apropo shunning
Scuttling, always scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In many ways, one misses the old days when Long Island City was a deserted wasteland on the weekends. There’s so many people here now, and so damn many of these folks are “consumers.” I’ve always broken the human herd into two groups – producers and consumers. It’s not capitalism that these terms emanate from, as my definitions have little to do with economics. Instead, what I mean is that there are two distinct kinds of people in society – those who take what they’re offered and those who offer. Consumers readily form audiences and crowds eager to be entertained or fed. Producers entertain and feed. I’ve always fancied myself a member of the latter grouping, most artist and musician types are. It’s not a judgement, or statement of one grouping’s superiority over the other, rather it’s one of those “ground rules” observations which I tend to abide by. You can’t have one without the other.
Last weekend in LIC, while getting some exercise and waving the camera about, vast flocks of consumers were wandering about seeking diversion and entertainment, or just trying to find a meal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One actually finds it a bit difficult these days to find a spot, in what used to be referred to as “Lonely Island City,” to commune with the concrete devastations and meditate on his inadequacies and failings. I really used to enjoy working myself over psychologically while navigating the broken pavement and endless avenues, ruminating on “why did I say that” or wondering if some untoward act or casually cruel comment from my High School years might be retroactively considered a hate crime. I’d warn the “youngins” who so laboriously chronicle their lives on social media that, just in my half century walking the planet, the script of acceptable speech and behavior has flipped about quite a few times.
Consumer or producer, be wary of changing mores and remember that there’s a generation coming just after yours that will be absolutely disgusted by the behavior of your own. As a “Generation X” member, my distaste for the selfish baby boomer generation is at an absolute apex right now. The boomers will talk about their Civil Rights era efforts and an all encompassing liberalization of American culture during their watch, but they’re ultimately the ones who put Trump and his Legion of Doom cabinet into office.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The kids who are not kids anymore that follow my generational cohort are just as screwed as my peers were and are because of this generation of Baby Boomers. I made the case to one of these youngins the other day that we have to legalize weed in New York State just to pay for the heroic level end of life medical care that this generation of characters are going to demand. They will consume, and we will produce. Luckily, after they all die off, it’s going to be like the years after the Black Plague in Europe and vast sums of money are going to escape the lock boxes of IRA’s and retirement pension accounts.
That’s unless the Baby Boomers can figure out a way to take it with them, which I wouldn’t put past the most self centered generation in American History to do. Somebody else is always handed that generation’s bill.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Instead of consumers, here’s a new one: NPC (Non-Playable Character)
In gaming, this term refers to a computer controlled character in a game programmed with only a limited ability to act and respond just like the consumerist hipsters. All NPCs are copies of each other and give identical responses to a given situation.
When NPC term is used, the consumerist hipster recipient is thoroughly triggered, unable to compute it and responds with epic AI butthurt.
Great for master Shitlords and general purpose Trolling.
Try it, it’s fun.
Donald Cavaioli
Cav
October 17, 2018 at 4:06 pm
And while yer at it, get off my goddamn lawn!
fabianphoto
October 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm
Cool!
See, it worked just as predicted!
IF {OFFENDED=TRUE}
RunProgram {IndividualResponse.Outrage}
A hipNPC, probably an out of towner/fake New Yorker model responded.
Look at how triggered the NPC was. It scanned my comment, spazzed, crashed and re-booted causing it to post its only programmed non sequitur response TWICE!
Let’s see what else the little hipster bot can say so we can milk this NPC lolcow some more.
This is fun!
Donald Cavaioli
Cav
October 18, 2018 at 12:12 pm
And while you’re at it, get off my goddamn lawn!
>
fabianphoto
October 17, 2018 at 6:19 pm
Ah, we’re all mooks and shmucks of varying ranks and degrees. Some of us happily operate within our designated parameters so as not to the attract the attention of high-muckety-mucks and leave ’em non-da-wiza.
Tommy Efreeti
October 23, 2018 at 6:19 pm