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Weird as the new cool

07:36 / 17.01.03

i know this is not related to any of the current threads and i have no idea where this topic has should go so here seems like a good place(i probably wouldn't be writing this if i wasn't drunk). My friends and i have been talking recently about being wierd and how it seems to be trendy to be different oppressed and alternative now. i was depressed because I took on online test for weirdness and even though most people wold consider me odd or slightly eccentric i scored very low (i think because i am traditional fundamentalist christian) and i was just wondering what kinds of weird is cool now and what makes it that way. My weirdness is contradictory in nature and so i think that is why i'm considered so normal in most peoples eyes, they only see one part of me. Is it the fact that the abnormality has to be directed? consider, i am considered much more normal than my friend suzi, she is a gothic wiccan bisexual(who has never actually had sex with a woman and is in only one monogamous relationship). I however am not gothic christian and family oriented, however i am homosexual (despite many bouts of aversion therapy and reparative therapy and some casting out of demons) believe i am from neptune(for traditional and religious reasons) and i wait until i my family is asleep to play techno and clean their bathrooms while wearing a gas mask. ive always thought of myself as eccentric and her as normal but she scored much higher on the test. who is wierder, does that make one of us cooler and why is there a difference. Is wierd only cool if it is recognizable?

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:56 / 17.01.03

I can't think, personally, of anything less weird than a goth who claims to be bisexual but has never had sex with anyone of the same sex.

In the meantime, I think this thread will get a wider range of responses in the Conversation; there's a good Head shop thread on this topic, but I think it would make sense to start afresh from an evolving discussion based in the Conversation. Let's see who agrees...

08:39 / 17.01.03

It's pretty amazing how many people think they're weird. Is it even possible to be weird these days? Searching around on the net I'm sure you can find people with the same interests as you no matter how strange you think they are.

It's more comman with teenagers though right? I remember I used to think I was weird when I was about 13 because I was interested in the occult - now it seems everyone is

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:44 / 17.01.03

Ordinary is the new weird?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:50 / 17.01.03

Actually, let me add a point to that, now I've thought of one.

Take Dennis Nilsen for example. Civil servant. Dole office worker. Apparently, those who knew him described him as a nice enough guy, but very, very boring.

And if Dennis Nilsen (possibly, from said accounts, one of the most ordinary people ever to walk the face of the earth) wasn't REAL fucking weird, what with the whole serial killing thing, then I don't know who was.

Point being- external abnormality doesn't always reflect internally. Or vice versa. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, just that because one exists doesn't mean the other has to.

And I wish I had a gasmask to wear while cleaning our bathroom.

Rollo Kim, on location

08:51 / 17.01.03

I'm with the Chairman on this one. Normal is the new weird. God, that's just sooooo normal. And Haus has a point, being a quasi-bi Goth is about as unique as a fake turd: when you've seen one fake turd, you've seen them all.

09:03 / 17.01.03

Equating wierd, or different, with cool is pretty adolescent. Not that we haven't all done it, its just that its a bit shallow. Being "alternative" in presentation or thought as a means to be interesting is actually quite dull.

I look at it like dancing. If you're worrying too much about how you appear, you dance for shit. It tends to be much better to get a good sense of self identity and go with that. If thats odd, then so be it. Having said that, I tend to find that once you scratch the surface most people have lots of quirks.

09:54 / 17.01.03

Weird as cool = wacky. Zany. Kerrrazy.

This is not good.

09:57 / 17.01.03

Cool is the new weird, I'd have thought.

10:01 / 17.01.03

Weird must be one of the most horrendously over-used words without any meaning at all that is in circulation today.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:33 / 17.01.03

Sorry to restate a point, but I'm drunk, and therefore will. So NER.

Some of the most conventional people I know are the nicest, most fun people to be around you'll ever meet. Some of the more self-consciously "weird" are just tossers. And vice versa.

Me? Christ only knows. I try to be fun. And nice. Anything else is window dressing.

10:59 / 17.01.03

Elbereth - if you're getting worried because an online test told you you weren't as weird as your goth mate, perhaps you should consider that the test's criteria for weird may not be the same as yours (and, in fact, were almost certainly designed to catch the 'I wear black and think I might be bi and smoke clove cigs' bracket rather than the 'I wear gas masks while doing the housework' bracket). Doubt it was especially finely calibrated.

Apart from that, I agree with Sax and Stoatie.

14:43 / 17.01.03

Weird's always been the new Cool in my world.

In fact, when I'm not thinking very hard, I end up using the two words near interchangably - the weirder something is, the cooler it is, and vice versa..

14:45 / 17.01.03

(er.. should clarify that that criteria applies to "stuff" rather than people, obviously..)

15:41 / 17.01.03

Old is the new New.

18:16 / 17.01.03

As I get older I find that the stuff I do that I think is weird, is pretty normal, and the normal stuff is pretty weird.

18:21 / 17.01.03

I can't think, personally, of anything less weird than a goth who claims to be bisexual but has never had sex with anyone of the same sex.

At first it may seem odd, but try looking at this from a different perspective: If a virgin who is attracted to the opposite sex calls hirself a hetrosexual, no one questions that, right? Why is one's integrity or sincerity questioned when one claims attraction to the same sex, even a virgin? Certainly knowing one's preference does not mean one must have had the experience, although perhaps a better term would be "bi-curious". Again, however, I never hear anyone use the term, "hetero-curious". But there ya go....

hetero-curious is the new bi-sexual

*slips on raingear*

Tryphena Absent

00:17 / 18.01.03

(Aaah, I was once a gothic wiccan bisexual, I remember it well- it was fun. My friend who was purely a gothic wiccan and not also a bisexual was a lot weirder then me.)

