Retro-extremists? What are we called?

[Fletch]

Fletch, I am not sure if you are in a.) or b.) as I do not know you

Don't sweat it. I don't know me either.

I do not live a full-time vintage lifestyle in any way but musical soundtrack. However, I once pulled 30 days in juvie for passive resistance in phys ed class, and my right brachialis anterior is tattooed with an image of an unnamed female Lounger wearing only a bandana, ping pong eyeballs, and a rather fetching shade of toenail polish.

I could have been a helluvan anarcho-dandyist performance artist once upon a time, but I have grown fat, bald, and irreverent, so those days are behind me.

So call me b). b+) some days, b-) some others.

 

[Dr Doran]

Key would there being 'should'.


Most people who have any contact with the word at all.....think it means 'Those crazy Renaissance folks playing with swords'

I really, really don't think you are right about this. I think everyone has heard the term anachronistic. It gets used. People will say it once in a while on sitcoms and other forms of popular media. I think anyone who doesn't know this word is really, really ignorant. My low opinion of the state of general education in certain parts of America is well-known; but in those places it is unlikely that they have heard of the SCA.

Anachronist should be fine.

 

[Dr Doran]

my right brachialis anterior is tattooed with an image of an unnamed female Lounger wearing only a bandana, ping pong eyeballs, and a rather fetching shade of toenail polish.

Who dat? Please tell. ANyone I know?

I would probably call myself an anarcho-dandyist,.

I love it.

 

[Dr Doran]

I once pulled 30 days in juvie for passive resistance in phys ed class.

Wow. All I have is a single weekend in a police station jail cell for graffiti when I was 18. You beat me.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

... is tattooed with an image of an unnamed female Lounger wearing only a bandana, ping pong eyeballs, and a rather fetching shade of toenail polish.

Who dat? Please tell. ANyone I know?

I heard she left...but like all bad pennies......


p.s. What WILL you do when you are 80 and hate the tattoo....what a -dumb- idea

 

[reetpleat]

Pick a name Lizzie and Senator. I can see it is something you both and I am sure many others that can relate want to do.

so funny that I picked this forum years ago because I thought it was for very conservative people that liked to dress in the formal attire. I am beginning to believe I am the only conservative left.

Conservative is not left. It is on the political right. (joke referencing comments on skin heads and socialist fascists or whatever the nazis were.)

 

[Tango Yankee]

But I don't think I could have worked at a hard-rock station -- leaving aside the fact that I wasn't the type who gets hired at such places in the first place, I don't think I could have tuned it out to the extent that I did the other stuff, and I don't think I could have successfully worked in such an environment. It'd just be a culture too far afield from my own for me to successfully assimilate into it, and I probably wouldn't have even tried.

This is what is generally referred to as "fit" when discussing employee/employer relationships. Many employers these days are using various tests and interview processes to eliminate from contention those who might look good for the position on the surface but may not "fit" well with the company's culture. In your case you self-identified as not being a good fit.

But depending upon ones circumstances one can adapt to almost anything. My wife works for the company from hell--it is on the extreme end of nasty, fear-based work-place culture. It took her a year to find that job due to the lack of jobs where we live. She is looking for work, but has to do it quietly because the rumor that you're looking for work elsewhere is enough to get you fired. We can't afford that, so she hangs in there. She adapts. It's not very healthy, though, and if you felt that strongly about the music being played at that radio station it wouldn't have been very healthy for you, either.

Or to put in other terms, I had a brother who was discharged from the service for "inability to adjust to military life." The culture he was being required to adapt to was simply too far removed from the culture he was raised in for him to successfully fit into it.

Since you opened that door... I've seen the "inability to adjust to military life" used to remove people from the service. It is generally used early in a career as a catch-all to remove someone who isn't a good fit for various reasons. It is not used very often in my experience. Unless the culture he was raised in was one that didn't include good personal hygiene and some respect for authority it likely wasn't the culture that he was raised in that was the issue, it was your brother himself. Remember, the military successfully takes in people from every possible culture there is in the US and some from outside of it and most do adapt successfully. Those that don't probably wouldn't have adapted no matter what culture they came from. (Personal opinion based on 25 years in the military after growing up in the decidedly non-and somewhat anti-military culture of Los Angeles county in the '60s and '70s, with 20 years as a military supervisor.)

