Emmanuel College

Ironic (In)authenticity

A Class Based Theoretical Account of Contemporary Indie Culture

Brian W. Westerlind

Research Submission for Distinction in the Field of Communication, Media, and Cultural Studies

Facuity Advisor: Dr. Christopher Craig

25 April 2013

© Brian W. Westerlind Abstract

In this study I explore indie culture specifically as a manifestation of Zizek's cultural capitalism in which we are encouraged to consume in order to do culture and capitalism "better." In this sense, indie positions itself as a means to do authentic culture independently of the "mainstream," which it subsequently positions as an impure and inauthentic cultural space contaminated by corporate interests, conformity, and mindlessness. However, the dialectic relationship between indie and the mainstream reveals that indie instead functions as a culturally superior position of consumption of and within mass culture. Through analysis of both the dominant narrative of indie culture as well as the ironic indie subject, I demonstrate how indie functions as a position of (upper) middle class consumption that upholds class distinction while repressing antagonistic voices that challenge the very exploitive social structure upon which indie finds its articulation and with which it is aligned.

Introduction

I was recently working on this project at a chain coffee house when a single line from an exchange between the barista and another customer cut through my own thought. The customer, a 20-something female who wore a frayed leather jacket (perhaps frayed at home) and loud- patterned leggings (definitely factory made) said in a light ironic tone: "everyone's so alternative, and we're all the same, and it's great." This sentiment epitomizes indie culture today.

First, it suggests that indie is a popular, or more precisely "mainstream," cultural formulation that has a problematic relationship with "the mainstream." As cultural dissidence is certainly profitable today, indie has been thoroughly commodified. Therefore, indie-and its dominant narrative prescription to do authentic culture and cultural production independent of mass culture-today functions as part and parcel of mass culture. Indeed, in this project I approach indie culture specifically as a middle class position of consumption. I am interested in how indie is consumed and how such consumption encourages individuals to conceptualize

2 themselves in tenns of an exteriority from the system in which they participate. Therefore, I am specifically interested in indie as a mass produced commodity and I am in no way attempting to undennine the work of small indie music or art scenes that strive for authenticity and autonomy by valuing DIY and distance from corporate influences. These communities certainly exist and I do believe there is value in such endeavors. However, I will also levy some critical pressure on the notion that such communities operate as real kernels of authentic cultural production within a cultural field co-opted by corporate profiteering. The point of course is that we must thoroughly consider just how we attempt to do culture "against the grain" when such cultural practice is still predicated upon consumption.

Second the above quote demonstrates how individuals who participate in or identify with indie behave with the understanding that in tenns of its very own paradigm, indie is inauthentic.

By ironically consuming indie culture (and also aspects of mass culture that have not been

"indie-ed") the indie subject maintains a critical distance from consumed inauthenticity, thereby shoring up a sense of personal authenticity. The entire second half of this project is dedicated to exploring the indie subject as an ironic subject. Of course this is not to say that my construction of the indie subject is the only indie subject position out there. However, in light of late capitalism's commodification of indie, I do think that material conditions provide for the emergence of a dominant subject position in which irony figures most predominantly.

I am concerned here specifically with the material conditions as realized within the context of late capitalism. Indeed, what the scholarship on indie culture lacks is a rigorous theoretical account of indie ideals and subjectivity through the lens of Marxism. In their respective studies of indie culture, Michael Newman and Ryan Hibbett have begun the

3 groundwork for this endeavor. Put simply, they argue that indie functions as a mode of consumption from which consumers derive a sense of superior taste. Hibbet sums it up nicely when he asserts that indie rock "satisfies among audiences a desire for social differentiation and supplies music providers with a tool for exploiting that desire" (56). Yet although Newman and

Hibbett are clearly invested in Marxist ideas, they do not sufficiently theorize their important and certainly legitimate claims regarding indie culture. For example, how do material conditions not only exploit but also produce the desire for social differentiation in the first place? Also, how does all this fundamentally tie back to class? The notion of superior taste always advances a class position, and instead of skirting around class, or considering it simply as one (possibly peripheral) element of indie culture, we must thoroughly interrogate indie in terms of its class­ based constitution and functioning.

The Narrative ofIndie Culture

Let us begin with a deceptively simple binary upon which the dominant narrative of indie culture emerges. This, of course, being the binary opposition between indie and mainstream culture. Upon first consideration, indie's declaration of independence from the mainstream may appear to denote a formal rupture between two communities. Instead, the indie-mainstream binary emerges through the dual process in which indie constitutes itself, first through the constitution of an Other, and second through the subsequent positioning against this Other in terms of antithesis. Far from a clash between oppositional forces, indie needs mainstream opposition in order to be. It follows then that indie's disavowal from the mainstream must always

4 contain an internal inconsistency: although indie emerges for the very purpose of asserting its independence from the mainstream, it must always already exist in intimate relation to the mainstream precisely due to the categories' relation of mutual constitution. Thus, akin to the

Hegelian master-slave dialectic that informs the most fundamental germ of Marxist thought, indie can only claim its independence from the mainstream through its relation with the mainstream, lest it extinguishes its own categorical existence.

Nonetheless, indie culture establishes itself through this precarious relation. Structurally speaking, it emerges largely through negative relation. Indie positions the (ideologico-discursive) mainstream as a self evident and ubiquitous population through which indie emerges as a wholly negative and independent relation. Simply speaking, it largely defines itself through what it is not-in die is not mainstream. In his study of indie rock, Hibbett conceptualizes this fundamental structuring in terms of a negative relation: "Indie rock exists largely as an absence, a nebulous

'other' or as a negative value that acquires meaning from what it opposes. Indie rock is far from a static entity; rather, it is a malleable space filled by discourse and power" (58). As a structural absence, indie opens a space in which a moralizing cultural politics can ideologically position itself against a "bad" mainstream culture. Of course, paradoxically, the former must repeatedly conjure up the latter rather than attempt to abolish it in the name of "good culture."

