult males' right to be allowed to view a little T and A (like Madame Butterfly over here ↖) on a holiday?
Goddamn, you ever seen a Ninja with tits like that? Oo-fah!
The wiki page on "cultural appropriation" lists a butt-load of examples of this senseless, horrible,vicious, insensitive act of political incorrectness by celebrities; most of said transgressions so ridiculously innocent that it baffles the mind that they sparked an outrage. I mean really?! Don't hot chicks get a pass?! When a hot chick goes out on Halloween dressed up as a horny Apache it is by no means meant as a social statement, believe me! She just wants to look hot! That's it! It isn't an assault on the native Americans...
But if we're really going to go all-in on this cultural appropriation racket, then let me be a voice to express outrage at the appropriation of MY culture... the underground, the counterculture. Think of how many elements of the counterculture, be they elements of the Metal, Punk or Hardcore scene have been cherry picked by the mainstream and adapted as part of the fashion of the day.The mohawk was adapted and modified into the "faux-hawk" by Jersey-shore types and similar douche-bags. Doc Martens went long before that, having become "cute little boots" for mall chicks a long time ago, whom also appropriated Manic Panic hair coloring (back in the Nirvana/Pearl Jam explosion of the early '90s.) Vintage, or distressed looking band t-shirts (be they of Hard Rock, Metal or Punk bands) have also been usurped; more often than not worn by Joe Schmoe civilians who have never heard a singular note played by the band they carry on their torso. "Huh? No I never really heard them, I just like the shirt cause of the skull" is the answer typically given by one of these ass-warts. Does anybody remember when Lady CaCa wore a leather jacket with Crust Punk patches on it? Every little teeny-bopper preppy chick from the private school down the street from my pad wears old-school Vans, while every third of those little broads owns a Thrasher magazine hooded sweatshirt. I could go on and on. It's been a rape of my people... the horror... the horror!
The main appropriation that really irritates me to the point that it makes my prostate swell up like a doughnut around my urethra is when I see full-blown civilians, everyday ham-and-eggers, brandishing tattoos. It's fucking sickening! You know, there used to be a time when a tattoo was a way taboo thing because having one was usually a sure bet that the wearer was either a criminal, an anti-social, a sideshow freak, some type of a bohemian or at best, military personnel. I think the earliest known use of them was by the Chinese and the Japanese for penal purposes to mark their criminals on the face and arms. In today's world, being tatted means that we are being insensitive to felons and are appropriating prison culture. So catch the next flight to El Salvador and take a burro-ride to the nearest luxury prison so that you can tell that entire cell-block that has MS13 inked on their faces that you are sorry that you have been stealing from them.
Tattoos sort of maintained a close association to its early form as it remained a sort of beauty mark for rebels and antisocial ty for centuries. Wearing a tattoo was a clear indication that you were a denizen of the underworld, a person making a (reckless) long-lasting statement of separation from the mainstream. In short, getting tattooed was to voluntarily brand yourself as a misfit or outcast.
My, oh my how things have changed! People nowadays get tattoos so often and so indiscriminately that it's not rare to see some 18 year old mojon go in for his first tattoo and walk out with a full fucking sleeve! It used to send parents into a tailspin if their kid got tatted up... now mother and daughter go in on daughter's 18th birthday for matching tramp-stamps! It's easier and more convenient than ever to get tats now also, since there is a tattoo parlor in every fucking strip mall in town. It's a fucking joke!
Tattoos sort of maintained a close association to its early form as it remained a sort of beauty mark for rebels and antisocial ty for centuries. Wearing a tattoo was a clear indication that you were a denizen of the underworld, a person making a (reckless) long-lasting statement of separation from the mainstream. In short, getting tattooed was to voluntarily brand yourself as a misfit or outcast.
My, oh my how things have changed! People nowadays get tattoos so often and so indiscriminately that it's not rare to see some 18 year old mojon go in for his first tattoo and walk out with a full fucking sleeve! It used to send parents into a tailspin if their kid got tatted up... now mother and daughter go in on daughter's 18th birthday for matching tramp-stamps! It's easier and more convenient than ever to get tats now also, since there is a tattoo parlor in every fucking strip mall in town. It's a fucking joke!