Of course, the branch of service would be a factor as well. If someone who was raised to be strongly pacifist joined the Army or Marines I can see them having a difficult time adapting to the culture that places a premium on being able to kill quickly and effectively. But then again, with the volunteer force of today, that's usually not an issue.

Regards,
Tom

 

[Fletch]

Wow. All I have is a single weekend in a police station jail cell for graffiti when I was 18. You beat me.

I'm $#!!in' ya. My entire rapsheet consists of a couple of trumped-up moving violations, and I have no tattoos whatsoever of Miss Neeer, uh, anybody, anywhere. wheeew.

 

[jamespowers]

Fletch, I am not sure if you are in a.) or b.) as I do not know you; jamespowers, I actually do know you, but I am also not sure if you are in a.) or b.) I feel the same about my dear friend Sara/Miss 1929: I am not sure whether she would consider herself an a.) or a b.)

I fit into the type a much more than b. I mean I BBQed on the same grill that my grandfather did 50 years ago.
I mentioned using modifiers yesterday. It can make sense for those who don't fit into group a. However, group a was what we started to try to name in the first place.

 

[SGT Rocket]

Maybe Senator should just put up the article on Wikipedia and say "the members of the group are self described as....." and then all the words that people want to call themselves. Lets face it, the "movement" or "lifestyle" or "hey I got this old hat cheep on e-bay" group is in quite a state of flux. We are all individuals that bring a view point to the lifestyle based on past experience. It's like that old LSD saying: "everybody trips together, but everyone is tripping alone."

Then, everyone would be happy and the article would be accurate.

After about six months, I bet one name would rise to the top in the general speech and we would have our label.

What do you guys think?

Edited for spelling.

 

[Dr Doran]

After about six months, I bet one name would rise to the top in the general speech and we would have our label.

I like it. A Darwinian process.

 

[jamespowers]

I'm $#!!in' ya. My entire rapsheet consists of a couple of trumped-up moving violations, and I have no tattoos whatsoever of Miss Neeer, uh, anybody, anywhere. wheeew.

Does getting kicked out of PE for a quarter because you were playing basket ball with a wadded up piece of paper count?

 

[reetpleat]

I see what you're getting at, but I'm still thinking there needs to be a word that could be used to distinguish motivation -- the idea of shading a single word with modifiers suggests we're all basically doing the same thing for the same reasons, it's just some of us do more of it than others, and after three days of discussion, I'm more convinced than ever that this isn't the case. See my example of the atavist vs. the performance artist as an illustration.

My big problem with anachronist, aside from the SCA link:

"I love your dress, are you in a play?"

"No, I'm an anachronist."

"Oh, you mean like Sacco and Vanzetti?"

Seriously, though, speaking for myself, I'm not especially interested in a term for use in casual conversation with the general public -- I'm more interested in a serious, easily-distinguished term that could work in a research setting -- "anachronist" sounds to me just too much like one of those weird bands my niece listens to to work in that context.

Ha, that's what I have been thinking. Atavist sounds like avatar, the movie or the on line presence, and anachronist will sound like anarchist. Although anyone who knows who Sacco and Vanzetti are probably won't need explanation of what you are about.

And i agree. If I ever decide to don my suits full time again, get an old car and buy vintage furniture, I would like to be seen a a full time guy who loves the era, not as one who hates, or can't relate to the modern one. (not that there's anything wrong with that) or who go believes that people should save more or open doors for women. I am frugle, but mainly so I will have more money to spend on vintage stuff.

