Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Hipster Must Die

Verrry worth a read:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

"Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over."

"[...] The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures. I take a look at one of the girls wearing a bright pink keffiyah and carrying a Polaroid camera and think, “If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.” But instead we ignore the weapons that lie at our feet – oblivious to our own impending demise.

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new."

(Source: Adbusters #79, Hipster: The Dead End of Civilization, Douglas Haddow)

Being an involuntary member of that generation I wholeheartedly agree. I'm glad someone came up with that article at last.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Istanbul Day#9

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First Bridge



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Not much graffiti around here



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The Church of San Antonio di Padua



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Not Orhan Pamuk's but Orhan Veli's stuff



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Freelance Çöpçü


Monday, November 10, 2008

Istanbul Day#4

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We didnt quite catch on what's happened and why and how.. the guy was bleeding from his head, the bus' front door was crushed, and the bat (corpus delicti carried by the cop in the picture above) must have been involved somehow... well the funny thing about the whole story is that the busdriver tore a nearby parking policecar's door away when he tried to move the bus, right after I've taken these pictures. Yeah. It really snapped over from back to front, and the bus gained some brandnew hole and scratches on its rear right side. Just dont ask. Almost as funny as the busdriver 20min earlier, who hit and destroyed two car's rear-view mirrors in a row, and in a radius of about 100m (... guess he shouldnt have taken that narrower shortcut road, ugh). Being unattentive here means ending up as roadkill soon I suppose.



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The Driver



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On the ferry



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Karaköy Iskelesi



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A guy selling ugly and broken little oil lamp kind of stuff.. of course we bought one.



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Around Tünel



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Walking down the Istiklal Caddesi



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Mercimek soup.. mmh



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Continuing our conversation about the Bermuda Triangle, the universe and the nature of things, which we had to suspend 15 years ago..



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Proschd!



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Somewhere in Beyoğlu