When I first started going to shows, it wasn't the mosh pit that intimidated me- the fists and feet whizzing past my face as bodies dove off of the stage and over head of me. It was the tattoos everywhere that really made me feel like I made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. I mean, I was like this 17 year old fat kid who had never even licked a pussy yet, and here were all these dudes in tank-tops with major tattoos all over them. I remember this one big galoot, Rich Thurston, looked like the fucking illustrated man by the time he was like 19 years old or something. That big lummox looked like he was on the farm team for the Hells Angels or some shit. Sure, later I'd come to find out that he was just a well-to-do fat dork who could afford a lot of ink. Nevertheless, at the time this was still unheard of, and so I would look at this big oaf and those tats would signal scene-cred to me. Today? The average garden variety tattoo enthusiast has never had ringing ears and black-and-blues from last night's gig. I never even used to see tattoos between Monday and Friday from 9 to 5! It was only at shows that I would see tats. Now, I wish a day went by that I didn't see a single fucking tattoo! Tattooing has exploded in such a way that it blows my mind how common and inconsequential they are. What once was a lightning rod for nasty looks is now a unisex cosmetic accessory! What once meant you were a subversive or an agitator of sorts now just means that you're probably the assistant manager at Chipotle. They used to be a way of marking criminals, now fucking bitch-ass cops get spider webs tattooed around their elbow. Nothing means anything anymore...
The other thing is that while tattooing has gotten so widespread the diversity of tattoo subjects is not very broad at all. Generally, you see the same handful of designs on the same types of people. Here in Miami, probably the most common tattoo you'll see on a meat head is this fucking eyesore or a variation thereof:
Ah, yes, there is nothing like thorns to protect the fruit...
Or, on broads, you'll see a lot of the 'rosary wrapped around the ankle', that's a popular one around these parts. The reason broads in Miami get the rosary around their ankle is because like good catholic girls they don't want to be sacrilegious and usually the ankle is the only part of their anatomy that doesn't end up part of a sex act. It almost seems as if all of the douche bags in town look at the next douche's tat and say to themselves "That's it, that's the one I want!" In a way, they're doing exactly that, probably by just picking whatever designs off of the flash on the walls instead of seeking some kind of originality or personal relevance. It's a free-for-all; and I know it's not just here in the Magic City, but Miami sure is ground zero for the boom. Wanna know why?
It all started when dickhead Ami James (Miami Ink) with his Ed Hardy shirts and that other moron Kat Von Douche were each given their own mindfuck reality shows. Tattooing was brought to every home in America, and normalized. The new widespread media coverage came with a winning emotional formula concocted by the writers and/or producers that resulted in a homerun for the networks ( and the tattoo industry.)
(Funny, isn't it? "Reality" shows actually have writers!)
The marketing angle they discovered is that if you lure in the saps by attaching some sentimentality to every goddamn tattoo they ink onto a motherfucker you then humanize tattooing. So that's why every single dildo that plops down on the tattoo artist's chair on these shows has a sob story behind their fucking tat. From what I've gathered by sampling any random stupid tattoo reality show of your liking, only Cancer patients, Rape victims and 9/11 survivors seem to get tattooed.
Often times on these brain-drain TV shows, the graphic image used to represent tragedies or major events are hardly even associated to what they symbolize:
"I have Rectal Cancer, Hank! The Doctors give me 3 months! Let me get a fuckin' Chinese dragon!"
It's like, just get your fucking tattoo because you want one and don't give it some big meaning! Not everything has to be so goddamn dramatic!
The cat is out of the bag now, and there won't be any reeling it back in! Any random douchebag, whether hipster or "Bro" that has zero to do with the scene is fully tatted in shop-wall flash with a bone through their septum and wine corks through their earlobes. It doesn't mean that you're an antisocial, or a crusty "future-primitive" type, it just means you're a trendy fuckface idiot. Nothing is sacred!
The other thing is that while tattooing has gotten so widespread the diversity of tattoo subjects is not very broad at all. Generally, you see the same handful of designs on the same types of people. Here in Miami, probably the most common tattoo you'll see on a meat head is this fucking eyesore or a variation thereof:
Ah, yes, there is nothing like thorns to protect the fruit...
Or, on broads, you'll see a lot of the 'rosary wrapped around the ankle', that's a popular one around these parts. The reason broads in Miami get the rosary around their ankle is because like good catholic girls they don't want to be sacrilegious and usually the ankle is the only part of their anatomy that doesn't end up part of a sex act. It almost seems as if all of the douche bags in town look at the next douche's tat and say to themselves "That's it, that's the one I want!" In a way, they're doing exactly that, probably by just picking whatever designs off of the flash on the walls instead of seeking some kind of originality or personal relevance. It's a free-for-all; and I know it's not just here in the Magic City, but Miami sure is ground zero for the boom. Wanna know why?
