> what's the name of the very intentional and studied "I don't care about looks" aesthetic I've noticed this approach and attitude in various arts, but it's ha

> what's the name of the very intentional and studied "I don't care about looks" aesthetic I've noticed this approach and attitude in various arts, but it's hard to put a single word to it. As another commenter mentioned, I think wabi-sabi is related, and punk too. > The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art. For example in ceramics, they value the crooked, asymmetrical, coarse, and cracked. In calligraphy, it's the splash and drip, the way the brush runs out of ink and how the line fades out near the tail end. In singing, it's the smokey aged voice that breaks perfectly when pushed by emotion. Or other musical instruments, when the sound gets dirty because of the physical material being pushed to its limits, like an over-driven guitar amp, or a violin bowing a string too hard but actually perfectly hitting that point intentionally, to get that stank, that nasty, it makes you grimace with pleasure. In theatre they say, "You need to throw it away." Apparently, acting can get stiff and unnatural when you try too hard, so you need to let go a bit, as if you don't care, to give it room to breathe. I suppose it can be seen in literture too, like "stream of consciousness" style, or certain narrative voice that tastefully breaks the rules of grammar. > where you "don't care" in a very precise and fashionable way That's the trick it seems, that this "don't care" attitude is actually very polished, studied, carefully done, paying attention down to the details, and then letting it go. It's an artful use of "mistakes" and imperfections. Jazz is like that, they value the richness of "off" harmonies, dissonance, polyrhythms which can sound "wrong" to the unfamiliar but which is exactly what the connoiseurs appreciate and enjoy.