Before specifically interrogating the ideological function of the narrative of indie culture, we must first consider the "raw" discursive materials through which indie generally promulgates its moralizing prescription for good, pure culture and cultural production. A triad of interrelated ideals-authenticity, purity, and autonomy-saturates indie's discursive landscape. As opposed to privileging and isolating each ideal individually, I identify a triad here because from a

5 standpoint of semiotic functioning, the three ideals come to ambiguously signify and reciprocally denote each other within discourses about indie. Consider Newman's treatment of these ideals:

"the alternative practitioner sees autonomy and authenticity as markers of their purity.. .In independent music and movies, the ideal of separation is most often figured as autonomy, as the power artists retain to control their creative processes. Autonomy, in turn, is seen as a guarantee of authenticity" (19). Here autonomy from the mainstream signifies authenticity, while autonomy and authenticity both signify purity. Of course, within this loose framework we could also say that purity and autonomy signify authenticity. Clearly the symbolic clarity and integrity of each term becomes less important than the whole triad's function to shore up a general symbolic bastion against the "mainstream."

In order to advance its own position, indie invests the mainstream with notions of cultural, intellectual, and social inferiority at the same time it positions itself against the latter as a culturally superior relation. Indie produces the mainstream as an apocalyptic vision of an impure and inauthentic cultural space contaminated by corporate interests, conformity, and mindlessness. Indie conjures up the emptiness of the automaton in order to fill the indie subject with a robust cultural and intellectual fullness. As any "pure" space must be policed from within in order to maintain its integrity, we also see the profusion of correlate discourses around impurity and contamination-anxieties and fears expressed for example within the discourse of

"selling out," where corporate financing and major label record deals are viewed as the co­ optation and curtailing of artistic freedom and the defilement of a "pure" artistic space once devoid of commercial values and untouched by the masses (Newman 19).

6 Now that we have established what indie generally says, we must consider its precise ideological functioning within the context of class, for as Newman demonstrates, the consumers of indie culture "are mainly young ... white, educated, affluent, and urban" (22). Throughout this work I will conceptualize indie culture as a manifestation of the middle and upper middle class, both in terms of economic as well as cultural capital. I will show how indie ultimately advances a middle class position of consumption even though it may seem to refute such a "mainstream" cultural position at first glance.

Insofar as ideological narratives construct our experience of the world as well as encourage particular hegemonic modes of thought and behavior, I will here begin to investigate how the indie narrative advances dominant class ideology while repressing antagonistic voices with which it must always function in active dialectic relation. In The Political Unconscious,

Fredric Jameson asserts that ideological strategies of containment underlie the political formation of any given narrative. Such strategies "[allow1 what can be thought to seem internally coherent in its own terms, while repressing the unthinkable ... which lies beyond its boundaries" (Jameson 53). Through an interrogation of its contained manifest content, I will spend this section rewriting the indie narrative in terms of the antagonistic elements it forces into latency.

The indie narrative importantly reveals that in our current moment, the manifest content of larger cultural narratives does not necessarily function as an internally coherent "whole." The surface of the indie narrative indeed proves rife with contradictory elements. Some discourses assert authenticity while masking complicity with the mainstream; other discourses use authenticity to overtly advance a corporate agenda, and as such encourage reading in terms of

7 inauthenticity. By taking a look at both sides of the above contradiction, we can begin to draw some conclusions that will provide aid in rewriting the narrative.

In terms of the former element which masks its constitutive relation with the

"mainstream," consider independent cultural production. Here indie glorifies authentic means of cultural production removed from corporate finance and influence. Indeed, the independent music label enjoys the prestigious demarcation of pure and autonomous space for the production of authentic music-music born of artistic muse and integrity, untouched by profit-driven corporate music moguls who demand the formulaic drivel of the masses. Today, of course, most indie acts are distributed by small or medium sized "indie" labels that, at the culmination of at times long and convoluted hierarchies of ownership, lead back to one of the large major labels

(Universal, Sony, Warner) that today dominate the market. For example, in his case study of the independent record label Wax Trax, Stephen Lee discusses how the label secured a P&D

(pressing and distribution) deal with TVT records, "itself bought in 1991 by Atlantic-financed

Interscope Records" (19). In light of to day's general corporate ownership, much scholarly work on indie music identifies the late 80s and early 90s as a period of mass corporatization in which independent labels began to engender closer ties with the major labels. Pete Dale asserts that

"major labels became able to inject relatively small sums into the 'schmindie' labels and then claim rights on any product which attained higher sales" (184).

This is not to say that corporate discourse fabricates the narrative of independent means of production in its entirety. Dale argues that the scholarly treatment of the corporate ownership of indie labels largely neglects the fact that such labels successfully operate today. He cites US indie labels Dischord, K Records, and Kill Rock Stars as members of "an existing continuum of

8 labels which operate with business practices infonned by original indie ethics" introduced by

Rough Trade, one of the most influential independent record labels active in the UK during the

1970s. Such ethics include a 50/50 profit split between label and artist, as well as the employment of musicians not only as producers of cultural texts, but also as laborers in offices and warehouses (188).

Yet placing focus on the corporatization of cultural production, as much scholarly work on indie seems to do, distracts us from indie's more fundamental relation to the capitalist marketplace itself. Ideology almost always masks this relation in the name of good art.

Discourses around the "real" independence enjoyed during indie's pre-corporate heyday of the

70s and 80s, as well as the idea that labels like Dischord still exist today as real kernels of independence within a co-opted cultural field, on the one hand, mourn the loss of good art, and on the other, celebrate its enfeebled and precarious perseverance into the 21st century. The logic here asserts that increased implication in business practices directly correlates with decreased artistic integrity of cultural product.

