I’m more indie than you
Different is the new same
Tessa Vanderhart Staff
Do you spend inordinate amounts of time trying to find music that has never before been heard by human ears? Have you ever worn knee-high socks that you knit yourself? Have you ever turned up your iPod and retreated, like some high-falutin’ musical deity, upon hearing that an acquaintance likes Nickelback?
Well, my friend, you may be an indie kid. What’s an indie kid? If you have to ask, it’s safe to say you aren’t one. If you want it pointed out, well, you might as well stop reading now: if nothing else, the self-styled superiority of these champions of innuendo will leave you scratching your head — and they wouldn’t want it any other way.
Like any trend, being “indie” has certain requirements. But they’re not the ones you’d think: listening to indie rock, par example, is an abomination. Everyone — or at least, everyone who knows who Death Cab for Cutie are — knows that indie rock is out like yesterday’s Death Cab for Cutie album. (FYI: once a band is mentioned on the O.C., any indie street cred they may have amassed evaporates, along with their souls and student loans.) In its place, might I suggest a foray into post-punk, a wee abstraction of math rock, maybe a delicate smattering of alternative electronic euro-house?
Though the word appears to derive from “independent,” being indie is about so much more. Or, at the very least, something very different: pretension.
Yes, for all their self-afflicted loneliness and hip-hoppin’ moussed hairdos, indie kids are really just out to inflate their egos; behind the glut of “look! I’m artistic!” black plastic glasses of so many indie kids lurks a desperate inferiority complex — one best served by flaunting the latest musical discovery to your poor, unsuspecting, and equally guilty indie friends. (Note: just because you’re the first person to ever hear of FleimFleimmenFloogahn does not mean that your friends deserve to be tortured with their unique blend of oboe and kazoo.)
No, really, you don’t have to explain to me why you carry around an empty condom holder: I get it, you’re special, and the world is one big inside joke. No matter how much emphasis is placed on aesthetics, in the end, indie is just a new way of masking insecurities, of finding new forums for expression of the inane, unusual, and intentionally dorky.
Perhaps it’s the fact that wearing a dress with jeans didn’t quite jive with the middle-school cliques. Perhaps indie has evolved as defence mechanism to deal with the utter shock of coming to university and realizing that no matter how “special,” you were in high school, the English department is a grossly undesired convergence of your aesthetic sensibilities and quick wit.
Whatever it is, indie is no longer synonymous with unique; rather, it’s become a cult, in the worst sense of the word: a desperate clawing at independence, rather than an assertion of it.
The indie-kid fascination with the new undoubtedly follows as rebellion against the big-box, individually-wrapped, vending machine culture that we take such delight in bemoaning. But it’s so easy: where is the challenge in not shopping at Wal-Mart? Where is the glory in protesting Oprah’s book club?
Indie has replaced satire as the preferred mode of escapism for the upwardly-mobile of pop (or, should I say, techno-pop?) culture: not only is it snarky and subversive, but it’s cool, too. And, not to mention, substantially easier than gambling on originality.
The rampant popularity of the indie lifestyle, if we can call it that, attests to the deep-seated desire in each of us to feel special, vaguely destined for greatness, as if we were some sort of human embodiment of Quebec, or God. But the facts show that without a cohesive and truly unique plan for success, the vast majority of these indie kids will grow up and cocoon into adulthoods as office drones and *gasp!* parents. Some have already died inside, and resist admitting it.
Others, myself included, will continue to hold on to those vague plans to become exceptional (though they will never, ever be realized — sigh!), and continue to derive angsty writings from it.
Maybe I’m a sore loser. Maybe I’m a giant square (though, I’m told, “normal is the new square”).
Or maybe, just maybe, for exposing this, I’ll be the best indie kid *ever*.
Now that’s something special.
