tumblr meme culture is really just a form of neo dadaism
I’d like to clarify:
dada was a largely european art movement that took place after wwi. this time and place is not a coincidence. let me explain.
dada art made no sense. the artists who made dada lived in a world in which nothing made sense - in which conventional logic led to the senselessness of a world war. so, making art that made no sense, making - well, you can’t really call it art, so making ANTI-art that rejected the conventions that brought about that atrocity in the first place - it made total sense. (if that makes any sense.)
so the artists did weird things. new things! putting things that were already made together and calling it sculpture, cutting up bits of pictures and putting them together and calling that something to frame - this site has some nice examples.
but from my perspective - there’s serious intellectual continuity between the absurdity of attaching a bunch of tacks to the bottom of an iron, rendering it useless, and say…. bath bomb posts. Put a fucking macbook in a bath. it’s useless now. Nobody fucking cares anymore. you want something funny? you want a punchline? gun. that’s your punchline. Take it. I am laughing
in a way it could be a method of venting some of the frustration and hopelessness and dissatisfaction that tumblr’s userbase (largely, disenfranchised millennials) feels in the modern day. I can’t really speak for anyone else, but… at least from a US perspective, there’s plenty to be disillusioned about. growing up in a constant state of questionably justified war, income inequality, an economic recession caused by the actions of a handful of wealthy fucks who didn’t even get properly punished, growing awareness of police brutality, being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place… I can’t help but think that these factors (and more) could produce a similar mindset to the one that precipitated the first dada movement.
so of COURSE we make nonsense jokes. it’s a coping mechanism for a world which doesn’t make any sense.
related: this isn’t by tumblr but I have to plug UCLA’s atrocity of a virtual gallery once more. it really needs to be experienced, but… it’s definitely also millennial neo dada. from the presentation (like an unplayable video game) to the content (THE DOGS HAVE ARRIVED), it is exactly what I am talking about. it is a fucking shitpost. and it’s high art, too! I love this
tl;dr: my generation is fed up with this bullshit, and the best way that we can express that is by shitposting. alternatively, dada was an early precursor to modern shitposting and we should all thank duchamp for signing a fucking urinal
a dear friend has given a perfect update to some of my phrasing, courtesy of their word replace extension:
you see this? this is exactly what I’m fucking talking about. the thing that I’m talking about is:
I’d also say that while Dadaism was obsessed with the technological aspects of Modernity, of newspapers, of industrial mechanics and factory made clocks, neo-dadaism (of which shitposting but also the increasingly broad reach of the New Aesthetic and net aesthetics) is obsessed with the technological aspects of our time, or at the beginning of our time.
As just a comparison, the Clock in Absurdist and Dadaist art is both a symbol of the uplifting beginning of industrial relations (as one of the first complicated machines made by manufacturers, as the symbol of mankind’s ability to triumph and analyze nature and better ourselves) and as the deified symbol of horrific modernity (of demarcated time, labor hours, the oppression of the working class via managerial time), Neo-Dadaism/Absurdism has a similar relationship with early computers, which both symbolizes the utopian attitudes which we entered the digital age with, and the horrifying period we live in now, where the Digital is ever present and semi-deified.
My favorite dada satire is probably from Georges Grosz who takes the kind of robotic modernist tube people of folks like Leger:
and turns them into these mindlessly patriotic broken automatons chanting rote phrases:
And it’s so so funny to me that there’s all kinds of Gen X artists out there creating art about the millennials on their damn cellumar phones who think they’re the inheritors of this aesthetic but really it’s people who use the Madden gif generator to shitpost because they’re taking the technology meant for a coherent purpose for a particular narrative and they’re breaking it and turning it back on itself.
So in honour of pride month it is time for me to write a post dedicated to some of the most incredible humans I know. Every individual in Dumbledore’s Army has something unique that no one else on the planet has. We together make one of the closest knit “families”, whilst me may not be related by blood we are entirely familial even down to our small fights generally relating whether cats or dogs are better.
Dumbledore’s Army is our Catholic all girl’s school not so secret LGBT club. When it was initially established over 12 months ago we were top secret and was formed initially of 4 girls who were all gay and wanted people to talk to about their sexuality. At the time we all felt as though we were outsiders, fearful of the reaction we would get from peers and our staff we just decided to chin it and hope for the best. Slightly shocked at the response we rapidly expanded and it was one of the most reassuring feelings. Although back then it was simply comprised of a group of Year 11s trying to look out for one another.
Now, nearly 15 months on, we are huge and searching for new gays high and low. We can officially say that we tick off every letter of the LGBT acronym(monumentous moment) Not only that but we have helped a lot of people who previously would have been scared to come out in an all-girls school environment, which are renowned for being overly bitchy and judgmental.
We have stopped the “are you staring at me when I get changed in PE rumours” and have defended the validity of our sexuality and that we do still have a type. More than that we have become friends, siblings to one another and a place of comfort. Without these people I would feel like I’d lost a limb, they are a part of me and have allowed me to flourish into the confident and crazy human I am today in a way where I don’t feel ashamed to be myself.
