da end of indie sleaze discourse
tbh.... hipsters after dark vs tumblr soft grunge
as a silly little intern n as a silly little amateur freelance writer, (plz commission me im begging n would kill 2 quit my day job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) i think a lot abt fashion n trends n the internet etc.
as someone who obvi grew up on tumblr 2014, i think a lot abt american apparel n soft grunge n sky ferreira etc. that shit is etched in my brain! my last few cells have been rewired to only like things if they are related to:
it’s the trait im most proud of; it’s my biggest downfall. but due to being, as the magazines call it, ~chronically online~ since the ripe age of preteen, i kno my Shit. (also would love 2 mention that my dear mother tried to keep me off the internet for many, many, many years but nothing can stop an Indie Girl With a PHONE).
and one thing i do kno n wish other ppl knew — which is why im sharing this w my precious, sexy fanbase of 20+ intellects — is that indie sleaze never had a revival1 n thats because indie sleaze NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED!
before u call me an idiot, hear me out: indie sleaze is a rebranding of Hipster Night Life because nobody wants to be called a hipster in 2022 nor admit to being a hipster in 2002. that’s literally the anti-thesis of hipsterdom.
BUT this so-called revival of indie sleaze, is truly Hipsters After Dark. it’s club photos with the party name watermarked, it’s neon disco pants, it’s shaking ass to bloghouse, it’s terry richardson glasses n sweatbands, it’s thecobrasnake n cory kennedy. it’s MYSPACE AF.
even alexa chung who uses low-key flex connotations says, “i understood that indie sleaze was a recently invented term being retroactively applied to a cluster of messy club nights swaddled in the dawn of MySpace. in 2007, we just called it going out.”
but i would even argue that although alexa chung was at those hedonistic parties, she never embodied the hipster nightlife look. her style never let go of her british roots, meaning she always looked more proper than sleazy.
it was the short time period that predated tumblrs rise. while i was too young for it, my older brother wasn’t. i remember him using the word sleaze (the person who coined da term wasn’t totally off, there was jus no need for rebrand. we already had da necessary vocab. it also wouldn’t have been called ‘indie sleaze’ else if da algorithm didnt run w it, throwing it on everyones FYP until online publications made think pieces abt it. instead it would’ve been a flop prediction with minimal views before eventually getting deleted) in his display name n had some gig being a promoter or making fliers idk n taking our family to shop at AA. that is the Real Hipster Clubber Experience.
besides having no reason to exist, “indie sleaze” fails because the term is too broad n doesn’t properly encapsulate what it actually was. we have already seen how using indie as a genre fails. wha used to mean independent music, film, publisher, etc now means the xx, mac demarco, bright eyes, alex g, beck, etc. all different music from different times. so people see indie sleaze, they think oh indie rock oh the strokes arctic monkeys alexa chung skinny girls smoking cigarettes ripped fishnets disheveled hair messy eyeliner. all signifiers of Thee Tumblr Soft Grunge actuallyyyy. where’s da glitter n lcd soundsystem? NOW that’s hipster night life.
there’s def crossover between the two as they happened back to back n this hipster lifestyle didnt even last 10 years. take karen o, her style was very aligned with hot girl who parties n takes flash photos (praising) n her first yeah yeah yeahs ep matches da sound, but the band was never truly Hipsters Who Party. except for the thousand of remixes heads will roll ends up having (derogatory).
but in da end, there’s no need to make a psa, although there should b one every time i write….. there’s no real harm being done when calling this vibe indie sleaze n only annoys pretentious ppl ((me)). we’re dealing with (mostly) white, cishet privileged people who partied during a recession — jus like we r doing today n did during covid. BUT it is important to note how easily n fast this was done because it shows how subcultures can be rewritten or worse forgotten, especially for minorities (hello raver culture).
there may b stories out there abt indie sleaze with my name as da byline, but i had to do what i had to do to get a #bag (writing credentials)
love!!