what happens when i have free time...
cross posted to
wickedfaire,
steamy_stitches,
steamfashion,
steam_armory,
midlantic_steam,
soundsinsepia,
mdrf,
cirque_enciel and
anachrotech
I'm often asked by my friends and acquaintances why i'm suddenly into one obscure subculture or another. It's true that I frequently find myself absolutely enthralled with some musical or artistic culture whose existence I had blankly acknowledges just a few weeks previously.
I find myself immersing in these things with a suddenness and completeness that even surprises myself . I relish these experiences, for each year brings new and amazing delights into my life. At the same time, at times I have so much input coming in from so many diverse sources that I can feel a bit overwhelmed.
Over the last year or so i've found myself enthralled and enraptured with circuses, the new cabaret (dark and punk), sideshows, carnivale culture, renaissance faires, oddities and Steampunk.
Fortunately, most of the people I know are at least pop-culturally saavy enough that I don't have to explain any of these things to them. On the occasions that explanations are required, I usually find it sufficient to say things like “a hearkening back to old-time vaudeville,” or “like Barnum and Bailey except more french and no elephants,” or “an attempt to recapture the spirit of a future that never was of a past half-made-up.”
more often than what, the question is why: why suddenly obsess over top hats and whiteface or juggling and airships? The answer is usually a shrug and the response, “i just like it - it resonates with me at this point in my life.”
but why does it resonate so?
All of the above subcultures and art forms I mentioned above seem to be experiencing remarkable renaissances in america right now. Scroll the internet enough and you'll find references to something I talked about. But is this prevalence truly a cultural-wide phenomenon, or am I just in so deep right now that it feels that way? And if these things have become as culturally visible and ubiquitous as it seems, how did such a thing come about? With all of our advances in meme theory, it is still difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that a concept goes viral. How do these things seed themselves? Is it all just an unusual fad? Good marketing? Or something deeper?
When I talk to people about the current prevalence of Steampunk, I often find myself making comparisons to the explosion of the Goth subculture in the mid to late 1990s. “Remember,” I ask, “when everyone was wearing black lace and ankhs and quoting Byron and pretending to be immortal? Well, it's like that, except now it's top hats, goggles, pulp adventure and good manners.”
where did the Goths come from? I think the assumption is that often fads rise in backlash to whatever culture is overwhelmingly dominant, and in that case it makes sense for children, just growing out of the 80s - an age of neon, hyperactive decadence and sitcom fabrication masquerading as life - would seek a darker, quieter place to contemplate a world which seemed much different when the sugar rush wore off. America was at its pinnacle then - in the very peak and prime of power, prosperity and peace. People had the opportunity to look into the shadows for inspiration and solace.
That time is gone now, washed away in a flood of fire, falling debris and fear. We are living in what feels like end times, with trials numerous, horrific and seemingly insurmountable. Suddenly, at this point when the majority of people seem to paralyzed with fear and ignorance, the new fad of Steampunk has leapt forward in all its tarnished glory - a subculture / philosophy / aesthetic that values innovation, inspiration and a derring-do DIY sensibility tempered with charm and grace. At a point where our media is saturated with pablum designed to reduce the world to a lowest common denominator, bards and minstrels and troupes of artists are wrangling entertainment back down to the more human and humane levels of the intimate live stage. At a point when we are more divided than ever and when crushing bergeronian mediocrity is the touchstone of modern culture, there are suddenly those who exalt and celebrate the wonders of human capabilities and who remind us that we all laugh and cry and gasp in the same way.
Perhaps I am reading too much into all of this - after all, fashions come and go and fads can change quicker than the weather. Perhaps I only see certain solutions because they are the solutions I wish to see. I can't help thinking, though, that perhaps a fad isn't always a backlash at all. Perhaps sometimes it can be an evolution, the personification of humanity's need rising like a sunbird from the ashes of its own past to illuminate the pathway to the future and to salvation.
Perhaps redemption is a lot to ask from clowns, freaks, minstrels and pirates. Then again, perhaps those are exactly the people who will remind the rest of us that redemption is not so much to ask from humanity.
- by the banks of the river.