This logic ultimately culminates in the construction of the indie artist or musician as artistic genius untainted by the detrimental effects of commercialism. David Hesmondhalgh argues that although indie originally emerged in the UK with the overtly political and commercial aim of democratizing the production and distribution of music that "creative autonomy from commercial restraint is a theme which has often been used to mystify artistic production by making the isolated genius the hero of cultural myth" (35). The independent music label comes to signify a safe haven in which the isolated musical genius can work.

However, the isolated genius, and even the notion of corporate co-optation which subsequently

9 provides for the possibility of "pure" non-corporate ownership both function as Althusserian ideology that "represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" (Althusser 162). Here, any notion of independence from business practices must conceal a fundamental relation to such practices precisely because the material conditions produced by the capitalist marketplace in which independent music labels must operate mandate organization in terms of business enterprise. Independent labels, then, always require capital in order to operate, produce and distribute product, and at least "break even." Hesmondhalgh provides us a concrete example in his discussion of the radical anarchist band and independent label Crass, active in the UK during the late 70s and early 80s: "the band nevertheless relied on an 'outside' cultural entrepreneur to facilitate its early recordings: there was no pure, original moment where anarcho-punk was 'untainted' by entrepreneurism" (40). The ideal of independent or autonomous means of production, and especially such means without formal corporate ties, conceals indie's fundamental relation to economics and the market place, and subsequently to the dominant class ideologies of the capitalist marketplace and "mainstream" mass consumer culture.

However, we cannot dismiss the corporation here; profit driven corporate speech constitutes a distinct and substantial portion of the narrative of indie culture. Such discourse functions quite differently than the discourses discussed above insofar as they do not mask their

"inauthentic" origins or intentions-they function to sell and they make no excuses for this fact.

Nonetheless, we can't discredit these or locate their primary functioning as outside indie culture, for even though they read as "inauthentic," they must still function as part and parcel of the indie

10 narrative insofar as inauthentic commercialism must always condition authentic indie-ness in

order for the latter to exist and advance itself.

Historically speaking, Volkswagen has perhaps functioned as the number one"corporate

sponsor" of various countercultures, including the modern formulation of indie culture about

which we are concerned here. Newman's analysis of Volkswagen's brand positioning and

marketing strategies illustrates my point. Beginning in 1959 as a response to 60s countercultural

movements, and recently revitalized during the 1990s and 2000s, Volkswagen's marketing

strategies have employed ideologies of youth counterculture, non-conformity, authenticity, and

independence. Newman considers the tagline,"On the road of life there are drivers and there are

passengers. Drivers Wanted." Thus, Volkswagen asserts that its"product will distinguish

consumers as active, autonomous individuals and save them from being passive followers" (28).

The ads romanticize youthful aimlessness and free-spiritedness, thereby suggesting an

authenticity lost upon the highly structured, work-oriented world of the"mainstream." Newman

also notes that many of Volkswagen commercials exhibit qualities generally associated with

indie films, namely"... offbeat, understated, and character-centered" narratives (31). The overtly

"inauthentic" ad campaign functions to promulgate the ideals of indie culture with which it is

actively at odds.

Now, we are not only concerned with narrative elements such as ad campaigns in which

corporate speech (re )produces the ideals of indie culture through semiotic reference to such

ideals. Today many box office movies and national television programs feature indie music itself

as an intratextual mechanism used to imbue the whole product with the authenticity, obscurity,

and hipness associated with the indie music. Just to name a few examples: Grey'sAnatomy,

11 Gossip GirZ, and Vampire Diaries have featured tracks from The National, The OC and Weeds have featured cuts from Death Cab for Cutie, The Smiths, Regina Spektor, and Feist grace the soundtrack of the 2009 box office film (500) Days ofSummer, which fittingly stars Zooey

Deschanel, part time vocalist in the indie-pop duo She & Him, and part time actress in other popular texts such as the 2003 film EZfand the recent sitcom New Girl.

Today, then, many indie ideals as well as indie cultural productions themselves find their articulation precisely within the context of the overtly commercial products of mass culture. Such intertextuality brings us back to the earlier point that indie must always call upon the mainstream in order to maintain itself. It is quite clear that these commercially driven narrative elements are not interested in maintaining their authenticity, but through their very "inauthenticity" they indeed sustain indie's underlying political and philosophical ideals through inciting further discourse regarding the appropriation or perhaps the appropriate use of such ideals. For example, the television programs above provide for several possible interpretations: the incorporated indie music could be seen as a real kernel of authenticity within mass culture; it could receive criticism on the basis of the classic indie fundamentalist notion of selling out; or it could perhaps enjoy celebration as an act of cultural rejuvenation in which "good culture" infiltrates mass culture.

Such "inauthentic" indie discourses then serve the important function of conditioning the indie narrative insofar as they repeatedly conjure up mass culture, a constitutive element of the indie narrative, in order to advance one aspect of the narrative-indie-ness. Here we return to the fundamental inconsistency with which I began the discussion on narrative: the mainstream can never be abolished or function outside the narrative. It must always remain as an element of the very manifest fabric of the narrative itself.

12 I argue, then, that the narrative of indie culture is a traumatic narrative; it must always suffer from the trauma of its own constitution. In maintaining itself as a fundamental antagonism between categories that necessitate each other's existence, the narrative of indie culture must repeatedly approximate the contents of what Jameson calls its political unconscious, that is, the history of class struggle. The indie narrative's texture is fundamentally traumatic, and from the perspective of narrative specifically, such a trauma provides for the emergence of the witty irony associated with indie culture. Through irony, the narrative attempts to forge a critical distance from its own trauma and contradiction.

