Record (or get someone to record) a small musical album. Make the music intentionally obscure and weird. Walk around on a campus asking people if they'd like to hear/comment on the new album that is being hailed as "genius" by nearly every critic across the board. We would make it clear that we are trying to understand "why" it is brilliant. My hypothesis is that 90% of the students would agree with its brilliance, and then continue on to make up some blathering nonsense about why it's so good.
Why do you think that?
Guppy wrote:
Why do you think that?
Because I'm pretty familiar with these types (family), and they tend to rely on sodomite-media sites like pitchforkmedia.com for all of their opinions. They are like lemmings.
If you've never heard of the infamous "Sokal Affair" check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
.
Similar idea to yours, only a guy wrote a fake article and sent it to a prestigious humanities journal, which published it.
Chairman Wow wrote:
If you've never heard of the infamous "Sokal Affair" check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair.
Similar idea to yours, only a guy wrote a fake article and sent it to a prestigious humanities journal, which published it.
That is fascinating!! Thank you
I agree with your premise, but not the way you'd promote the album. Walking around an iPod or handing out free CDs or whatever would seem too commercial - like you were trying to push the product. Nothing offends hipster types more than the idea that people need to make money. The best strategy would be to post a bunch of fliers around the food coop/ graphic design/ sociology buildings with BS critical acclaim that offered a free download in exchange for a voluntary donation to darfur or whatever. Nobody would give any money, but some people might download it. Then arrange for one of the campus paper lackeys to write a favorable review - bonus points if its one of the alternative campus weeklies.
Why the hate against students? Did you flunk out or were you not accepted. Jealous? Couldn't afford school?
Seems an odd comment to make. I believe most would give you a superficial answer just to satisfy you and send you on your way. Maybe not, I don't know. I know they would not take it as seriously as apparently you do.
Have fun with it if you want to.
One of my friends and I did this in college to a guy we knew ... let's call him "Kris".
Kris was a giant hipster/poser who could never cop to not being up on the next big thing. We made up an album just to see if he'd admit to not knowing about this "band"
The two of us recorded an album in my friend's dorm room using an acoustic guitar, an overturned trash can/laundry bin (the drums!) and a toy keyboard from the dollar store. We recorded it on some computer program my friend had, then made sound files that we showed to Kris. We even named the band: "Ned Kelly Rides Again!"
"Hey Kris, you heard this new band ... they kick ass!!!"
The thing is, he talked this band up to people for a full year - actually did a hell of a lot to build them a big cult following on our campus. He only found out when my friend's asperger-y roommate overhead us talking about it and blew the lid off to Kris.
Tell "Kris" I love his NB 101's.
Why are you so worried about others? This worry indicates that you are not comfortable with yourself.
Just chill. Focus on what makes you happy and work towards it.
Live and let live. You will be happier that way.
phone-E wrote:
One of my friends and I did this in college to a guy we knew ... let's call him "Kris".
Kris was a giant hipster/poser who could never cop to not being up on the next big thing. We made up an album just to see if he'd admit to not knowing about this "band"
The two of us recorded an album in my friend's dorm room using an acoustic guitar, an overturned trash can/laundry bin (the drums!) and a toy keyboard from the dollar store. We recorded it on some computer program my friend had, then made sound files that we showed to Kris. We even named the band: "Ned Kelly Rides Again!"
"Hey Kris, you heard this new band ... they kick ass!!!"
The thing is, he talked this band up to people for a full year - actually did a hell of a lot to build them a big cult following on our campus. He only found out when my friend's asperger-y roommate overhead us talking about it and blew the lid off to Kris.
There's no way this happened. Like Kris wouldn't have Googled your band or anything.
pitchfork is just a concentration of assholes.
the sokal affair is pretty interesting. and the ned kelley rides again is pretty funny ahaha
this should help you. i think the hipster phase is at its very peak and should be declining (along with obama's approval rankings soon) very soon.
I agree with you. The more "unique" and "individual" they try to be, the more they become like all of their loser lemming-like friends. Kind of like the emos, in a way.
9asdf wrote:
I agree with you. The more "unique" and "individual" they try to be, the more they become like all of their loser lemming-like friends. Kind of like the emos, in a way.
Yes, definitely better to not be "unique" or "individual" at all.
haha yes. What if they actually enjoy it? What if the incentive you gave them to like it makes it feel good to them?
No, they should stick to Top 40 bands and only recommend things they're sure everyone will like. should like
What you described isn't really an experiment. Get a control group sucker.
Not a particularly prestigious journal. I edited a 'prestigious' philosophy journal for many years (by just about anybody's measure top 5), and Social Text isn't one of them. Not even close. (It is barely a blip on the radar of any serious attempt to rate the significance of philosophy journals.)
Yes, many students would fall victim to this prank. But I'd predict that a perhaps surprising number of them would not. They're stupid and naive about a lot of things, but pop music isn't one of them.
Take anyone's judgment of what constitutes a top five philosophy journal with a grain of salt, because the judgments depend entirely on circular arguments. But with regard to Social Text, I have never used it in my work and so I am not qualified to judge its merits or lack thereof. However, I am familiar with the Sokal affair and briefly, we should think about what it does and does not show. First, it might be that in repeating what he takes to be fashionable deconstructionist language, with a quasi physics spin on it, he expressed a position that might, for some, be justifiable. Many have in fact interpreted 20th c. physics in terms of some form of relativism. Second, if his article is utter junk, and it was accepted anyway, it might just indicate that the editor was asleep at the wheel, made a big mistake, or that the journal was junk. It should not be taken to indict an entire type of philosophy. I could certainly write an article in analytic language, expressing views commonly held among analytic philosophers, and I could get it published, without believing in those views at all (in fact, withholding my strong criticisms of them), particularly if I described myself in the article as a physicist and used some physics terminology. Analytic philosophers, like continental philosophers or comparative linguists in the Social Text situation, are very ready to accept work dressed up in the language of science. Maybe that's how Sean Kelly, a continental philosopher, trained at analytic schools, but with the key qualification of some scientific training, was able to get hired at Princeton and become philosophy chair at Harvard, despite not knowing squat about Nietzsche (to judge by his article in the NYT's Philosopher's Stone this week).
Do you like fat, pale chicks?
When most of the population was a meal or two away from starvation and working outside, fat pale women used to be considered the most attractive. Now that most of the population works inside and is overweight if not obese, thin tanned women are considered attractive.
There is no biological reason for this change. It is just that society tells us what is cool/good/attractive and, for the most part, we follow sheepishly.
The artsy-fartsy students are just sheepishly following a different subgroup of society than you are...