Twee : The Gentle Revolution in Music, Books, Television, Fashion and Film (9780062213051)

by Spitz, Marc

  The desire for purity is age-old, but if you were inclined (or a hater), you could reduce the entirety of the phenomenon chronicled in this book to a few modern events:

  We got the Internet.

  Barack Obama got elected.

  Big business crashed and small businesses flourished, and the people took power.

  And you would not be wrong. But on a slower and more subtle scale, it’s that the Twee-verse is a mark of a slow evolution toward a better, kinder, humbler, more politicized, and “so pure” human race, or at least one with a better record collection. The new culture of kindness is helping us improve as Americans. Think of how we rally to every tragedy, whether it’s a natural disaster or a mad gunman shooting up a mall or movie theater. We are all connected as a species, and now via our phones, and this is of a piece with the ethics of Twee. Punk has not been drained of its power, especially in culturally evolving countries: look at the sensational Pussy Riot, the all-female Russian insurgents who don’t play their instruments very well but are now among the most significant Punk acts in history, literally persecuted, sent to gulags, and fomenting revolution. There’s a Punk-rock quality to the mosh-pit-like gatherings in the post–Arab Spring Middle East too.

  But it’s Twee, I believe, that’s the only movement that’s going to make all these young people decent to each other. Once it’s fully open to everyone and seen as appealing to people who did not go to liberal arts colleges, its potential will be limitless.

  The old-school Twees (O.Twees?) are already making room. There’s a sort of cultural food coma they’re suffering from as they look for rock and roll kicks in the more extreme realms.

  “Within people who mostly listen to Indie rock,” says the culture critic Nitsuh Abebe, “it seems like a lot more of them are interested in black metal—a little bit of a reaction against listening to pleasantly sophisticated, polished Indie-rock bands. They want to jump out into something else. You did see a lot more people starting to say, ‘Oh, we’re bored with Wilco. Give me something more.’”

  Others simply want to achieve something beyond their Twitter feed and its careful quips and pop referencing. A fatigue is settling in that will be good for the movement, and that may see an increase in Twee Tribe activism in the coming years. “I had a certain measure of pride in my ability to know arcane stuff,” says Sean Nelson, “but it isn’t that hard to know trivia. The fact that IMDB exists robs you of that pride—but it also demonstrates that taking pride in that kind of knowledge is ultimately a substitute for real pride and accomplishment.”

  Will the children of the current Twee Tribe place their values on the former or the latter design for living? Will they be even softer than we were? Even more autodidactic and disconnected from the kind of experiences once prized by Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer and even, for a time, J. D. Salinger? Will they make great art or just talk about great art that’s already been made?

  “I live in Austin,” Andrew Bujalski told me. “It’s a yuppie paradise. I have a two-year-old son and I feel that raising a kid here there’s no way he won’t grow up soft because there’s nothing to push against.”

  Recently I tried to find birthday gifts for my niece and my godson, who are both about six and the children of Xers.

  “Has he ever seen Fantastic Mr. Fox?” I asked after my godson.

  “He loves it,” his mother said immediately.

  “Does she like Edward Gorey?” I asked my sister.

  “Very much.”

  I felt like I wanted to buy the kids a hammer and maybe a handsaw. Some nails. Take them on a trek through the woods. A vision quest was in order. They could wade into the unknown and return as men and women. But then I realized this was my problem, not theirs, and that children well versed in the weird are bound to diminish bullying, judgment, gay bashing, and even, eventually, racial divides. It used to be that the one person in your school who was into the Smiths automatically became your best friend. Now, if everyone worships at the same temple, virtue might actually come down to a question of true character. Right? Or is that very sunny, hopeful idea just another Twee trope in itself?

  Still at a loss for birthday gifts, I found myself browsing Etsy.

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