DABBLING DUDES
A product of the times, the Dabbling Dude takes active interest in a variety of issues and events. The Dabbler has a wide, if biased, lens on contemporary society and involves itself in varying degrees with self-education, socio-political activism, adopting creative skills, and/or having fun with Friends. Dabblers likely have a backlog of their own Projects, some of which very nearly resemble ambitions, but are generally thwarted from being so by the sheer number of competing projects. Dabblers are definitely available to pitch in when the project of a Motivated Dude needs extra manpower, but are also awesome at just hanging out. Lurking beneath the lifestyle may be a kind of victimhood - an insecurity that this inability to focus on a single cause is not ideal. Is the insecure Dabbler guiltily responding to outdated norms, and the failure to live up to the example of motivated friends? Or is the path of human self-development necessarily reliant on the exercise of such focus?
Sometimes this dude achieves success not by narrowing her field, but by rather turning her enterprise into a cult of personality. This may be the most natural evolution of the Dabbler, if she is up for the relentless self-promotion involved. However, this is a fine line - if this Dude succeeds at flushing the economic self-sabotage that may be at her core (and reinforced by association with Dick Resistance Front), then she is an ideal candidate for moving into Dick realms.
FIXIES
This Dude rides a Fixed Gear Bicycle. It is an odd choice. What is the point of riding a Fixed Gear Bicycle? Hipsters [please see Authenticity and Fashion under Dude Values] are often the Dudes making this choice, so we must take the qualities of the Hipster into account, including a great love of “irony” behind its overtly incongruous stylistic choices.
The Fixed Gear Bicycle suggests a stubborness - an exhibit or announcement that this Fixie isn’t going to participate in social norms. But of course the FGB is becoming a norm or trend of its own ... and it is exactly this inconsistency or shallow commitment to irony that draws so much Hipster Hate. For example, the FGB is a stylistically retro choice, smacking of the classic or old fashioned, hearkening back to an industrious America and a hard working ethic that doesn’t need things to be too easy. But when the FGB is accessorized with credit cards, fancy cell phones, insipid music hording devices and wireless coffee shops, Dudes might gotta roll their eyes.19
TOUR HAG (Monster/Dude Hybrid)
This is the basic devolution of the classic Hippie, manifesting through the currently intense culture of Jam/Reggae bands and their devoted Tourists. A straight arrow into Monsterdom, he has no value in a local Dude Network, for he has been on tour too long. Lives off the band, participates in a parking lot economy. Wide age range, and the drug lifestyle ages appearance 30+ years. Like gypsies, but bad. Disease carriers. Gauge their lives off the shows they have seen. If you do not patronize these events, you may never have to interact with one - but considering all main touring jam bands and their innumerable offshoots, we must admit the popularity of the type.
The QUEEN BEE
Generally the alpha female in any dude hive, known for “throwin it around,” and pushing an aggressive sexuality in any available dude grouping. This person can definitely be counted on to shake things up in terms of the truly cool and truly awkward (see cool vs. awkward chart), by unnerving the normally cool and/or drawing in the normally awkward. The queen bee can also be an organizing force in a dude group, getting things done less attractive dudes can’t get away with. Can veer towards dick/tube territory if the power becomes too apparent to the queen bee and it goes to her head, pushing too many dubious projects in a vain attempt at proving she’s more than just a hot dude. There are rare instances of a male version of this.
