The Naff

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What is the relationship between coolness and naffness in pop history.

A version of it wd describe pop history as essentially a story of a thread of coolness constantly besieged by naffness. This seems deeply unsatisfactory to me.

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oh pah i have IMPORTANT WRITING to finish this morning! instead i have already written and scrubbed three answers to this key question

the dynamic of "cool" seems to be "it's good until a critical mass of applause is reached, then it becomes bad" -- ie "cool" has the same apparent qualities as NEW and DIFFERENT but less absolute; so that a non-tiny group of people can imbibe over time before the goodness goes

so can a better map be drawn up by pushing the claim out to an extreme?: "a thread of DIFFERENCE constantly besieged by SAMENESS" (i don't mean this is correct -- it isn't -- i mean, what's obviously absurd about this statement is also absurd in the cool-naff version, even though it's a less strong claim

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

two different (apparently contradictory) types of cool: "being ahead of the curve" vs "being indifferent to the existence of the curve" -- except the latter of course becomes the former when others start to mimic it

i want to suggest other categories, though, and make it "non-binary" (sorry)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Cool = being played in "trendy" nightclubs??

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

cool will become an unholy mess if you try to analyse any meaning, surely

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

ie nightclubs where ppl go to be seen, not to listen to music

haha THAT REMINDS ME

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

in mare street yesterday, in the hot june midday sun, i saw the following:

a tidily dressed dressed gentleman, black, grey-bearded, in his mid-60s and quiet in demeanour, wearing a felt bobblehat with a brim that stated it was a maltesers product, and fashioned in the shape of a CHRISTMAS PUDDING!!

Re: haha THAT REMINDS ME

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the"bobble" = holly plus berries made of felt