Now, even though we are dealing with a narrative born of contradiction, we have done nothing more at this point than explicate the manifest (albeit contradictory) content of the narrative. The point from which we can begin to uncover the antagonistic voice the indie narrative represses, i.e Jameson's ideologeme, is in the notion of authenticity. In expanding our vantage point in order to consider the indie narrative within the context of the entire network of antagonistic class ideologies in which it is situated, it is clear that authenticity functions not just as an ideal of indie culture, but as just one manifestation of the dominant middle and upper middle class ideology of authentic or ethical consumption.

From this perspective contemporary indie culture proves to be a manifestation of capitalism's most recent articulation as "socially responsible" capitalism. Here unrestricted capitalism becomes aware of the injustice it necessarily creates and subsequently attempts to rectify it through the commodification of notions such as social justice or environmental preservation. The social logic that emerges here is that the consumption of specific commodities will allow us to do culture, society, and capitalism itself better. For Zizek who coins this most

13 recent manifestation 'cultural capitalism,' "at the level of consumption ... authentic experience matters" insofar as "we are not merely buying or consuming, we are simultaneously doing something meaningful, showing our capacity for care and our global awareness, participating in a collective project" (First as Tragedy 54, his emphasis).

Consider, for example, the organic food movement. Here genetic modification and chemical preservatives have even forced the food we eat into Baudrillard's hyperreal, "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality" (Baudrillard 165). Capital has therefore created the conditions that allow it to position notions of reality linked to health and environmental preservation-real, organic, natural food-against the backdrop of inauthentic hyperreality, against for example the myth of the Twinkie, the unbelievable food that can survive even a nuclear holocaust. By consuming organic food we are encouraged to believe that we save our own bodies and our world from the detrimental effects created by the forces of consumption in the first place. Or consider Starbucks coffee in which "what you are really buying is the

'coffee ethic' which includes care for the environment, social responsibility towards the producers, plus a place where you yourself can participate in communal life" (Zizek, First as

Tragedy, 53). Here consumption elevates our guilt for participating in the exploitation of "Third

World" countries and the environment, and even simulates community in a world in which public space has largely fallen prey to the forces of privatization. Of course in both examples such green or ethical consumption only exacerbates rather than eliminates the fundamental problem­ unrestricted capitalism itself.

Just as we can better the world and ourselves by consuming organic, we can do culture and society better by consuming indie. It is no surprise then that the myth of the hipster has

14 become so prevalent today, or that multinational corporations such as Urban Outfitters flourish by selling the currently ubiquitous indie or hipster style that is " ... carefully constructed as to seem not constructed and therefore 'pure'" (Hibbett 71, his emphasis). Today, commodities must help us save the world, and indie culture fits into this paradigm. However, it does not fit cleanly as it actually inverts the dominant logic of cultural capitalism. Whereas green consumption emphasizes a rectification of the whole system on the part of the collective will of society to consume, indie emphasizes a purification of a specific cultural space through consumption on the part of a specific cultural group. Make no mistake, however: such a rift only constitutes a point in which the same narrative manipulates or doubles back on itself, and indeed, both seemingly contradictory elements point to the same middle/upper middle class cultural and material space of consumption. In cultural capitalism's dominant articulation as an inclusive collective project to improve capitalism, it mystifies the necessary condition for inclusion: a middle or upper middle class position. As cultural capitalism's logic of consumption generally functions along the lines of "specialty"-special food, special cars, special clothes, etc.-it is quite clear that in order to sustain the lifestyle cultural capitalism encourages, one must have access to the requisite economic and cultural capitals of the more privileged classes. Cultural capitalism's ethical consumption cannot constitute the whole of the capitalist system, but only a specific classed space within the system. Indie overtly delineates just such a privileged and classed space of cultural authenticity in its supposed dissidence from the mainstream. Indeed, when indie rails against the mainstream it is largely railing against all of the other (generally less privileged) class positions which it finds culturally inferior. Indie's authentic cultural space is the

15 same privileged middle class space that cultural capitalism mystifies in the name of the collective, and in which the bulk of cultural capitalism's ethical consumption occurs.

Indie then ultimately functions alongside other manifestations of cultural capitalism's logic of consumption, the sum effect of which constitutes a symbolic space of authenticity and purity, quasi-enclosed on the basis of personal leverage of the economic and cultural capitals of the middle and upper middle classes. Subsequently, such a structure functions as a symbolic buffer against inauthentic consumption (the consumption of commodities that do not include within themselves an apology or corrective mechanism for their very being as commodities), a type of "uncaring" or ignorant consumption symbolically associated with the laboring classes. Of course, the symbolic space of authentic ethical consumption too emerges within material space, and as such, the social logic of authenticity functions to isolate populations on the basis of class.

Under cultural capitalism retail spaces become a microcosm of class antagonism insofar as such spaces for the consumption of authenticity, although ubiquitous throughout mass consumer culture, become symbolically, economically, and interpersonally hostile to the laboring classes.

Now we can finally return to Jameson in order to reconstruct the repressed yet constitutive portion of the narrative of indie culture. As we have considered, the manifest portion of the narrative advances a middle class position even though its trauma and contradiction allow it to resemble a dissident voice that is antagonistic towards the dominant hegemonic system.

However, the system's utility for indie most clearly belies the latter's supposed antagonism. Even though indie must function as an element of this hegemonic system, it positions itself against it in order to maintain the superiority of the class position it represents. In other words, for indie the hegemony is useful to keep around. Its "challenge" to the system can only exist and function

16 insofar as the system remains unchallenged. And here we find the voices that shape and indeed levy pressure against the indie narrative in their latency: the voices that call for the radical restructuring of the dominant mode of production. Such voices need not articulate their position through commodity form, nor do they hold any vested interest in maintaining the relations of production that allow for oppression and exploitation in terms of class. What lies just beyond the contained manifest borders of the indie narrative is precisely a call for the dissolution of the very exploitive structure upon which indie finds its articulation and with which it is aligned-a dangerous proposition, indeed.

