deTolley

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING SERIES OF EMAILS OCCURRED BETWEEN TWO PARTIES OF THIS BLOG AND SOME OTHER PARTY DUDE WHO YOU MAY OR MAY NOT KNOW. IN OTHER WORDS, YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW HIM BUT IF YOU DO, CONGRATULATIONS. 

deTolley

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:34 AM:

I’m done with heritage.

John Lugg

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:45 AM:

This sounds familiar.

deTolley 

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:57 AM:

But don’t worry, I’ve found a solution.

Sam Franklin

Sent: Wednesday, May 223, 2012 9:58 AM:

in know just wear spread collars and drakes ties and tasle loafters like me youll not get bored or angry with that

sent from my mom’s phone

deTolley

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 10:45 AM:

Like, I love heritage. It gave me identity and differentiation within a culture. I already had a home, I just wanted to find a place outside it that was entirely my own.

But as the market saturated and demand went up, I was discovering that this place that once held individuality was now becoming a full, slimy and sick, fishbowl with useless castles sitting in the water; a place where the rocks were neon colored for the sake of being neon colored. 

Leaders of the industry like to dispense knowledge like, “find your own path” and, “be curious and individualistic” when they really mean, “fuck off my own grind yo”. They know that the fishbowl is full. 

Instead of becoming a place of innovation, the upper middle class is happy to sit. They’re happy to produce a lifestyle that creates stratification without creating any true value. Stratification has become a product of culture and free time rather than true ability to make progress economically or in a sense of human progression. Even in the chase to discover the “new” they’re still stuck in the same socio-economic fishbowl as before. They mistake change for progression, which is something all liberally minded people tend to fall for.

This place of upper-individualized-custom-trite-bespoke-anti-bespoke(because every one is calling it bespoke these days)-middle-class grouping is sickening in that everyone is capable of recognizing their own individuality (given their historical perspective of their identities) but often struggles to see others.

There’s the furniture collector/designers/bum/ragamuffin who’s loft is photographed just so with everything at a right angle or at a carefree 45 degrees (NOT 35 or 40). His loft is so clean for the photos that you’d think that gnomes live in his walls and when he falls asleep they come out and dust everything down, throw out yesterday’s paper, adjust the occasionally ridden skateboard, scrub the scuffs from the Vibram soles out of the floor, press every magazine with an iron to make sure there are no rolled edges or creases, trim his perfectly rugged beard that hides his cherubian cheeks, give the walls another coat of white paint making sure that the exposed brick is not encroached upon, clean his underwear (that actually might be his mom), attempt to reassert the man’s pathos for others not inclined in the arts while he sleeps by putting gnome dust underneath his eyes, sort his Fish Oil supplements into two separate jars (those above 1ml and those below 1ml as if they don’t understand the concept of significant figures [incidentally, gnomes don’t understand significant figures{thus, it’s a logical nightmare for them because their instruments cannot determine volume to an infinitely small number which drove a few gnomes mad, so now they cheat and just do it by guesswork}]), and add air to the tires of his bike that he purchased from someone else’s history to assume as his own. 

This is a group individualism mistaken for true individualism. Everyone has those gnomes living in their walls. It’s an assumed simplicity that people hope will reveal their true baroque personality of culture and consumption to the world. This group is defined by their use of time to create individuality within themselves. Some other groups (i.e. the poor; the lower middle class) will exhibit this, but individuality is not pursued with such fervency or with such unity. Individuality is inherent in usage of time. However, using time with the intent to create greater and perceivable differentiation is what I believe defines this group. However, because the manner of individualization is the same, you have tangible things to define this group. People are surprisingly definable - in a lucid sense - no matter how many Nietzsche quoting tumblr heritage chambray females there are insisting otherwise. Sorry to break it to you, but they might have watched the Titanic a few too many times and bought into that “woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets” or whatever. Sure, your projection isn’t definable as I’m not sure that even you can define exactly what your projection is, but you have quantifiable actions and emotions. At the very least you are part of a society; that is a notion of definition.

This upper-individualized-custom-trite-bespoke-anti-bespoke(because every one is calling it bespoke these days)-middle-class could possibly be blamed on the Sam’s Club culture. I mean, it would make sense as it is somewhat close to an anti-thesis (perhaps more of a caveat): conscious consumption as an identity versus overconsumption as an identity. It would make sense, given our big-box-of-1000-Twizzlers from the wholesale shoppe upbringing, that we would grow to find our differentiation in our choices to have less and acquire items with greater quality (this point can be contested). 

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE NEXT TWO EMAILS HOLD NO RELEVANCE TO THE CONVERSATION

Sam Franklin

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 10:49 AM:

hey looka  this shirt i designed ill sent it to you guys

sent from my mom’s phone

Sam Franklin

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 10:49 AM:

heres a purlple one purlple is in this year its goanna be pretty cool

sent from my mom’s phone

John Lugg

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:11 PM:

It sounds like you’ve identified the group but I’m not sure how you are not involved in this group. I mean, you sought out heritage as a way to be a subjective god climbing a mountain in American made boots.

Yet how can something like heritage be all yours even within a small community? Clothing is a cultural phenomena, as otherwise I wouldn’t even bother with briefs. We all have some lineal sense of what we have culturally inherited from our forefathers. How do you exclude yourself from this group?

deTolley

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:54 PM:

I suppose that I really can’t. Other than I know that after mall-wear brands stop selling heritage I’ll still be rooting out old Woolrich flannels. Is allegiance heritage? My biggest problem is the refraction of image that people get from other people. I look like a bandwagon hopper to others. Others look like bandwagon hoppers to me. Yet I am not a bandwagon hopper and those others are probably not bandwagon hoppers either. Our views of each other are just disjointed refractions of our subjective projections onto others. 

Most frustrating is that I think that people cannot determine their trivial individualization to be a cultural movement. Some perceive it as an actual divergence from society. Anti-societal types forget that their definition is still societal.

John Lugg

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 3:44 PM:

So I’ve gathered that you’re not done with heritage? Because if you change you’ll just be dragging society into a new uncharted area.

deTolley

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 3:55 PM:

I’m getting on the forums and I’m cutting and burning everything heritage. I’m going to try my hardest to make heritage as something stupid, overplayed, and lame. Heritage will burn to the ground. Then, when everyone has left as there isn’t anything that interests them anymore, I’ll retake and settle my heritage. Everyone else can screw off.

John Lugg

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 3:59 PM:

Ah, yes. That actually makes some sense. It’s petty on your part but you still get what you want. 

Sam Franklin

Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 2:56 PM:

if this was all a joke i dont get it

sent from my mom’s phone

EDITOR’S NOTE: I DON’T HAVE A REAL EDITOR, WHO AM I KIDDING?