HOLIER-THAN-THOU
Like the contrarian, this person acts by reaction, but to different ends. The Holier-Than-Thou operates from an overriding sense that the decisions they have made are far and away morally better than anyone else’s and that, because of this, they are oddly exempt from normal societal rules, like a Creep but more righteous. This type is perhaps best described from this field description, taken from a first-hand account of a Proto-Hippie gone awry:
“She's this social rebel sort, young and infuriated about … capitalism? Pretty political, pretty dirty, would never hold a job or buy a car or anything like that, tends to scoot around the country on hitched rides and maybe train hopping, living in group situations, always dumpster diving or working on a bike or a compost pile… do you know this sort of person? I really don't mind them, very spark-y and maybe kind of corny but hey, I don't really like capitalist system either ... But the problem with this Dude is she is so totally into her own system that she can only really deal with people that are also on that level. We went to a bar and she was like a fucking dud. Some older gentleman starts chatting with us and she just shuts down and becomes the most miserable jackass, probably mulling over sexism, etc. Finally, the last time we saw her, she confessed that she was just on a "higher spiritual plane" than most people, and when you got right down to it, she COULDN'T communicate with others, because of this lofty plane. Hm. So socialist, and so elitist. I guess these freewheeling types are in a weird position… they don't want to be sucking at the teat of society, but if EVERYONE drove around in their jerry-rigged vehicle, there wouldn't be enough French fry grease fuel to go around.”20
RATTLER
A Dude that aggressively uses their appearance to warn you that they are not very nice. Could be a natural Charmer who has had many unfortunate experiences attracting Monsters. It possesses this contrast: social distaste combined with a compulsive need to be present and distinctive in the Dude Network. Body augmentation and/or glowering when in public. Unfortunately, many people nowadays are attracted to such dark displays, and inevitably the sensational display of warning backfires by attracting fawning attention, which it wants but does not want. Everyone is uncomfortable.
DANCING GRANDMA
In much the same way that the presence of a frog indicates a healthy ecosystem, a Dancing Grandma in your community suggests you Dudes are doing something right! Noticed at high energy outdoor music festival - people stare, then smile, but DG in jogging clothes does not alter her hustle.
GALAPAGANS
Obverse Hipsters, in the other Beat tradition of refusing accumulated information for direct experience. For example - does not purchase recorded music, but will go to music shows put on by friends and local bands. May forcefully abstain from electronic social networking while maintaining personal connections. On an even more personal level, may obtusely withdraw from all but select Dude Groupings that involve trusted friends, avoiding any personally corrupting and dramatically destructive types of melees (folk tendency). Definitely Contrarian and possibly a Jerk, this conservative type emerges after a quick glance around the universe of information, contemporary consumer options, and warped human interaction leaves her feeling overwhelmed.
VOCAL OPINIONIST
The Vocal Opinionists vary between intelligent, thoughtful humans and the Blowhards of yesteryear. They contrast with contrarians by possessing actual love for the object of their opinions, and are thus less prone to the jerking action of having “opinions for opinions’ sake”. However, the weight they place on the things they love (a particular band or sports team, for example) can end up paradoxically pushing others away from these things. This may be a desirable effect, preserving this dude’s singularity (Dude Currency). In a related fashion, the Vocal Opinionist can also develop a taste for the obscure and the niche, declaiming anything remotely popular; this high ground has dick character, mostly populated by cowards who assert the superiority of the unknown.
THE CONTRARIAN
Acting from a folk awareness, the contrarian moves with the Dude Group by moving away from it. In some this is merely an argumentative stance, in others, a reflexive way of life. The contrarian may be honestly but unconsciously motivated by a will to balance or perhaps by a habitual revulsion to popular opinion. In another way, this person could concentrate so hard on being different from other people that they simply oppose whomever they are talking to. In this monsterification, there is no clear “self” anymore, just an opposition to others, as the warped process of self-definition causes the person to be less defined.
The career contrarian (dick tendencies) can skillfully assess the self-image of another dude, for the purpose of embodying the opposite impression; in this way, she immediately establishes herself as an individual noteworthy or unsettling in the other dude’s landscape (high currency).
OLD DUDE can refer to a single, aged Dude famously endemic to the local Network (“That Dancing Santa sure is an Old Dude”) Have caution when approaching! You may be dealing with a Vampire.