Constructing the Indie Subject

As any cultural narrative engenders real material effects, the next logical step here is thus to analyze how the indie narrative manifests itself in cultural practice, or, more specifically, we must consider the constitution and function of the contemporary indie subject within the context of late capitalism. At least in terms of narrative, indie advances a position of authentic separation from the mainstream. It seems useful therefore to first consider bodies and difference-how does power manage and/or produce bodies that display or practice difference from the dominant construction of the norm? Even a perfunctory consideration of modern oppression and identity politics will demonstrate how Capital generally tends to religiously police and normalize on the basis of embodied traits or behaviors which are irrationally feared and nearly impossible to efface-the female body, the non-white body, the gay body (i.e perverse sexuality naturalized within the body by discourse and institutions); these bodies are marked, although through very different processes, as threatening to the established order. This imperative to normalize and

17 contain manifests itself, for example, in today's common trope of the gay best friend, positioned as a fabulous helper to the fashion-impaired heterosexuals as opposed to a militant queer who attempts to dismantle heteronormative mandates.

However, power structures do not eke out and normalize the preexisting embodied

"indie-ness" in a person like they seek to normalize one's sexual deviancy. Instead, through ideals of independence and authenticity, the indie subject seems to react to and resist normalizing power structures. Yet power structures here impose no substantive threat or challenge to which the indie subject must resist. Indie represents a sanctioned, and as we will explore shortly, ironic position of middle class consumption that is constituted by and indeed upholds the material conditions of class exploitation under late capitalism. Capital wishes not to normalize indie culture, but to allow for its distinction and unrestrained advancement.

In order advance my theory of the contemporary indie subject, I turn here to sociologist

Pierre Bourdieu, precisely because his work on subject or habitus formation accounts for the relation between subjective experience and objective social conditions, which is important when considering any subject position, but is paramount for our thought here on the indie subject insofar as objective conditions allow for the emergence of the ironic subjectivity at the heart of indie. In Outline ofa Theory ofPractice Bourdieu works out his concept of habitus:

The structures constitutive of a particular type of environment (e.g the material

conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition) produce habitus, sy stems of

durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as

structuring structures ...objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a

18 conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain

them, and, being all this, collectively orchestrated without being the product of the

orchestrating action of a conductor (72, his emphasis).

The objective conditions associated with the middle and upper middle class position produce durable dispositions within our indie subject that are necessarily compatible with the constitutive conditions. Such dispositions include what Bourdieu calls cultural capital-codes and forms of knowledge that are "accumulated through upbringing and education which [confer] social status.

Cultural capital is the linchpin of a system of distinction in which cultural hierarchies correspond to social ones and people's tastes are a marker of class" (Thornton 10). Through the inculcation of the cultural capital of the middle class, the indie subj ect forms dispositions that allow him or her to competently traverse the material and cultural space of the same class. It is important to note here that class conditions constitute the primary structuring of the indie subject insofar as early familial experiences play a substantial role in inculcating habitus (Bourdieu 78). The indie narrative and its ideals then function as a secondary structuring element, inculcated during adolescence and early adulthood. Hibbet argues that indie has its own set of cultural capital, and therefore that certain values of the group, such as a concern for purity constitute "... a kind of class habitus" (60). This position in itself, however will not do here precisely because indie emerges not as akin to a class habitus, but as an element of a middle class habitus. Nonetheless,

Hibbet is correct in his assertion of indie's own set of "cultural" capital.

Here I make a distinction between "general" middle class values (such as college education or conspicuous consumption) and the values more specifically tied to indie ideals.

19 Sarah Thornton's conceptualization of the codes needed to traverse a subculture proves useful.

Working from Bourdieu, Thornton coins the term subcultural capital. Generally specific to youth cultures, subcultural capital denotes 'hipness' that becomes intelligible to other members of the same subculture. When discussing objectified (sub )cultural capital, Thornton states, "just as books and paintings display cultural capital in the family home, so subcultural capital is objectified in the form of fashionable haircuts and well-assembled record collections." (11). The ideals of authenticity, purity, and separation from the mainstream that constitute the indie narrative become objectified and/or embodied subcultural capital such as "hipster" fashion, mustaches, various indie music and film canons, and other specialized commodities. Thornton maintains that subcultural capital is largely inculcated via the media as opposed to early familial relationships, thus confirming my assertion of the primacy of a middle class habitus within the indie subj ect.

However, rave culture in the UK creates the context through which Thornton formulates her notion of subcultural capital, and in terms of this object she argues that there is little correlation between class and subcultural capital. In fact, she argues that subcultural capital largely functions to obfuscate or reject class position through youthful rebellion: "subcultural capitals fuel rebellion against, or rather escape from, the trappings of parental class. The assertion of subcultural distinction relies, in part, on a fantasy of classlessness" (12). Thornton's position here becomes problematic insofar as such a fantasy is always actively in relation with the class position to which ravers must always "return" after a night of dancing. However a comparison with rave culture does reveal how indie culture functions not to obfuscate but to uphold and even flaunt its own class superiority. Whereas rave culture denotes a youthful

20 (perhaps immature) and quasi self-destructive mode of rebellion from an ideologically paternalized or maternalized (but still classed) mainstream, indie culture exhibits more of a cool pretension from a mainstream that is positioned as intellectually and socially inferior and uncultured. Here disavowal functions in terms of cultural elitism as opposed to a more "militant" notion of social rebellion as exhibited by the members of rave cultures.

