Noor Gill and Amy Lee discussed normcore fashion in their May 22 A&E column, “Normcore trend embraces ironic take on fashion.” However, their article fails to comment upon the cultural insensitivity of the so-called “trend,” which is based on the popular belief that the most fashionable thing to be is “normal.” Normcore is a practical joke that isn’t funny.
Normcore is an elitist movement within the middle to upper class in which economically privileged individuals dress in class drag – the socioeconomic equivalent of blackface or yellowface. Followers of the movement treat the everyday clothes of the lower class as a costume, as if creating a caricature.
As the “trend” has grown into mainstream culture, it has highlighted the deep-set issues within the fashion industry. The industry has long capitalized upon the exploitation of racial minority culture, and now it has turned its focus to socioeconomic minorities.
The trend is “ironic” all right. Designer labels creating pieces inspired by individuals who can’t afford designer prices. The irony isn’t “funny” or “clever”; it’s insensitive, mocking the lifestyle of the lower class.
We’ve reached an age where class is an identifier as common as race. From normcore to the introduction of class-based affirmative action at universities, we are at the turning point for major social change. However, it is important to intellectually analyze this change in culture – is it for better or for worse?
With either the willfully blind approval or the willful ignorance of the judiciary the right has killed & stolen several of my pets and routinely shoots energy weaponry at me and my pets. Recent harm to animals include: two kittens from a pregnant stray i took in were killed a few months ago. The remaining two, just 9 weeks old, shake their head as government operatives shoot them with energy weaponry. They shot the eye out or removed the eye of a large really good natured stray at the port, hobbled another cat at the port, shooting it with energy weaponry, and routinely kill and leave dead animals in my path. A few years ago one of them threatened ‘we’ll just kill a cat every so often’, in so many words. This has continued despite my calls to the police, the FBI, Congress, and my petitions in court. In the usual case, it appears that the right goes to a judicial crony for a ruling permitting them to harm animals to retaliate against me for my free speech. There’s no serious argument but that they interfered with my personal life and economic options for 3 decades, so their solution to my noting it is to kill animals. Makes perfect sense right? It does if you’re a sociopathic criminal, criminally stupid, and hawkish. Invariably their lies are exposed and the wrongfulness of the harm is clear to everyone, though not until the animals have been maimed or killed. There is really only one solution, and that’s to disempower them politically.
Typically operating through puppets–including puppets in the judiciary–the right wing has for decades been committing crimes and trying to classify them to cover them up, a move explicitly forbidden by the Code of Federal Regulations. The right has accomplished its political objectives by presenting a fraction of the evidence to judicial officials who, having seen the pattern dozens of times before, could not help but realize that they were being presented with incomplete and inaccurate information.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, right? the Democrats’ great accomplishment is producing the political equivalent of a Rodney King video, clearly demonstrating the lies of the right, the right Hilary Clinton correctly identified as a vast conspiracy. Confirm by examining Central District of California Cases, 01-4340, 03-9097, 08-5515, 10-5193, US Tax Court 12000-07L –though I think you want to view my US Tax Court Appeal to the 9th Circuit for a good account of their day to day assaults, a few month time slice indicative of a decade of assault, and more 9th Circuit case 11-56043.
This is utter rot. Wearing a t-shirt and jeans is not meant to mock someone who cannot afford a tux. I have never heard a more absurd idea than someone being required to flaunt his wealth, so as not to upset the poor. Yes, being pretentious about supposedly being unpretentious is, well, pretentious. But it is no more pretentious than wearing gaudy clothes and designer handbags.
How dare you compare it to minstrel shows and yellowface. Do you actually know what minstrel shows were? That for 100 years the top entertainment in the US was inventing demeaning stereotypes of a persecuted race and acting them out? That everyday products would use these stereotypes in marketing. That Black people were forced to use the same stereotypes against themselves or they could find no work in the entertainment industry? Do you actually know the pain of Chinese actors who were unable to get parts playing Chinese people, because apparently a White guy with a terrible fake accent was more convincing? Watch some television from the 40-60s and quickly enlighten yourself on what actual discrimination and cultural appropriation is.
You say that this is exactly the same, appropriating and exploiting another culture. But there is no way cheap jeans compare to hatred and racism. Making it a requirement for rich people to dress a certain way is just absurd. Furthermore, when you get offended by nonsense, you allow people to blow off the real. You do a great disservice to both the minorities and to the poor people you claim to represent with such substance-less comparisons.
My first fashion post.
When you can wear anything you want, wear something comfortable 🙂
That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The mainstay of Normcore things like Patagonia, North Face, or even Nike are not cheap, and not the uniform of the poor people, who are far too diverse to even have one. IT IS BASED ON THE TASTE OF PEOPLE LIKE STEVE JOBS It is very economically friendly, as it ditches the need to follow trends and buy constantly.
Alexandria, you are a physical embodiment of the reason venture capital is rushing into sex robots.