I'm with May, (I recall that) it's perfectly possible to identify yourself as bisexual before you screw anyone of the same sex, in fact I would question the intent of anyone using the word 'bi- curious' as it really indicates a tendency to make sexuality this ridiculously frivolous thing... sex may be frivolous, sexuality probably shouldn't be! Maybe it should be the other way round, I'm so confused (and apparently greedy and weird!).

00:23 / 18.01.03

Yeah yeah yeah - I do have a certain sympathy with the Brett Anderson 'a virgin has some sexual orientation' point of view. Within certain subcultures, however (and I'd include Goth here), it seems more indicative of a desire to hint at faaabulous 'exoticism' or 'decadence' without actually venturing to do anything even remotely sexually Other: notionally claim the mantle of sexually-ambiguous cool while not actually doing anything which might jeopardise one's status as happy member of the sexually orthodox majority.

Which is so fucking gay it occasionally pisses us poofters off.

Constitution Hill

00:32 / 18.01.03

Which is so fucking gay it occasionally pisses us poofters off.

LOL.

Fridge - what 'normal stuff' do you now find to be weird?

I think weird has become a category of self-conscious behaviour, rather than a description of behaviour that is uncommon.

00:37 / 18.01.03

I think it's become the '70s Radio 1 DJ version of 'weird': a socially accessible 'coming atcha throught the cornflakes' variant of 'wacky' with black nail-polish and notional bisexuality. Marilyn Manson panto-Goth...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:37 / 18.01.03

Am I still allowed to be zany?

08:27 / 18.01.03

Yes, but you can't be cuckoo.

13:46 / 18.01.03

it seems more indicative of a desire to hint at faaabulous 'exoticism' or 'decadence' without actually venturing to do anything even remotely sexually Other - Ganesh

This is a really strange aspect of the goth scene. Sexuality that functions as image and little else. To be fair, it can be a way for people to explore their sexuality without taking as many risks. If everyone else is doing it, the declaration of an non-mainstream sexuality becomes easier. The fact that it isn't necessarily sincere means that you can always disengage. "It wasn't me!"

But this isn't to say that there isn't some genuine curiosity beneath the surface. The fact that many goths seem permissive while often being pretty conservative encourages the double think, IMO.

13:01 / 20.01.03

Aren't issues like this the new cool? Not at barbelith, of course, but in general. (within the anti-general spectrum of thought)

The kids fancy themselves major deconstructionists because they've discovered anti-box-boxing for the first time.

I would know.

Whisky Priestess

13:31 / 20.01.03

I just want you to post the url of this online test and see what it makes of the Barbelites .... or was the title of the test perhaps "Do You *Think* You're Weird?"

trouser the trouserian

13:42 / 20.01.03

can't think, personally, of anything less weird than a goth who claims to be bisexual but has never had sex with anyone of the same sex.

I once got given an anglepoise lamp - as a 'consolation prize' I guess, from one such 'said-he-was-bisexual-but....' goth who decided he wasn't ready for some same-sex lovin' despite lots of "come hither" looks all night and ending up back at his place. Now the not-wanting-sex bit was okay, and quite normal, but giving me the anglepoise lamp - now that was weird.

10:22 / 21.01.03

I don't know. Personally, I feel that those who dress up their weirdness in an attempt to be cool; or have an aura of "Look at me, I'm so weird isn't that cool??" are engaging in attempt to either hide their own insecurities regarding their own weird tendencies, or are worrying that they may one day be **EEEK!** "normal" and thus "boring" (my biggest fear, personally) and as such play up the weirdness quotient.

12:46 / 21.01.03

Hetero-curious=Homo-spurious.

13:28 / 21.01.03

I always feel awkward around people I know to be acting deliberately weird, especially when they use phrases like "freaking the normals". Or the folks who like to tote the "weird" badge, but in their lifestyle they are entirely surrounded by similarly "weird" folks, so (a)they create a new norm and might alienate people who are genuinely weird to _that_ lifestyle, and (b)act like martyrs about how "weird" they are, but use as their reference point stereotypes of "normals" that they don't actually meet or know ("I'm so strange because I'm nothing like those white-hat-wearing, Abercrombie-buying, football-playing, beer-chugging frat boys on the other side of campus.").

Heh, and then that starts the vicious cycle of me saying "I'm so weird!" but using _these_ "weird" folks as _my_ reference point and then carrying out the same behavior in my own "weirdness". Make the madness stop, ma!

16:43 / 21.01.03

I'm told it's weird to:

offer strangers a piece of your orange;
arrange to stop by a friend's house and help remove an air conditioner without asking said friends how they're doin' and suchlike;
wear shoes your grandmother mail-ordered for you sight-unseen;
and use the nickname 'Crease' for anyone you know named Chris (it's really fun because usually they don't notice it consciously).

But that's me talking. Elbereth, I'm making a largely unfounded a priori judgement about you, from the nature of your concerns and your method of expressing them, that you are not yet of college age, or maybe just barely. When you do get to college, you may offered the chance to take an introductory course in Sociology, where you will learn about norms and mores and the internalization of social roles and all that. Without going into the technical stuff too much, lemme say that these kinds of questions will be answered in the abstract, if not in specific cases. In other words, there are tools available for you to describe and understand your situation, if you choose to. While I do think that gay fundamentalist Christians are pretty weird, it's probably just because we don't use the same definitions for those three social roles. Probably I think my definitions are more valid than yours, so you must be some kind of wacko.

To answer your specific question, there is nothing new about any of this. It's only new to you because you've just noticed it.