The Great Poseur Deception

As has been written here more than a few times, the 21st century has been stuck reinventing the wheel on the most common of areas repeatedly as if the previous half century never existed. We seem to be stuck on a hamster wheel.

Take for instance, the current destruction of just about every hobby and subculture. Most anyone would tell you that it is because of an influx of "normies" who broke into the "community" and wish to remake it in their image. It's tragic. If we just chase out the normal people then everything will be good again and the "community" will be made pure once more. Problem solved!

Wrong.

A long time ago, ever since culture began, there have been subcultures. These are smaller branches that connect to the larger trunk of our culture and identity. It means we are all in this together. Everything connects, and that is the way it should be.

This term was used all the way up until the 21st century when it was slyly replaced by those in charge to being called a "community". This change matters because it has changed the scene in question from being about bonding over a certain, smaller aspect of culture that would unite to a greater whole into being a "community" of isolated obsessives. It became about being friendly and nice and going along to get along in order to escape the wider world which we cannot empathize with therefore are our enemies.

This is a radical shift, and no one ever questions why this change was made. But it is undoubtedly not the way it was meant to be.

However, what can be said is that these changes weren't made by "normies" with limited investment of the subculture in question. This is because normal people have lives and interests away from said scene. By definition they can't do what they are accused of doing. If I enjoy a game of Tetris every now and then I'm not going to go to a Tetris fan community and try to take over their moderation staff to enforce rules in my image. Why would I ever do that? That's nonsense. It's fiction. It doesn't happen.

The reason this shift from open subcultures to closed communities was made wasn't because "normies" got in charge, but it sure would be nice for the real culprits if you and them fought over it! The reason these changes were made was because fanatics who didn't understand the subculture in question pushed themselves in charge and began rebuilding it in their image. This is the habit of the elusive poseur, evading detection for decades.

You might not have heard that word in a long time, I know I haven't, but these people are why gate-keeping used to be an important aspect of keeping a scene on the right track without usurpers building monuments in their name: sort of like codes of conduct or nepotistic domination of indie scenes via shady hiring practices. Investigating any infected scene deep enough would always reveal an influx of poseurs who detest others in the subculture and loathe past creations of the hobby and its adherents to the point of wanting to erase them from existence to construct new statues in their image. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

For those unaware of what a poseur is, I will explain the concept for the Gen Z members in the audience with some choice definitions. Better catch them quick before they are memory-holed.

From the Cambridge dictionary:

poseur
noun [ C ] disapproving (also poser)
UK
/ˈpəʊ.zər/ US
/ˈpoʊ.zɚ/
-someone who pretends to be something they are not, or to have qualities that they do not have:
You look like a real poseur in your fancy sports car!

No one uses this term anymore, even though it had wide usage as early as a decade prior. It's not one you hear very often except to call those who use the term nasty names. One has to wonder why if you cared about the purity of your scene that you would need to make fun of such people.

The excuse is that tossing the term makes the community inclusive. After all, what kind of monster would want gate-keep good people? Everyone should be allowed in, including those who hate the subculture. Now you are beginning to understand why the term was changed from "subculture" to "community" in the first place. They don't want to be tied to tradition, they want to build their own space within yours.

They say this not because they want "normies" to be included, as normies are never attracted by their changes, but because they want to say no one else has any power over their new found "community" but them. They want other poseurs like them, not normal folk who might be drawn to the subculture for whatever reason. This is the opposite of what they say they want. Poseurs are keeping normal people out by enforcing their changes and destroying what made it appeal to others in the first place. It's loopy, but it is the truth.

How the definition of poseur relates to subcultures (from the above site):

"Thrash adherents feel that poseurs have not developed an appreciation for the true aesthetic of metal, and must therefore be accorded less prestige with the subculture."

"The concept of a jazz poseur dates back to the 1940s."

"He was said to be a vain young man who could not cast aside his affections, he appeared a "poseur"."

"Other critics were even less flattering, with terms such as poseurs and pomp-rockers put forth in various music guides."

"He could play to the audience, but he was never a phony poseur."

"He's not a poseur pretending to be a gangsta; he's the real thing."

