Funny? Not funny?
I don't know what else to write. Is this some kind of post-irony that I'm not hip to? Is it OK to get your party on and joke about mass-murder? Is it OK to joke about American mass murder if you are an American? If you lost someone on 9/11, how does this make you feel? Would it help you come to terms with that loss by dressing up like the Twin Towers? What about dressing like a hurricane and chasing white dudes in black face: is that cool? What does Randy Paragary have to say?
I'm definitely a bit shocked and pissed that this happened here in Sac. I really don't think it's funny—though for many it's probably easy/cathartic to laugh. But I'm not laughing. Fuck this.
Here are some of the comments off of HRO:
"this looks like the most depressing party ever."
"listen i think 9/11 is as hilarious as the next person, but i don't recognize any of these people, so this obviously can't be NYC, which means they are not allowed to joke this hard about 9/11. are these L.A. kids? FUCK THEM.
ONLY NYC KIDZ CAN MAKE FUN OF 9/11"
"i am actually almost offended"
"I find it ironic, how alts are making fun of terrorism, when terrorists are the paragons of counter culture.
Counter-culture used to be about fucking shit up, appropriating metaphors, and shifting paradigms. However, now, counter-culture, and by extension, youth culture seems to want the panoptic gaze on them--Instead of gouging its fucking eyes out. wtf.
Although I don't agree with the terrorists' tactics, you have to admit they are the only group fucking shit up @ the moment. Those motherfuckers are instantiating worlds as you're strapping fucking colored cardboard to your chest, and do the hockey pockey.
Think about this as you sip on your Cambodian goat milk-latte- frappa-frappachino. beootches"
Counter-culture used to be about fucking shit up, appropriating metaphors, and shifting paradigms. However, now, counter-culture, and by extension, youth culture seems to want the panoptic gaze on them--Instead of gouging its fucking eyes out. wtf.
Although I don't agree with the terrorists' tactics, you have to admit they are the only group fucking shit up @ the moment. Those motherfuckers are instantiating worlds as you're strapping fucking colored cardboard to your chest, and do the hockey pockey.
Think about this as you sip on your Cambodian goat milk-latte- frappa-frappachino. beootches"
"At least they'll always "rember" the events."
"twin towers costume = fuckin tennenbaums mainstream
united 93 costume = alt. those bros stuck together and fought back like things were getting too rough at a crystalcastles show.
let's roll, yall"
"oh how i love me some nick avey"
"My friends and I had a 9/11 party. But really, it was just an excuse to drink excessively on a Thursday. We didn't play Jenga or anything."
"Had people dressed up as a hurricane and fucked-over African-Americans would you have been more/less or same offended? Remember that to some of us (especially us 'alts' in California) 9/11 is not only tragic in its death toll but also in its representation as the jumping-off point for the worst 7 years of foreign policy in American history and more senseless tragedy. If these kids really wanted to be funny maybe they should have an Abu Girab party.
Oh yeah, and from the website, it's pretty obvious this is in Sacramento, CA. I'm sure they're thrilled you mistook them for LA, though - baby's growin up!"
"fuck you, McAvey!
Love,
yr friend,
CarlB
This car came up to me and said "dude, i just got hit by a McAvey, and i feel like shit!" i was like, "Dag, yo!""
Love,
yr friend,
CarlB
This car came up to me and said "dude, i just got hit by a McAvey, and i feel like shit!" i was like, "Dag, yo!""
20 comments:
that's kinda crazy. a dude at my work showed up on halloween dressed like hitler and i sent him a complaining email and he took it off. i felt ass-y, but i was also shocked he thought that would be funny in a work context. that's different than a party. same thing for being in public at a bar.
All these kids, promoters, and shit DJ's need to just MOVE TO LA ALREADY.
no, they do not belong in los angeles.
most los angelinos would not have tolerated world trade center costumes for one second. we may have douchebags here but IDIOTS are hardly tolerated.
Why can't you people just leave those kids alone! I personally have all the respect in the world for what happened on 9/11, and what they did that night I’m sure was just a way to remember it and have fun like kids do. Maybe they took it too far for some people but thanks to all you a-holes they can feel like shit cause someone as usual had to take things to seriously. Now they will always remember and not the way you tried to force down their throats.
hey anonymous: sorry for taking mass murder seriously. i'm not forcing anything down anyone's throats. i'm just saying it's a pretty idiotic thing to do, you know, show up at a bar and re-enact 9/11 on its anniversary—regardless of whether or not they perceived it as having "fun like kids do." it's pretty indefensible.
it'd be something else if, say, they were protesting the investigation into 9/11, or Bush's policy of pre-emptive warfare, but that's obviously wasn't the case.
yeah, that's our country's problem, taking things way too seriously. we are all so serious and intellectual here in the u.s.-we really need to lighten up and watch some t.v.
omg, i just notice that the sign said "rember" that settles it they are retards.
Sorry fft, I’m sorry that those “kids” were not at the steps of the whitehouse in their cardboard cut-outs trying to make a change for the better of our country. The fact that your complaining on a blog really shows that you get out much and fight for those issues you like to talk about. I’m not saying what they did was the smartest thing AT ALL I was just trying to say they didn’t need to be attacked for a mistake which I’m sure they are aware of by now, it already happened, it’s over now. Everyone needs to just get over something they can’t change.
who's attacking?
a lot of people contacted me saying they think this costume party is funny/acceptable. well, it's not. so that's something you can change: people's attitudes.
OK, back to getting out and fighting for those issues i like to talk and blog about ...
