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Yes, human “culture” and it’s “trends” are such a waste. Why can’t everybody just spend their entire lives staring at screens while dressed in tshirts, like us
by pembrook 6y ago
Yes, human “culture” and it’s “trends” are such a waste. Why can’t everybody just spend their entire lives staring at screens while dressed in tshirts, like us software engineers do?
Those thousands of years of human history spent on emotionally-driven aesthetic pursuits like art, fashion, music, culinary tradition and architecture...what a waste of time and resources. If only we could be more robot-like and efficiency optimizing! Good riddance indeed.
- OpossumMinister 6y agoAuthentic culture isn't created by a microscopically small group of rich people. If you think that criticising an exploitative industry is the the same as turning people into cultureless robots, then you're missing the entire point.
- Nasrudith 6y agoWhat exactly makes a culture "authenic"? The funny thing is historically I can think of plenty of counter examples. Chokers caught on because of a high status woman wanting to cover up a neck scar. For better or worse that fundamentally is part of culture. Criticizing cultural practices is as well of course.
- chosenbreed37 6y agoLol...this seems a bit tongue in cheek
- mthoms 6y agoBesides being a reductio ad absurdum[0] argument that ads nothing to the discussion, I'll address your comment. Music, Art, Food, Literature and Architecture generally don't go out of style every 6 months (although companies are trying harder and harder to make it so). Nor do they have the same toxic effect on the environment (possible exception: food?) and personal self esteem as high fashion. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nemothekid 6y agoYou are conflating high fashion and fast fashion. High fashion doesn't go out of style every 6 months. Louis Vuitton still sells the same Monogram purse that they did 10 years ago, likewise my aunt has several $1000+ handbags she has owned for 20+ years. Your comment about high fashion going out of style every 6 months is just untrue, and to the other posters point just highlights the myopic lens in which software engineers view fashion. Also, the NY article is not about fast fashion (Zara, H&M), it's about high fashion (Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, Alexander Wang).
- mthoms 6y agoHigh fashion sets the trends (and the 6 month cycle) that the fast fashion outlets follow. When talking about negative influence on society and the environment they're pretty inseparable. I agree I could have made the distinction between high and fast fashion clearer in my comment though. For the record, the handbag example is an extreme outlier and not at all illustrative of the how the industry actually functions (makes money).
- on_and_off 6y agomen fashion does not go out of style in 6 months (in 10 years, though, some trends do change). Also, Architecture, music and movies also have trends. Not a lot Brutalism projects are started today and westerns have been replaced by superhero movies. It does not make any of these projects pointless either.
- mthoms 6y agoThere are trends in every creative field imaginable, that wasn't the point. The trends in fashion move the quickest and are completely, absolutely arbitrary. Fashion also dictates that still-functional products get discarded on a whim, unlike say, architecture.
- smoe 6y agoYes, culture and trends are a waste, when they are primarily a marketing tool to make people consume your product. Look at history and you find plenty of examples how cultures and trends emerged and spread within parts of societies, then got dragged into the spotlight by people wanting to maximize profit of off it, selling soulless disposable shells of the originals.