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

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I have been using the word 'naff' a lot recently, I observed to Adrian at lunch yesterday. For example I have described cow parade as 'naff': in fact I mostly use it to describe feigned artistic sophistication (often populist in intent) which fails on aesthetic grounds. Describing something as naff establishes a distance and a hierarchy between my taste and other people's taste, and instances my critical judgement.

AND ANYWAY 'naff' might not be the opposite of 'cool', or the relationship between the two might not be symmetrical.

[plumsbitch.livejournal.com]

yup. The whole easy listening revival thing in the 90s takes naff and makes it cool. Or maybe takes cool and makes it naff?

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

both - first the naff becomes cool, and then once too many people think it's cool (naff people latch on to the cool thing), it becomes naff again.

although a different kind of naff than it was orig.