Comments on: All The Cool Kids Reject Beauty Fascism… /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/ A feminist pop culture adventure Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:33:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6 By: Eleanor Blair /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2064 Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:33:05 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2064 In reply to Sarah J.

The merch company got back to me and apparently there may be a misprint – they’ve measured their XL and it’s actually a 38″ bust – which still isn’t exactly enormous! That’s the biggest size available from their current supplier – but they’ve said they might be able to find an alternative one for me the next time they do a print one. So 10/10 for customer service – even if it doesn’t actually solve the body image problem!

I have just had Tom point out it is a very very small world – though it was Jo who pointed me at your article in the first place – for which thanks.

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By: Kirsty /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2063 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:49:45 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2063 Great article – i too think about this a lot.

I have wondered if it’s to do with ‘indie’ / hipster culture being supposedly about the ‘alternative’, and the ‘alternative’ somehow being something to do with being the kids at school without boobs and sex appeal.. but then you overcome that and make it into a strength because you’re, like, HOT in the alternative world. Sort of like the whole narrative about Erin O’Connor and a lot of those ‘strange’ looking ‘dorky girl’ supermodels. But then that in turn becomes a kind of reverse snobbery. Which is ridiculous anyway because fashion has long idolised those ‘dorky’ girls, mainly because they also happen to look rather good in couture.

Another idea: maybe it’s just that extensive amounts of recreational drugs are a very effective weight-loss aid.

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By: Lorna /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2062 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:54:55 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2062 Great article. I read chillax as climax the first time – made it slightly peculiar.

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By: Sarah J /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2061 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:39:16 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2061 In reply to Eleanor Blair.

It drives me crazy. When you’re older you generally get a bit of perspective I find, and also you realise the time cost involved in all the UPKEEP and say sod that. But definitely when I was a teenager I was thinking I ought to look like Shirley Manson or Louise Wener, and I doubt they were even very photoshopped back then, must be worse now.

Hooray for writing to them though! I grumbled at B&S on twitter about it the other day but haven’t done anything else, I should write to them and the merch company too, great idea.

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By: Rhian Jones /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2060 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:05:17 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2060 Great post. I think a lot about the issues outlined here – broadly, the replication of mainstream hierarchies in alternative subcultures. As I’ve become less involved with contemporary alt/indie music, their immediacy and urgency (and their ability to hurt, anger or discomfit me) has faded, but it’s still fundamental to how far I feel able to comfortably participate in any ‘scene’.

The thing is that I’m sure it wasn’t ever thus – it seems to have become more prevalent as ‘indie’ has moved closer to the mainstream, abandoning a lot of what was liberating or empowering about its subcultural status and simply absorbing mainstream mores. As a 90s kid, I remember a whole host of women in early Britpop and UK indie who, while not being actively touted as Positive Female Role Models, nevertheless presented themselves as confident and secure in their unconventional looks, build and dress. Off the top of my head, there was Kenickie, Manda Rin, Cerys Matthews, Shampoo, Echobelly, Elastica, to say nothing of riot grrl – and it seemed as though their looks were accordingly given much less attention. Admittedly I’m more distant from contemporary alt/indie, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case anymore – female indie artists, regardless of how edgily they’re packaged, seem more or less identikit right now, and far more packaged and produced – with a related impetus towards the widest mainstream aesthetic appeal. Even with someone like Beth Ditto, her distance from the norm was so exceptional that it ended up becoming a fetish in itself. I don’t know how much of this is female-specific and how much just a function of a subculture increasingly becoming as bland and homogenised as the mainstream.

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By: Eleanor Blair /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2059 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:22:36 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2059 I’m a slightly busty size 14 at the moment, having been slightly slimmer as a teenager but much bigger at some times in the year in between. Thankfully these days I’m old enough (and just about wise enough) to know that they are the insane ones, and that being 4 inches bigger than extra-large doesn’t make me the biggest fattest ugliest person in the world, it makes their size chart completely bonkers. But it’s pretty scary to realise that size charts *did* make me feel that way as a teenager.

I’ve mailed them and asked if it’s a misprint – I fear not of course, but I shall see what they say!

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By: Sarah J /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2058 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:02:46 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2058 In reply to Sophie.

Thank you! :-) It’s all been said before but I thought it was worth saying again.

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By: Sophie /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2057 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:35:39 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2057 This is one of the best BadRep articles I’ve ever read.

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By: Becky Shepherd /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2056 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:18:00 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2056 In reply to Sarah J.

Me too. It saddens me that being different has been hijacked by folk looking to create a scene with very similar principles that many ‘alternatives’ were trying to avoid in mainstream culture to begin with. Exclusivity and superficial ness being the most blatantly obvious of those principles.

A couple of years ago, I walked into a vintage shop and when I asked about a pair of shorts I liked, I was told very rudely “I can look, but I know we won’t stock anything above a 30 inch waist”.

But as Kat says below, it’s not just size. Colour, hair cut and taste in socks all seem to be persecuting factors.

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By: Sarah J /2012/01/12/all-the-cool-kids-reject-beauty-fascism/#comment-2055 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:54:26 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9305#comment-2055 My god yes, so many scenes are whiter than white and it draws no comment because it’s an alternative / niche thing.

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