It all started when dickhead Ami James (Miami Ink) with his Ed Hardy shirts and that other moron Kat Von Douche were each given their own mindfuck reality shows. Tattooing was brought to every home in America, and normalized. The new widespread media coverage came with a winning emotional formula concocted by the writers and/or producers that resulted in a homerun for the networks ( and the tattoo industry.)
(Funny, isn't it? "Reality" shows actually have writers!)
The marketing angle they discovered is that if you lure in the saps by attaching some sentimentality to every goddamn tattoo they ink onto a motherfucker you then humanize tattooing. So that's why every single dildo that plops down on the tattoo artist's chair on these shows has a sob story behind their fucking tat. From what I've gathered by sampling any random stupid tattoo reality show of your liking, only Cancer patients, Rape victims and 9/11 survivors seem to get tattooed.
Often times on these brain-drain TV shows, the graphic image used to represent tragedies or major events are hardly even associated to what they symbolize:
It's like, just get your fucking tattoo because you want one and don't give it some big meaning! Not everything has to be so goddamn dramatic!
The cat is out of the bag now, and there won't be any reeling it back in! Any random douchebag, whether hipster or "Bro" that has zero to do with the scene is fully tatted in shop-wall flash with a bone through their septum and wine corks through their earlobes. It doesn't mean that you're an antisocial, or a crusty "future-primitive" type, it just means you're a trendy fuckface idiot. Nothing is sacred!
So, to all old fogies like myself that may be reading this, or to budding young antisocial neophytes and misanthropists, consider your culture appropriated by the outside world! The new act of rebellion if you still need to make a statement in 2019AD will be to walk down the street naked with clean, unmarked skin, fully shaven, eyebrows and all, spray-painted silver from head to toe. It could be that or for the piercing crowd it will be getting your head shrunken or plates in the lips. How about amputation? Here, how much to have my cock removed? (Some good it does me having one!...)
So now I ask you, where are the social justice warriors protesting the rape of the culture of the disenfranchised? Where is our parade where we can unite as one, a chorus of dissent against the appropriation of scumbag culture? Oh it's on February the 30th, thanks, I'll mark my calendar! I know I just ranted and raved about elements of counterculture sucked up by the civilians, but to much of my chagrin I'm almost certain that any anthropologist or sociologist will probably agree that appropriation, whether it is the Dominant culture appropriating from a minority or vice versa is probably a natural process of civilization. So alright, the SJWs have a cause to rally around and ultimately do nothing about, and I found a topic to write about for a few shits and giggles; but the truth is that anything and everything is fodder for appropriation. It's just the result of cross-contamination from one group of human scum to another group of human scum, it's only natural... It's sociology at work... It is what it is...
So for now we can just agree that ink fucking stinks! But I'll tell you one kind of ink that doesn't stink, and that is the Effigies' 1986 LP Ink. Originally, these Chicago toughs played lean and mean American Punk and can be credited as one of the first handful of American "Skinhead" bands, but later on their sound progressed into what you here on this LP and if you peep it you'll see they lost nothimg in their transition. This was there "major" label release on the classic Enigma imprint (hit the link for more info on the label. It was dope.) So here, brighten your day with this post-Punk gem from my latest musical obsession and leave the tattoos to NYC firefighters who are victims of prison sexual assault and are on dialysis...
So now I ask you, where are the social justice warriors protesting the rape of the culture of the disenfranchised? Where is our parade where we can unite as one, a chorus of dissent against the appropriation of scumbag culture? Oh it's on February the 30th, thanks, I'll mark my calendar! I know I just ranted and raved about elements of counterculture sucked up by the civilians, but to much of my chagrin I'm almost certain that any anthropologist or sociologist will probably agree that appropriation, whether it is the Dominant culture appropriating from a minority or vice versa is probably a natural process of civilization. So alright, the SJWs have a cause to rally around and ultimately do nothing about, and I found a topic to write about for a few shits and giggles; but the truth is that anything and everything is fodder for appropriation. It's just the result of cross-contamination from one group of human scum to another group of human scum, it's only natural... It's sociology at work... It is what it is...
So for now we can just agree that ink fucking stinks! But I'll tell you one kind of ink that doesn't stink, and that is the Effigies' 1986 LP Ink. Originally, these Chicago toughs played lean and mean American Punk and can be credited as one of the first handful of American "Skinhead" bands, but later on their sound progressed into what you here on this LP and if you peep it you'll see they lost nothimg in their transition. This was there "major" label release on the classic Enigma imprint (hit the link for more info on the label. It was dope.) So here, brighten your day with this post-Punk gem from my latest musical obsession and leave the tattoos to NYC firefighters who are victims of prison sexual assault and are on dialysis...