 

[reetpleat]

Maybe Senator should just put up the article on Wikipedia and say "the members of the group are self described as....." and then all the words that people want to call themselves. Lets face it, the "movement" or "lifestyle" or "hey I got this old hat cheep on e-bay" group is in quite a state of flux. We are all individuals that bring a view point to the lifestyle based on past experience. It's like that old LSD saying: "everybody trips together, but everyone is tripping alone."

Then, everyone would be happy and the article would be accurate.

After about six months, I bet one name would rise to the top in the general speech and we would have our label.

What do you guys think?

Edited for spelling.

Come to think of it, an article on this subject, given the thread that ensued, seems ill fated on a website that encourages everyone to edit as they see fit.

 

[Tango Yankee]

Seriously, though, speaking for myself, I'm not especially interested in a term for use in casual conversation with the general public -- I'm more interested in a serious, easily-distinguished term that could work in a research setting

But I thought that the term Senator Jack is looking for is intended for use with the general public. He does start this off by saying he was trying to describe it to members of a writing forum.

This is, I think, where some of the confusion lies. For the general public such a term will be applied to anyone they see in anything that appears to be vintage, wheras you want a term that separates the inner motivation from the exterior appearance and therefor is more appropriate for use within a more limited audience. That's fine, but I think in that case I think we need two different terms. Eventually the second term might become well known, but even then it will take an individual to self-identify themselves.

Of course, in the general scheme of things I think the general public is content with just thinking anyone who dresses differently than they do are simply strange and let it go at that.

Regards,
Tom

 

[SGT Rocket]

Come to think of it, an article on this subject, given the thread that ensued, seems ill fated on a website that encourages everyone to edit as they see fit.

Good point. But, at least information will be out there. I've never edited anything on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure how all that works. Do a lot of articles get misinformation put into them after the original posting?

 

[reetpleat]

for the record pertaining to this thread.

When I said conservative I didn't mean politics at all.

I meant generally telling folks they can't or don't need a name for themselves. If they want a name, let them have a name.
Gee..:eusa_doh:

While they aren't exactly the same thing, political conservativsm and cultural conservatism, they are related. While many liberals value family, thriftiness, etc, i would suggest hat it would be just as well if people avoided both political discussion, as well as values. there are many people here with many different values, and not much good can come of it being discussed here.

Best to limit discussion to clothes, antiques, music, and such from the golden era, and topics related to them, plus fun non vintage topics. I really don't want to hear about someone's core values here as they may well differ from mine and I may well want to counter back, then less level heads as yours or mine might get heated up about it.

 

[reetpleat]

While I know no one will probabably like it, I would propose the term "Vintage Lifestyle reenactors" In the same way that a civil war or ww 2 reeneactor reenacts that, These people reenact the whole lifestyle. Not an simple short word, but accurate, and I think has nice ring and should be readily decipherable to a reasonably intelligent person. Of course, that doesn't address motivation, but does it need to? The public will not care much nor know motivation.

Also, I know they will say "we aren't reenacting" but they are. They are re enacting the period. Some of these civil war guys or ww 2 guys are more obsessied with full immersion and authenticity than any hardcore lifestyler.

If you must, full time vintage (or 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s) lifestyle reenactor.

but that is starting to get awkward.

 

[reetpleat]

One more crazy thought to throw into the mix. it occurs to me that a person who truly feels displaced in time, and finds refuge in the past, but is not a mere collector, would not find such joy in acquiring the just right 30s suit, or victrola or phone. they would simply live as best they could in the past.

So, most atavists or what have you are also obsessive collectors. No guy in the 30s would rush to his local newspaper to share news about acquiring a hoover vacuum and print up pictures to share with his community.

It goes beyond not liking the present or feeling at home in the past. There is a love, and even a fetishishism of artifacts, music or what have you sometimes. It obviously means something deeply profound to connect with the era.

 

[jamespowers]

but that is starting to get awkward.

That is because it is. Reenactors reenact events in time. We do not. We live as if it were that time---that is it. We have no kinship to one person we want to emulate from that period. We are just us in that time.