Comments on: Peer Pressure Spending in the Twenty-Something Crowd (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series) http://queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/ We're here, We're queer, and We're not going Shopping without Coupons Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:23:21 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: The Festival Of Under 30 Finances #15 at Money, Matter, and More Musings http://queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/comment-page-1/#comment-13681 The Festival Of Under 30 Finances #15 at Money, Matter, and More Musings Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:50:57 +0000 http://www.queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/#comment-13681 [...] John of Queercents presents Peer Pressure Spending in the Twenty-Something Crowd (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series). Read John’s thoughts on "finance psychology" and his attempts to understand why some people go beyond their means to keep up with the crowd. [...]<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-13681">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> [...] John of Queercents presents Peer Pressure Spending in the Twenty-Something Crowd (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series). Read John’s thoughts on “finance psychology” and his attempts to understand why some people go beyond their means to keep up with the crowd. [...]

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]]> By: John http://queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/comment-page-1/#comment-12393 John Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:30:10 +0000 http://www.queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/#comment-12393 Great comment! My partner and I actually spent an hour and a half discussing points raised by Harvard Student. Living in the Bay Area, we see a broad socio-economic spectrum of the LGBT community. That doesn't necessarily mean the LGBT community is inclusive. We also witness a "price of admission" for acceptance by queers, but we were torn about how this aspect is different from society in general. It came down to asking ourselves about the issue of selling out: why we do it, where we do it, and for what purpose or gain? The topic is something we have yet to sort out, and will definitely be the topic of a future post.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-12393">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Great comment! My partner and I actually spent an hour and a half discussing points raised by Harvard Student. Living in the Bay Area, we see a broad socio-economic spectrum of the LGBT community. That doesn’t necessarily mean the LGBT community is inclusive. We also witness a “price of admission” for acceptance by queers, but we were torn about how this aspect is different from society in general. It came down to asking ourselves about the issue of selling out: why we do it, where we do it, and for what purpose or gain? The topic is something we have yet to sort out, and will definitely be the topic of a future post.

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]]> By: Harvard Student http://queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/comment-page-1/#comment-11559 Harvard Student Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:24:29 +0000 http://www.queercents.com/2007/01/11/peer-pressure-spending-in-the-twenty-something-crowd-part-1-of-a-2-part-series/#comment-11559 John, Good post. My friends and I do a blog of sorts mostly for us and certainly nothing as fancy as Queercents. One question that we try to tackle honestly is how much "Queer identity", in particular, is itself indexed onto consumption. You write: "If you're young and fabulous, there's a compulsion to strut your stuff, whether it be your physical assets, or material assets, and it takes money to strut these both". My question is how much do we all problematically assume that expressing a Queer identity itself is about the clothes, the vacations, the neighborhoods, the parties, the gym, the television shows, etc. Think about it: if asked what on earth "gay culture" or "queer aesthetics" are, many of us are more apt to start things right out of consumer culture than with the writings of James Baldwin, for example. The pressures professional class gay (mostly white) men face (from marketers and peers) to go to a circuit party, Fire Island, Mykanos and to shop for certain clothing styles have to do with asserting "gayness" and fostering bonds of community, however problematic, complicated and understandable that is all at the same time. The stakes run higher than showing others up or claiming a space within a hierarchy. For many, the stakes are the possibilities for identity itself. What do we do about this? How do we negotiate life on the fault-line without simply falling into a libertarian ethic as so many groups in American history before us have done? I think homophobia among straights usually is to blame when they are quick to critique Queer consumerism and materialism but not their own quite obvious garden varieties of the same. The truth is that a consumerist ethic runs deeply through all aspects of American culture though histories differ and ways of tackling it in different communities will, thus, need to differ. Within the LGBT community, some thinking has begun and we must not be afraid to engage in self-criticism. One such title is Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market by Alexandra Chasin. What do you think? By the way, while my friends and I tend to be critical of naturalized consumerist ethics, it is also true that it makes sense that the first visible, politically strong Queer movements have found their most immediate allies in consumer society given how displaced we have been from legal, familial and religious institutions as well as within other communities of resistance. Still, one has to ask: what is the difference between excluding someone from a community because of who they sleep with, who they love or what their fantasies are about and excluding them simply because they don't have the price of admission to get into the Queer temple or to engage in the requisite rituals of Queer purification (the shopping makeover, bondage to the law of the gym, etc.)?<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-11559">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> John,

Good post. My friends and I do a blog of sorts mostly for us and certainly nothing as fancy as Queercents. One question that we try to tackle honestly is how much “Queer identity”, in particular, is itself indexed onto consumption. You write: “If you’re young and fabulous, there’s a compulsion to strut your stuff, whether it be your physical assets, or material assets, and it takes money to strut these both”. My question is how much do we all problematically assume that expressing a Queer identity itself is about the clothes, the vacations, the neighborhoods, the parties, the gym, the television shows, etc. Think about it: if asked what on earth “gay culture” or “queer aesthetics” are, many of us are more apt to start things right out of consumer culture than with the writings of James Baldwin, for example. The pressures professional class gay (mostly white) men face (from marketers and peers) to go to a circuit party, Fire Island, Mykanos and to shop for certain clothing styles have to do with asserting “gayness” and fostering bonds of community, however problematic, complicated and understandable that is all at the same time. The stakes run higher than showing others up or claiming a space within a hierarchy. For many, the stakes are the possibilities for identity itself. What do we do about this? How do we negotiate life on the fault-line without simply falling into a libertarian ethic as so many groups in American history before us have done?

I think homophobia among straights usually is to blame when they are quick to critique Queer consumerism and materialism but not their own quite obvious garden varieties of the same. The truth is that a consumerist ethic runs deeply through all aspects of American culture though histories differ and ways of tackling it in different communities will, thus, need to differ. Within the LGBT community, some thinking has begun and we must not be afraid to engage in self-criticism. One such title is Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market by Alexandra Chasin. What do you think?

By the way, while my friends and I tend to be critical of naturalized consumerist ethics, it is also true that it makes sense that the first visible, politically strong Queer movements have found their most immediate allies in consumer society given how displaced we have been from legal, familial and religious institutions as well as within other communities of resistance. Still, one has to ask: what is the difference between excluding someone from a community because of who they sleep with, who they love or what their fantasies are about and excluding them simply because they don’t have the price of admission to get into the Queer temple or to engage in the requisite rituals of Queer purification (the shopping makeover, bondage to the law of the gym, etc.)?

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