Hibbet aptly notes that through a process similar to Bourdieu's distinction between high and low art, indie functions as a taste culture. Similar to the process and effects of consumption of "high" art by the privileged elite, indie "can be used to generate and sustain myths of social or intellectual superiority. Obscurity becomes a positive feature, while exclusion is embraced as the necessary consequence of the majority's lack of 'taste'" (57). Such indie elitism does not function entirely on the level of myth, as the indie subject relies upon the material capitals of the middle class position in order to sustain his or her "elite" indie status. Contemporary indie culture operates more or less along the lines of consumption of fairly pricey and specialized commodities. Therefore, the signifying properties of in die's dairy-free lattes, environmentally sustainable shoes, or professional cameras come at a real price. Taken out of context, of course, we could easily be referring to the general elite (ethical, green, etc) middle class consumption under cultural capitalism, a mode of consumption, as I argued in the previous section, from which indie emerges as a logical extension. However, although the indie subject certainly participates in the cultural elitism that comes from such class based consumption, he or she cannot unproblematically consume, else the entire project of indie culture would be for not. To explore the primary subject feature that allows for indie to maintain its distinction in our current society in which portions of mass culture are very much invested in notions of authenticity, we

21 must consider the interaction between the cultural capital of the middle class and the subcultural capital of indie that in part create the indie habitus.

Freud's basic model of the psyche provides a structural metaphor useful in interrogating the sum effects of the interaction between the elements of the indie habitus that concern us here.

Through instilling the ideals of and means to do authentic culture separate from the mainstream, the subcultural capital of indie functions as a morality somewhat analogous to the superego. It restrains the indie subject, pushing him or her away from the values and products of mass culture while instilling a pious fervor for the consumption of indie culture as well as a sense of moral superiority over the schmucks who live in inauthentic ignorance. However, at the same time that subcultural capital moralizes the experience of mass culture, the dominant cultural capital of the middle class renders the subject compatible with the values, structures, and products of mass consumer culture. With the early inculcation of this cultural capital, the indie subject to some degree must desire the products and values of mass culture. How can she or he not? The objective conditions of mass culture condition the inculcation of this very cultural logic. We must consider indie in terms of individual negotiation of desire, or, in light of the ideological function, the ideological manipulation or re-channelling of the individual's basic compatibility with and desire for the products emerging from objective class conditions.

When the desire to consume mass culture meets the constraining morality of the ideals of indie, a hallmark feature of indie emerges: irony and ironic consumption. The indie subject is first and foremost an ironic subject. For example, Newman states that when consuming sensationalized reality television and other products of mainstream culture, "a viewer might adopt a superior reading position-'so bad it's good'-in relation to such culture that allows for

22 the mainstream's pleasures without sacrificing credibility as its opponent or critic" (21). Here the constraining and moralizing function of subcultural capital of indie allows for the individual re­ articulation of desire for mass culture in terms of ironic consumption of the latter. Such irony creates a "critical" distance between the culturally superior indie consumer and the mass culture from which the consumed commodity or practice originates.

Irony does not simply function here as a mechanism the indie subject utilizes in order to save face while consuming "bad" culture. It is not akin to a tool, external to a conflict or problem, which one can harness at will in order to bring about a resolution. We are considering an ironic subject, and as such, irony functions as a constitutive element of our subject position precisely because the largely contradictory (sub)cultural capitals at work here produce a habitus marked by a durable disposition towards irony. A penchant for irony is therefore always already present, located within the very fabric of the subject position itself. Irony then must play a significant role in conditioning the subject's self conceptualization. Of course, we must consider self-consciousness here precisely because an ironic subjectivity predicates a heightened awareness of, or at least a seemingly unsettled notion of what it means "to be." In order to paint a fuller picture of the subject in question here, I will briefly explore two modes through which irony allows the subject to entertain notions of his or her own cultural superiority -laughable wit and masochistic self deprecation.

In regards to the former, let's consider IFC's recent sketch comedy series Portlandia, a product that arises from a culture industry which produces commodities and cultural texts that themselves demand ironic consumption and/or celebrate ironic culture. Generally categorized as satirical, Portlandia seems to poke fun at the irony and contradiction associated with hipster!

23 alternative/progressive cultures in the fonners' apparent epicenter, Portland, Oregon. Consider, for example, the extended "Cool Wedding" sketch featured in the third episode of the second season. Here a couple semiotically coded as punk or alternative patronize a wedding boutique to plan their "unification ceremony." Here they denounce the institution of marriage as suffocating and sexist all the while displaying their investment in the same institution through their resolute insistence on creating a wedding ceremony that is cool but does not come across as cool, and does not even read as "wedding." Of course such criteria speak to the notion of ironic consumption of mass heterononnative culture. The text ultimately insists on the couple's complicity in such nonnative values in its reliance upon the cliched redemptive narrative of heterosexual marriage-during the practice ceremony (albeit itself a weird "preplanned but chaotic" spectacle) the couple argue, call off the wedding, and after a brief period of turbulent separation, set aside their grievances and unite in marriage, the ultimate narrative closure and blissful "happy ending." Thus here the ironic subject is encouraged to laugh at her or himself, to not take the self too seriously. However, such laughable irony becomes a reason to actually take the self all too seriously. Instances of ironic wit such as the "preplanned but chaotic" wedding ceremony of course provide requisite critical distance from engagement in heterononnative ideals and practices, but also allow for the indie subject to derive pleasure from acknowledgement of his or her own superiority and witty intelligence.