"He praises the gigs where there were no punk-identikit poseurs in the audience."

"The pejorative term poseur is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy."

Were you around in the late 90s you might remember the term "poseur" denigrated as "non-inclusive" or "confrontational" by the same people who ended up weaseling their way in charge then detonating the scene from the inside. It was quite the show. They needed that control, not for the subculture, but for themselves. Now that they have it, everything you enjoy has been warped and broken all for the version of "community" they have in their head.

This is what happens when obsessives are given control.

These aren't "normies", but broken narcissistic fanatics who need their brands and hobbies as a replacement for whatever empty hole they have deep inside. They're obsessives, fanatics.

This is why they fight so hard when called on what they are. They need this scene to have value, which is why they morph these areas into communities they need to run and keep pure under the guise of being inclusive. It's because they have nothing in their real lives to cling to. For whatever reason, they have nothing else outside of this. This "community" is all they have in their pathetic lives.

And this is why subcultures are currently being destroyed by groups of empty people who need their brands and hobbies more than you do. It is misplaced obsession. It's fanaticism, and it is cult behavior.

This sort of thing isn't new, either. There have been articles talking about this descent into madness for years. Here's one in particular from five years ago when this began being a real issue in the mainstream. This is what happens when fanaticism, brokenness, and religion replacement, form into a cohesive whole. The best thing for these subcultures, the poseurs, and you, would be to remove them from positions of power. It would be better for all involved for everything to be put in its proper place.

And that is why they fight so hard to destroy those they oppose and everything around them just to retain their stranglehold. This isn't the sign of someone who loves the scene they purport to love, but the behavior of one who is disordered.

This is why gate-keeping exists: to keep everything in order, guide normal people who are interested in, and to make sure the narcissists stay out of power. This is how a subculture retains its identity and grows at the same time. By letting obsessives in charge, everything has shrunk. We got fat and lazy, and cared so little for our fellow man that we let them destroy themselves by taking charge of things they had no right taking charge of, simply because we didn't want to be called mean names. It is our fault this happened.

Hopefully we have all learned that lesson going forward. Letting weak men take charge is always a mistake.

There was an interesting 12 Step Rule in the article linked above. I want to share it with you here to emphasize just what a poseur really is deep down and what they are missing. They use their misplaced fanaticism as a crutch.

1. We admitted we were powerless over fanaticism—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that Reason, a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Reason.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We're entirely ready to have Reason remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly invoked reason to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through inquiry, debate, conversation, curiosity and doubt to improve our conscious contact with Reason seeking for better understanding of the human tension between what we want to believe and what’s most likely to be true.
12. Having had an awakening to Reason as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to fanatics of all kinds, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

You might think it strange to replace AA's "God" with "Reason", but the fanatic already has a god they see everyday in the mirror. This is more for those around them to decipher just why these broken people have disordered themselves to begin with. Their lack of Reason comes from making themselves and their warped vision of their subculture as God. This is a spiritual sickness as much as it is a social one, and it comes from a people who lost sight of their humanity.

Caring about your fellow man also means putting them in their place when they've gone astray. And we have fallen so far off the wagon that we can barely see its slow lurch over the rolling hills into the blinding sunset. Poseurs are not the root cause of all current ills but for anything to change efforts must be started with removing them from positions of power.

Even as everything implodes around these subcultures, don't think that a fanatic will let go so willingly. Remember that a poseur's entire identity is settled around the delusion they've made called a "community" where they stand as a Jim Jones figure looking down at the small ants under their feet. They will fight until forcibly removed and not allowed back in. This means a return to gate-keeping of the sort not scene since the early twentieth century. But it must be done.

It's not going to be easy from here, but remember that "normies" are not your enemies, nor are they your allies. They are true neutral. Right now it is a battle between rock solid tradition and narcissistic destruction at either end. That is the only war worth waging here, and it will be going for a long time to come.

Fight for what you love because no one is going to do it for you.

I'm fighting for what I love by creating stories of the type you're not allowed to have anymore. Check out Gemini Warrior for a pulp inspired action adventure of strange planets, superpowers, and plain old fashioned fun! You won't find anything like this from broken down modern publishers!

Find it Here!