How publics about the "fashion in the subway" fuel intolerance
Text: Moore Sobolev
Last couple weeks city publications are discussing the new fun of megacities - public accounts, where enthusiastic users merge photos of strange, funny or brightly dressed people in public transport. There are many such communities; The most famous is the “Moscow Metro Fashion” in the blessed social network VKontakte (where else). The format is clear: a photograph taken from under the floor and a commentary designed as ironic advice, such as "Your decisive mood regarding the search for a life partner will convey a leopard outfit" or something about curvaceous forms.
In fact, all these accounts are the easiest to call the same VKontakte word "bottom". No, let's be clear right away: everyone does it. Everyone is discussing amusing-looking people met on the street or in transport. Some even take pictures of them in secret. Man is like this: he likes to laugh at someone who looks, behaves and feels different. There are probably no people who are completely devoid of this embarrassing, but natural sensation. But some people realize this feeling only in the fact that they catch a glimpse of leopard tights on a subway neighbor, while others turn their lives into the film “Mean Girls” and poison classmates for glasses and braces. Like the scandal with the service GetTaxi, renaming drivers with non-Russian names, the notorious public tables clearly show where the ethical watershed is - and it seems that it has been passed a long time ago, but we didn’t really notice.
The communities we are talking about do not have anything to do with good taste and the desire to implant it among fellow citizens (despite the fact that most of the heroes really don’t have it - but the Vivienne Westwood shoes are not insured from the metromod police look). These publics, on the contrary, manifest the philistine position of the owner of the pyzhikovoy cap. Put on a noticeable outfit? Make up bright? You do not match age (anything)? Do you stand out for anything at all? Get public humiliation. What did you want when you went outside like this?
Publics broadcast a very clear and completely opposite message: do not hang out
The fact that the creators of the publics are trying to declare them as “admiration” and “glorification of life” makes them already doubtful activities also painted with hypocrisy - it is enough to read the comments under two or three photos to appreciate this admiration and understand the general paradigm. In beauty and fashion blogs, and here, on Wonderzine, it is often said that you shouldn't be shy about expressing yourself. What looks bright and bright, and the way you want it, not scary, but fun. Publics broadcast a very clear and completely opposite message: do not hang out. Do not wear bright (but too black will not work too). Do not paint your hair and face. Do not leave the room. Do not make a mistake. Merge with the mass, connect with the crowd.
The idea of pursuing the appearance, to put it mildly, is not new. In the eighties, owners of long hair and rocker outfits were beaten by Luber and Gopnik. But this is a past stage - today their place has been taken by “photo hunters”, who have the courage to only take secret pictures of those who dare to stand out - funny or ridiculous, beautiful or ugly. Men in compression stockings and women with war paint on their faces, an elderly couple holding hands, and a girl in a wedding dress - everything that is not faceless turns into an object of ridicule.
But how much personal hatred can be a progressive feeling that pushes forward and upward, so much so that kayterism, uniting people in a herd, is meaningless and negative. Any hero of any of these publics, no matter how ridiculous he looks in his golden tights or jacket with the Chanel logo, where the brand name is written with three errors, looks better in the end than the one who posted the photo with a cheerful signature in a popular community. This person has a face and a body, and golden tights, and courage (or at least naivety) to put them on in ruthless Moscow. And the one who photographed, there is only a desire to assert themselves at someone else's expense. As they say in other popular communities - so be it.