Although laughable wit seems to be the most common fonn of ironic self conceptualization, the ironic subject may also take a different ironic position through masochistically deriving pleasure from the knowledge that she or he has been co-opted by mass culture. The work of recent indie pop artist Marina Diamandis who records and perfonns under

24 the moniker Marina & the Diamonds proves telling here. First, however, I can't help but comment on just how perfectly the genre indie pop figures as negotiated desire for mass culture objectified within cultural production. Even the genre's name reveals the immense paradox upon which it finds its articulation. Indie pop allows for the fulfillment of desire for predictable, melody-driven Top 40 pop music through the consumption of music with the same basic structural form and ease of listening. However, the difference between indie pop and Top 40 lies in the former's relative obscurity, semiotic coding as indie, and other various quirky or offbeat stylistic elements. Thus, in fitting into such a genre position much Diamandis' work (most particularly in regards to the 2010 album, The Family Jewels) positions lyrical content overtly critical of vapid American consumer and celebrity culture against catchy, pop-driven musical backing. Interestingly, these texts locate the site of cultural conflict within the subject herself, for narrator repeatedly engages in self-deprecating notions of her own condition as "living dead" or as that of artificial, unfeeling robot. Consider the simple chorus to "Living Dead": "I'm living dead/Only alive/When I pretend/that I have died." Or consider "Oh No!": "If you are not very careful your possessions will possess you/TV taught me how to feel/now real life has no appeal...I know exactly what I want and who I want to be/I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine/I'm becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy/Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no."

These songs therefore position mainstream American culture as a lack of culture (dead culture), or rather, a co-opted, inauthentic and unfeeling culture that manufactures a population of vapid and artificial automatons. The crucial point here however is the narrator's revelation and, indeed, celebration of her own victimhood; societal forces have fashioned her into the walking dead, into a machine, and we must dance to such a sentiment. Thus, Marina & the

25 Diamonds' indie pop encourages listeners to derive masochistic pleasure from the fact that they

too may be "dead" and that mainstream culture did it to them. The pleasure, of course, comes in

acknowledging one's "death" more so than in the strict enjoyment of the pop song, for the very

knowledge of being "dead" provides the requisite distance for securing one's own authenticity

and cultural superiority over those who live a life of blissful ignorance.

Up until this point in my construction of the indie subject, I have been silent in regards to

ideology specifically. Certainly any reader invested in Marxist theory has picked up on this, for

as Althusser says, "the category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all

ideology has the function (which defines it) of 'constituting' concrete individuals as

subjects" (171, his emphasis removed). So, where is the ideology and how is it functioning

here?

If ironic distance from consumed inauthenticity derives the indie subject's sense of

personal authenticity, then the indie narrative's ideal of separation from the mainstream here also

becomes subject to ironic transgression, for the indie subject derives authenticity from the

knowledge of his or her own participation in mainstream inauthenticity. Thus, the indie subject

seems to acknowledge the "inauthenticity" of both mass culture as well as indie culture itself.

Insofar as the indie subject seems to "see through" ideological constructions, it becomes useful

to consider Zizek's position on the contemporary function of ideology in The Sublime Object of

Ideology. Zizek rejects ideological functioning in terms of the Marxian and Althusserian notion

of the naive subject, instead positing a cynical subject constituted by ideological fantasy. Here,

"the illusion is not on the side of knowledge, it is already on the side of reality itself, of what

people are doing" (Zizek 32).

26 Zizek is certainly right that in the broadest sense we are certainly not dealing with the classic Marxian/Althusserian naive subject (although I must add that in some instances ideologies do function more strongly in terms of classic mystification. The notion of the isolated music genius comes to mind, for the blanketing effects of ideology become so thick here that the very notion that our most darling indie musicians are not geniuses becomes nearly unthinkable).

Our indie subj ect is akin to the cynical subj ect insofar as she or he behaves in respect to the ideological fantasy that structures reality and material conditions. However, behavior is not the only ideological pressure point that shapes the indie subject; ironic awareness of the distance between the mask and social reality interpellates an indie subject who then compliantly acts out the ideological fantasy that structures material reality. Ironic (self) awareness functions as an ideological structure on the side of knowledge, as it generates a psychic position of cultural superiority which prompts the indie subject to behave in ways that advance hegemonic class positions. The ironic subject simultaneously enjoys the material rewards that come with conformity, all the while being able to "critically" disengage the self from notions of conformity without the severe punishment that comes with substantive hostility towards the status quo.

If the mask is indeed a largely defunct ideological form belonging to an earlier and simpler epoch, then ideology has only grown more sophisticated during the era of late capitalism.

The mask functions to mystify the reality of a subject position, and as such allows for the possibility of unmasking. Our contemporary ideological structure, the pleasure in irony, on the other hand, resists dissolution entirely insofar as it functions as its own mechanism that transforms any critique into reinforcement. To illustrate this rather brilliant feature, we can briefly return toPortlandia and Marina and the Diamonds. A savvy critical interpretation of the

27 "Cool Wedding" sketch could certainly be articulated, but may turn out to be a practice of futility, for at the level of consumption, any notion of satirical critique in Portlandia becomes subsumed by the text's own revelatory celebration of the irony of indie culture. The same goes for Marina and the Diamonds' work. "Oh No!" certainly speaks to to the anxieties around unbridled consumption and the loss of the real as symptomatic of late capitalism, anxieties that have informed much Marxist and Postmodernist critique as of late. Yet similar to Portlandia, when considered within the context of consumption these important critical notions become divorced from a logic of critique and subsequently inform a logic of ironic consumption. Critical revelation of indie's irony only reinforces the very same constitutive irony insofar as such critique logically allows for the ironic subject to adopt an ironic distance from his or her own irony, therefore deriving pleasure from the knowledge of the ironic position. Critique of irony allows for the subject to take a superior reading position when considering the self.

