Critical Review 2 - Maira's “Identity Dub: The paradoxes of an Indian American Youth Subculture (New York Mix)”

In her article “Identity Dub: The paradoxes of an Indian American Youth Subculture (New York Mix),” Sunaina Maira analyzes the syncretism of Indian and American culture, looking specifically at second-generation Indian youth in the New York club scene. In New York, she observes, the South Asian youth tends to adopt the hip-hop aesthetic as far as fashion, but also blends hip-hop with bhangra, a phenomenon Maira refers to as “remix culture.”

What struck me as interesting was the section in which some of her interviewees discuss the temporality of their relationship with hip-hop. They say that it is by no means temporary – that they will always have the financial security of their highly educated parents, despite their declared affinity for hip-hop culture, which has lower-class roots. In other words, they seem to be adopting the aesthetics of hip-hop without actually touching its foundations.

Subcultures are often defined by their resistance to a real or imagined mainstream, and their music, fashion, and consumerist choices usually stem from a desire to subvert preconceived establishments. The Goth aesthetic – dark, corpselike, devoid of expression, for example, is a clear contradiction of almost every mainstream-media image of beauty – youthfulness and exuberance. Is it possible that the root of most subcultures’ defiance is class difference? That is to say, do members of a subculture attempt to distance themselves from their mainstream by adopting the values and aesthetics of a different, usually lower, class? In the case of Goths and punks, their torn up, industrial, and oftentimes shabby clothing stands at odds with a clean middle-/upper-class aesthetic. In reference to this article, the second-generation Indian-Americans, usually the children of educated and financially sound parents, seem to be adopting hip-hop style not only to blend in with the scenescape of New York, but to glamorize a class different than their own. 

Ethnographic Research Proposal

            For my ethnographic research project, I will be examining the cultish following surrounding the rap group Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All, which I will from here on refer to simply as Odd Future or OFWKTA. The group piqued my interest largely because of the controversy surrounding their quick ascension to stardom. Their lyrics are undoubtedly nihilistic, usually delivered by the group’s leader, Tyler the Creator. An often-cited example is a line from Tyler’s song “Tron Cat” – “Raped a pregnant bitch / told my friends I had a threesome.” I plan to start an analysis of what the implications of lyrics like these might be on their fan base, which consists primarily of middle-upper class and Caucasian males.

My research will be mainly web-based, as the group notably rose to fame (infamy?) through their expert use of social media, particularly Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube. I also plan on conducting interviews with any/all of the following:

a)     Fans that I find at the Odd Future show at Boston’s Royale theater on October 21

b)    A web-based fan, hopefully somebody that actively reTweets or reTumbles their posts, or frequently comments on YouTube videos

c)     A professor of either Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Ethnomusicology, or American Civilization to get a scholarly opinion regarding Odd Future’s provocatively amoral lyrics and their implications on their fan base.

d)    A Brown student, who might be an example of the aforementioned archetypical Odd Future fan (educated, but unperturbed by the lyrical content)

I hope to address some of the following questions/issues in this project:

a)     Youth subcultures often arise out of a sense of “otherness” and alienation, but how might Odd Future represent a rift from this established pattern, in that its fans seem to “other”-ize themselves from the music, establishing a strange dichotomy between lyrical affinity and actual personal belief?

b)    How can we reconcile lyrical content with actual artist intent, which in this case might be in striking contrast? Is this a masterful artistic tool to draw public focus to various social issues, or something completely different?

c)     What are the implications of Odd Future’s lyrical content and following on the subject of gender disparity?

d)    Is there a subconscious sense of voyeurism in Odd Future’s fan base?

I also hope to keep in mind the following issues, which admittedly have the potential to problematize my research:

a)     My personal opinions of the group and its fans, which I have been forming over the last year and might lead me to pointedly research some subjects and ask leading thematic questions. However, I believe that knowing my bias will help me prevent it from encroaching on my research.

b)    My immediate community, which might not be indicative of Odd Future’s fan base as a whole.

c)     My difficult questions that I plan on addressing in my research paper, which may require judgmental analysis to answer.

d)    The difference between lyrical analysis and ethnographic research; I will need to remind myself through the research process that my goal is to examine the group’s fan following and its interpretation of the lyrics, not my own. 

Critical Review 1 - Thornton's "Exploring the Meaning of the Mainstream"

In Exploring the Meaning of the Mainstream, Thornton establishes subcultures as antagonistic to the mainstream, which she states is often construed in an “abstract and ahistorical” (93) light. An “us versus them” opposition arises, in which club-goers spurn the mainstream as homogenous and “un-hip,” while they view their own subcultures as mixed and heterogeneous. Diverse though these crowds may be, Thornton asserts that they are “self-selecting” (113) and are held together by a sense “not of conformity, but of spontaneous affinity” (111). 

At odds with this element of communality and shared experience is the strong exclusivity that pervades the described club scene, specifically the acid-house musical genre she discusses. Once newspapers caught wind of the drug-ridden acid-house scene and publicized it, it was inundated with “Kids who shouldn’t even have known about drugs” (88). Acid-house’s incorporation into the mainstream, Thornton suggests, brought about its demise. Although many of its new members’ interests were arguably piqued by its seemingly radical drug scene, a large portion of acid-house devotees were likely drawn in because of its music. 

What then, is the distinction between popularization through Thornton’s shared “affinity” and incorporation into the denigrated “mainstream”? At what point does common musical taste stop contributing to a sense of welcoming and instead lead to the popularization of a subculture – a conversion from subculture to general culture? In other words, how do we reconcile the invitation of common interest with the ever-present trope of exclusivity?