PARTY TERRORIST
These dudes have a real will towards disruption, this tendency forcefully evident in gatherings of friend-groups (like parties). The PT’s urge is deliberately obtuse and irrepressible. The urge may be chronically present, even in the daily preoccupations of the PT, or may be the temporary infection of an otherwise-identified Dude - perhaps ingested physical intoxicant or maybe just a sensitive individual’s aggressively contrarian response to a group’s charge. The PT is driven to counter the manifesting group whim with outrageously squelching acts. Irritating. The Party Terrorist implicates himself. This is a blurry ground between a Dude and a Fiend. May be the active opposite of a Creep.
Related to the Party Terrorist is the Sad Bomb, which is hopefully rare and exceptionally ungracious. The wielder of the Sad Bomb makes his personal trauma unavoidably evident to the gathered group, resulting in a general pall and dampening of spirits, awkward silence and repellent of potential fun.21 In the Jersey Shore Universe, a similar effect is gotten by the Grenade.
The HANDYMAN
The dude who happily volunteers his time, tools, truck etc for physical work, many times for free. This seems like a very Dude-like way of comporting oneself, but there may also be a nearly creepy sense that they are accumulating favors. Occasionally this Dude can get too assertive with display of skills, as if to ward off the effects of (potentially) lazy friends.
THE ACADEMIC
Can exist on both the student and teacher ends of the spectrum. The Academic remains firmly ensconced in its own universe where decisions take on life-or-death proportions, but outside of the academic world the stakes are almost imperceptibly small. Academia would seem to be the ideal home away from home for most Dudes, but your individual endeavors are almost always enveloped in a tide of resentment mostly based on ramped up ideas of prestige. The average academic may have at one time exhibited dude-like behavior but since the artificial world took hold, you would barely know what we’re talking about, let alone bother to read this booklet. The academic, identified in its earliest stages, can follow a common pattern of slowly discarding their dudes for both the dick attempts at forging a career in academia, and folk responsibilities at home.
THE CURATOR
Almost a hipster crossed with an academic on speed, the Curator takes his cultural consumption so seriously that there is no room for error, in obscurity, density and pure impeccability, with room for guilty pleasures if only claimed as such (something they have clearly evolved above), or enjoyed in a purely academic nature. Very much into the idea of prestige, this dude may have everything else in their life in some sort of balance, but in many cases the curator can easily cross over into dick territory, and will happily use and declaim those who doesn’t “get” their arcana so as to advance in their hoped-for careers in being actual curators or delusional librarians. A glance at a dude’s bookshelf can help you identify the type, though these may be the only names you will recognize:
CURATOR’S BOOKSHELF (AKA LIBRARY OF THE DAMNED)
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Any No-Wave vinyl (The Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, etc)
1970’s German Krautrock (Can, Faust, Kraftwerk (maybe), Cluster...)
Berlin Alezanderplatz DVD set
Last Year at Marienbad, directed by Alain Resnais
Salo
Max Richter, Johan Johanson, Ulrich Snauss
Andre Tarkovsky
Heidegger’s Being and Time
Derrida’s Of Grammatology
Brian Chippendale’s Ninja
Jimbo in Purgatory by Gary Panter
Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin
LIBRARY SHELF JUNIOR
Naked Lunch, by Wm S Burroughs
Kerouac, Brautigan, other
Hunter S. Thompson
Captain Beefheart albums
Free Jazz albums (Ornette Coleman, late Coltrane, Albert Ayler,
Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane)
Norman Mailer
any random but prominently displayed philosophy books
Wes Anderson movies
The Beatles
Citizen Kane
Ayn Rand
Gertrude Stein
Virginia Woolf
SKEPTICS
Somewhat opposed to the Next Waver, and less imaginative than the Conspira-seer, the Skeptic is ruthless in the use of reason to debunk speculative theories of possibility. If the Skeptic comes from a sincere will to prevent crimes of disillusion, it can be a gentle force. But it can become habitually opposed to just about everything that does not provide proof of its existence, which is problematic (speaking as a Next Waver). If this Skeptic has a podcast, it has moved into Monsterdom.
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