What is important here, and what will lead us to my final point that indie perpetuates antagonism between the lower classes in terms of consumption, is that the irony associated with indie culture is just as effective in producing critique of and hostility towards itself as it is in transforming such critique and hostility into validation of its own cultural position. Indeed, indie begs to be critiqued precisely because, for those with limited subcultural capital of indie, the irony associated with indie culture renders it inauthentic and contrived. To more fully consider such a reading position, we must disengage from indie's perspective and momentarily turn this project's primary question on its head: not how does mass culture serve indie, but how does indie serve mass culture? Cultural capitalism has certainly allowed for indie or "hipster" culture to become immensely popular today, and therefore folks with limited subcultural capital (belonging

28 both to the middle as well as laboring classes) must encounter and no doubt consume indie culture and cultural products that celebrate indie culture and its ironic stance. The profusion of indie culture throughout, and certainly as a constitutive element of mass culture allows for the emergence of a particularly delicious meta-irony: in conceptualizing indie's irony as artificial and inauthentic, those with limited subcultural capital of indie then largely adopt their own ironic and superior position of consumption when consuming indie culture. The very "inauthentic" populations from which indie derives authenticity therefore derive their own positions of authenticity in relation to indie's ironic artificiality. Of course, this ironic critique on the part of the "mainstream" then functions to further validate indie's own ironic superiority.

What forms then is a relation between social groups that is articulated in terms of ironic consumption. Indie's irony and the ironic response it elicits from consumers who lack the subcultural capital of indie produces antagonism between these groups in terms of taste and means of authentic consumption. Of course, class position and the cultural capitals associated with each class position determine such antagonist positions of consumption, and therefore we are dealing with antagonism between and within the laboring and middle classes. As we are still dealing with a logic of cultural capitalism, we can say that our commodities do not only function in order to give us a warm fuzzy feeling when we believe we consume in order to save the

"Third World" or the environment. Instead, here cultural capitalism's logic, "consume in order to do society better" becomes articulated in terms of antagonistic class-based positions of consumption that attempt to stake out "the best" or "most authentic" way to consume (as of course the only way to do society here is to consume and there must be a best or most authentic way to consume). Yet, such best or authentic positions of consumption here function as ironic

29 positions in active response to another class group's position of consumption. In many instances then, these social groups largely consume similar commodities, but adopt mutually antagonistic positions of consumption based upon class affiliation.

Such antagonism between the laboring and middle classes in terms of consumption, however, functions primarily to distract populations from the more fundamental exploitive relationship between the ruling class and all other class. Taste cultures like indie naturalize the notion of consumption itself as they privilege concerns regarding what and how we consume.

Such naturalization then silences broader systemic questions:: why do we consume, under which conditions do we consume, and who does it serve? Taste wars between the laboring and middle classes most certainly do not serve such classes, but do allow for individuals who inhabit class positions to derive a sense of personal authenticity and superiority. Yet this effect on the individual level certainly does not benefit the individual, precisely because said superiority demands continuous consumption in order to be maintained. Such practices of consumption clearly display the workings of our hegemonic system, as Raymond Williams conceptualizes it,

"a lived system of meanings and values-constitutive and constituting-which as they are experienced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming" (110). As the value system of the dominant class largely constitutes hegemonic meanings and values, then it is no surprise that material conditions allow for consumption to (temporarily) alleviate individual feelings of inferiority or low self esteem. However, by consuming in order feel superior to other classes or groups, individuals simply participate in their own subjugation: the only group that benefits here is the ruling class. Here the notion of taste secures and encourages consumption as a valued

30 practice at all class levels, while (re )locating class hostility within the various relations of consumption between and within the laboring and middle classes.

Conclusion: Towards a Theory ofIdeology

This text itself is an ironic text. As its manifest goal is to know and theorize contemporary indie culture-a culture, it concedes, in which irony reconfigures critique into reinforcement-it knowingly reinforces the very cultural formulation it attempts to critique. As its author, I can't deny that there is a certain self-serving pleasure to be felt in such a sentiment.

But this "failure" on the part of my project brings us right back to ideology, for as is most often the case, the more we attempt to think outside ideology, the deeper and more engaged in it we become. Indeed, although indie culture has functioned as the vehicle here, this project has been primarily concerned with ideology: how does ideology fashion us into subjects who think we are somehow outside the system while we are deep, deeply inculcated into it? As we have thoroughly established, the ironic indie subject is a popular cultural position. It is nothing out of the ordinary. Therefore, working from that which we have considered here regarding the ironic indie subject, I would like to make some preliminary remarks on a theory of the contemporary functioning of ideology.

In most cases we do function today in terms of Zizek's cynical subject (an extension of which seems to be the ironic subject). However, by considering indie as the product of contradictory ideologies, I think we can begin to theorize this subject from a more orthodox

Marxist perspective that accounts for ideological functioning both in terms of behavior as well as thought. My position here is that today, ideology functions as the sum effect of a multiplicity of

31 complicit and contradictory ideologies that create subjects who must take cynical or ironical

stances in relation to said ideologies. Such cynicism thus comes to constitute the subject position.

In light of the late capitalism's value of diversity, as well as the technological advances that

allow for the proliferation a wide array of diverse discourses, it is clear that, at least on the level

of overt content, the Althusserian "harmony" between the Ideological State Apparatuses has

waned. However, I staunchly argue that we are still dealing with Althusserian ideology. What has

changed is the relationship between the form and function of ideology. Today the function of

ideology is no longer primarily predicated on its form alone, which of course was formerly the

"secret" or primary mystification that created the naive subject. Instead, ideology functions as

the sum effect of a relationship between contradictory ideologies. These ideologies still hold

their Althusserian form, but such contradiction functions to reveal the functioning of their form;

they demystify themselves. Such a revelation of falsity, however, only allows for the

advancement and validation of hegemonic modes of thought and practice insofar as ideological

self-unmasking delivers itself like a personal message, as if the individual and only that

individual knows what's going on. The cynical or ironic subject continues to participate in

ideological mandates because a position of cynicism or irony fulfills, for example (and surely

there are more), the psychological need for superiority over others-a need capitalism fosters or

perhaps instills in the first place. Ideological self-unmasking seems to offer a glimpse outside ideology, but the knowledge of an "outside" is the carrot on the string which we follow while we

perform and behave "inside" ideology.

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