They are not kids. They were at a bar. 21+ and you don't get it?
Is it true that when you get your hipster club card you get an excuse pass til youre 30?
Sorry, anonymous who thinks we should leave the "kids" alone, but they're adults and they totally fucked up. If people calling them on it makes them "feel like shit," well, that's just the way it goes. They deserve to feel that way. I've fucked up & felt like shit because of it. It taught me things, just like how touching a hot stove & feeling pain teaches you something. They're not poor widdle kiddies who need their mommies to protect them from the big bad bullies who take 9/11 too seriously. (Maybe we should apply your advice to that, too - get over it because it's something we can't change?)
They're adults, they'll deal with it.
Although, between you & me, I do find dressing up as an aircraft carrier on December 7 to be really fun.
I just wanted to say that throughout my other comments I NEVER said what they did was ok, never. I was just trying to encourage people to drop the issue, that was the only reason I even made the initial comment. It’s really nobody’s place to be the wrist slapper and I am defiantly no one’s mother. And as for it being “something they can’t change” I was just referring to the fact that, it already happen. And as for your dress up idea ap, I would just suggest for your safety to stay away from harbors! You might get wet.
Are you all that effing stupid?
Maybe the hilarity of dressing up in the tower costumes is a juxtaposition to how rediculous the world has turned after the 11th. Why do we suppose these young adults are idiots? Maybe they were trying to make a serious point? They are (in my view) commenting on how desensitized the world has become to these events. Why is it okay for the official news organizations to show the actual video of the towers collapsing (in real time no less) but it's not okay for American citizens to dress up in costumes?
Have you talked to these kids? Do you know WHY they wore the costumes? If you have, and their answers were, "Oh we want to offend all America", then maybe you're right. If you haven't, STFU and save your fake disgustedness for real offenses.
hey anonymous:
1. talked to avey in person a couple times this week, in fact. and of course he and i share common attitudes/ideas about US govt and foreign policy. blah blah blah.
but wearing these costumes on 9/11 in a public place, like a bar, while getting hammered, eating cherries, dancing and taking pictures of yourself then blogging about it isn't "commenting" on anything or making any kind of statement, political or otherwise.
aesthete-martyrdom it's not. it's just idiocy.
2. if you're going to use a "big word" like juxtaposition, please try to use it correctly next time.
3. get a spine, don't post anonymously.
Poor taste? Yes. However, I think getting outraged about it is probably what they were going for. Too bad some people can't make the distinction between warranted controversy and laziness.
I think the one thing we can learn from Takeover Tokyo's photos is that had the Twin Towers been drunk enough they would have fallen down on their own. Again and again and again.
"I think getting outraged about it is probably what they were going for."
You'd think. But after talking with them I realized that was not the case. There literally was this distance, a gap, between the act and its implications—"What's the big?" Only now, after the fact, do they play the manifestation-art card.
So for me its a legitimate controversy, both in the microcosm of this blog, dissecting "alternative vs. mainstream," and also in the real world—real people who are really offended by really inappropriate behavior. So, yeah, I don't really see it as ambulance-chasing journalism or blogging, or lazy or whatever. It caught people's attention; just a look at carles' HRO comments validates its newsworthiness.
But is it outrage worthy? Yes, definitely. I know it's hard for some of us not to look at 9/11 through the lens of semiotics, especially some seven years removed. But when, like me, you have a close friend who was forever changed in an emotional, intimate, personal way by that day, it makes it a helluva lot easier, even now.
hey fft:
1. I didn't mean to suggest they were commenting on 9/11 consciously. I don't expect people to be THAT smart. I just meant that the very impetus to dress this way creates a "comment" on what 9/11 now means in our culture (mainstream or not).
2. juxtaposition was used correctly thank you very much. "to put side by side". the kids dressed up in silly twin tower costumes because that is what the twin towers seem to represent now. a "costume" of a real tragedy. (I'm not saying 9/11 wasn't terrible, I'm saying the tragedy has been brought to this level by the US Govt and society in general. See bumper stickers, t-shirts, folksy country songs.)
3. I don't have a blogger account or else I would not have commented anonymously. Don't assume I don't have a spine. Who is fft? i can't tell by your account. Anonymous is Jason Jimenez.
4. I'm not trying to agree with dressing up in costumes but I think that this is a phony outrage over a couple kids dressing up in costumes. Yes, 9/11 was terrible. Yes, it might have been poor taste. But the whole point is (for smarter people) that maybe this is where 9/11 has gone now. The 'tragedy' is now gone because of what that date has been made to represent to a majority of Americans. Your friend who has been altered by this event is unlucky that something so important to them has been brought to this level. But it's not the responsibility of 19-20-21-22 yr old bar-dwellers to keep the sacredness of the event. That is you and your friends' job. And if you want to keep it sacred, you might want to ask yourself if this is the type of battle you want to fight in order to defend it as sacred. Does it matter if society in general is always mournful of this event or does it matter way more that in a personal, intimate way it remains solemn to you. I remind you that you can't force people to feel the same as you.
jason jimenz
I'm not outraged, and I'm not fighting any battle. I thought it was annoying. The internet always amps things up to only black and white. It's gray area of freedom of expression, of course, but I still think what they did is annoying and dumb. Is that ok that I think that Jason Jimenez? Or Jimenz? You seem to have spelled your name wrong one of the times.
beckler- feel how you want to feel. -jimenez (the missing 'e' was a typo)
I will always rember this.
Post a Comment