I cannot thank them all enough so happy pride month team, DA you did good ❤️
@thephansplosionfan @litraleehowell @spaceandmusic @meggysmeg @scribbleartist @drycleanbitch
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I love you guys so much, you are more than my friends, you’re my family and for that I am so so grateful xxx
my favorite out of context quotes from my archeology professor so far in no particular order
and floridians are just as human as you and me!
and the moral of the story is that there are no deadly snakes native to alaska
you might know this guy as one of the only archaeologists cool enough to be mentioned by indiana jones
it’s my dream to have my name said by harrison ford
i’m not going to apologize for having this class at 6am because you paid for it and it’s your fault.
we don’t all dress like lara croft. i tried to get it to be a thing on a dig and my colleagues yelled at me.
they were pretty good archaeologists except they were too racist to realize anything they found.
i take back what i said about us not dressing like lara croft because lewis binford here is wearing nothing but short shorts and a cowboy hat. take notes for an academic halloween costume!
archaeologists can be good artists! not me, though. or anyone i know. but if you can draw just know you have options.
sometimes you find dead bodies when you dont really expect it and you just have to deal with it
archaeologists are the only people allowed to get exited when they find corpses.
once i ruined thanksgiving dinner when i told my family i had gotten my degree in archaeology and my uncle commented he liked dinosaurs too
the closest i’ve ever been to a grizzly bear is when i left my glasses in my tent on a dig in alaska, saw a big rock in the distance, and almost screamed
additional quotes
ah yes. archaeologists. or, as i love to call us, pottery analysts
i mean he was kind of a good guy for helping us beat britain but he owned slaves so that really cancelled it out.
archaeology is like cultural anthropology, except after you interview the person you turn around and shoot them in the head.
do not use trees! trees are bad! don’t do it!
usually you find shards, but it’s super exciting when you find a really big shard
it’s basically like a waterpark, except you’re fully clothed and walking through a dark tunnel knee deep in muddy water. so, basically splish splash.
i dont believe in curses but my colleagues and i like to encourage the idea of them so people stop touching our stuff
usually, you would find a knife in a kitchen. or underneath your pillow to really freak out your roommate who is a history nerd and has no idea why you would sleep with a knife under your pillow and he’ll get really scared and freaked out and okay i’m getting off topic
no matter what the other scientists say, archaeology is a real science.
don’t worry, i promise you, and whatever government agency that’s spying on me right now, that i’m not a crazy communist trying to overthrow the government
by now you’ve noticed the big “POP QUIZ” written on the board. there isn’t one, but i wanted to see the looks on your face when you saw it. but you’re all dead inside so it’s not really funny.
everything was fine except the citizens of pompeii just woke up dead the next day
the number one question you should ask when you read old archaeology papers is “how the hell do you know?”
nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible
this is incredible! all it takes is a computer the size of this room!
even more from the margins of my notebook!
when in doubt, it’s ritualistic
coprolites are the only shit archaeologists get excited over
i know the only reason you’re not laughing at my hilarious jokes is because it’s early
they called it the garbage project. which is also what people call the projects i work on when we apply for funding.
what you have to realize is that people are fundamentally weird. they do weird stuff now and they have done it thousands of years ago.
things come and go but pottery is forever
i dont know if you all know this but moose are terrifying abominations.
and today’s lesson is about the difference between dirt and soil!
please, please, please do not eat old butter you found buried in a bog.
normally i would say this blackboard is a feature because it isn’t portable and can’t be moved but this is a community college so who knows
one of my biggest fears is that this will get so many notes that someone in the class will see it and show it to the professor and he’ll realize half the notes ive been taking in class are jotting down the weird shit he says
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Lamb to the Slaughter. (1958) - YouTube
One of the best short films ever made. And it got to the point of Roald Dahl’s story.
“I’ve killed him. What do I do now?” She is anxious and scared through this entire thing.
The cops vaguely suspect something. Then she literally makes them eat the evidence.
The way she giggles to herself at the end. She’s won. She knows she has.
As a child, this story terrified me.
Is it bad that I love this?
It helps that the husband is a jerk. (”I know you’re heavily pregnant and stressing you right now is obviously not a good idea, but, hey, I’m ditching you for another chick! Also: I may or may not take care of you financially.”)
Makes you root for her.
This was my favourite text in grade nine English, looking back now. I love that Hitchcock gave it his own spin
It’s perfectly fine, but it doesn’t ever match up to the Hitchcock one.
The key is: Hitchcock presents Mary as the perfect ‘50s suburban housewife. Supportive, kind and overtly fussing over her husband in the beginning. (“I have your dinner ready!”) She’s a cliche, almost.
Then she goes absolutely nuts. It feels like a woman getting her revenge on this Mad Men-culture she’s stuck in.
I saw the second one, never the first one. Both are disturbing, but I love Hitchcock more.
The zoom in at the end.
When you realize where he got the Psycho ending from.
I read this in high school, and I’ve been trying for decades to remember the title and author. I remember it clear as crystal, but I’d almost convinced myself I was misremembering some other story. Now you tell me there’s a Hitchcock film connected to it? Really needed this. Thanks.
Just another Doodler and modern media lover. Artist blog with a touch and go attitude. I am a master/Jedi of Scribbling and so my art has and never will be perfect and if you don't like that then goodbye! I also do suggestions of what to draw for free, just message me. Have a nice stay at the gallery!
