Steven Vogel's last blog post . . .

[cmykhustla]

copied from hypebeast blogs:

So, quite, literally, it is time for me to go and at the same time it’s also time to start something new. It is how they say; every ending is the beginning for something new. To some friends this decision might not come as a surprise, and maybe to some it is incomprehensible.

I remember sitting on my balcony with Fats on my birthday and talking about this and he looked at me as if I had rabies, which was quite amusing. “Why on earth would you want to give something like this up†he said and well, there are many reasons. First and foremost I do have thank Kevin who, sometime early in 2005 asked me to be part of his blogs and site. At the time, if you remember, the phenomena that we have today in regards to these massive blog rolls, cross pollination of blogs and blog celebrity status didn’t really exist. I think I was one of 4 at the time. Kevin was very patient with me when it came to explaining how to use these blogs, so again, a big thank you to him.

It would be too easy to state a hundred reasons and hate on everything to explain why I am leaving Hypebeast and am starting something new. In a broader sense, I must admit that I have been experiencing a slight, sometimes more sometimes less, case of alienation with the content, not just online, but in the analogue world as well, of what has been considered streetwear/streetculture. To explain, a certain someone in L.A. thought it might be fun to talk some crap about me after meeting me by saying that I am not really what I appear to be, obviously insinuating that I am really not into this whole street culture thing. Even though, whilst most people would take offence and start talking shit back, I thought about it and to a certain degree that person is right, even though not in the way it was being, or still is being propagated. Some of you might have read what I wrote on the Social Consumer a few weeks ago and that did hint at what I am feeling. I personally think that I am pretty easy person to gauge, I am vocal about what I am into and sometimes more vocal about what I am not into, which I know, especially in retrospect, is wrong. Negativity won’t get you anywhere people, just a little tip on the side. I like skating, a lot. Unlike the above mentioned person who, by referencing plenty of you tube memories about skating but hasn’t actually ever skated, I do occasionally still go out and have a roll around. Sure, I am by no means as good as I used to be 15 years ago but I had other priorities then. But whatever, that’s that dude’s problem, not mine. I like many forms and interpretations of rock music, I like blues, jazz, ska, dub, rocksteady, and classical music, I even like weird new wave stuff from the 80s sometimes and believe or not I even do like hip hop, but that’s whole other case of worms which I won’t get into again. I like different types of art, be it classical, modern conceptual art, graffiti, product design. I like cars, mostly vintage American muscle cars. I like going to bars with my friends and talking shit all night, granted if the music is right, I am sure you get the point. What I am not into, never have been and never will be is hunting, geeking out about product, waiting in line for sneakers or tee shirts and idolization of brands and / or their creators. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of the stuff that you see or consider streetwear but I don’t freak out about it. To me, it’s just clothes and honestly I couldn’t give a fuck if you wore a suit or the newest limited blah blah blah. I had to wear a suit for a job once, and you know what, I was still the same dude as before. Clothes are absolutely irrelevant in today’s street culture. They no longer help to identify ones self with a certain sub culture. When I see some one decked out in all the cool shit, I actually turn away now and ignore them unlike 15 years ago when you saw someone in a Stüssy tee and sat down and talked.

When I first started being aware of these hype blogs I was thrilled about the amount of information available all of a sudden, it meant that I didn’t have to sell my last tee shirt to get on a plane to, at least visually, take part and/or see product, people and events far away. Over the years though, I increasingly became, at first amused, then worried and finally completely alienated with the content of the online street culture communities. I couldn’t believe that people took pictures of themselves to compare their “stylesâ€, I couldn’t believe the shit people were calling streetwear and quite frankly I became to realize that what I consider it to be, as simple is that, is not what people who consider themselves to be an integral and leading part of this culture were into and were propagating. You might look at it as being evolution and me not really being fit enough to survive, and yes, to a certain degree that analogy is correct.

It became even worse when I spent considerable amounts of money and time travelling across the world these past 4 years to meet and see a lot of the people I met online, which in retrospect probably works out 1 out of 10 times. Maybe that is fine with the MTV generation that is used to seeing odd spring break dating shows, but it is still to this day a very random, mostly negative experience to me. I digress, and to really sum it up, I do think that, with what streetwear and even to a broader sense street culture has become, or to be more precise what it is sold to be online and to a certain degree by those online shit peddlers in the real world as well, I cannot relate to anymore. It is not a case, ironically this time, of me growing away for something, but “it†growing away from me. To explain, I know for a fact that what interests me still interest the same people whom I call friends, and more than likely, a lot of people whom I am hopefully going to meet someday. You know, the things that made this culture what it is being sold as now. However, and most importantly, there is no need to state the obvious and leave it at that. Rather than being another whiney old bitch of no consequence I have been happily working away at Black Lodges, which is now online and ready for your enjoyment. Call it whatever you want, to me it is nothing more than a place in the ether world where I can write about and show the things that interest me, in a context where these things are given a proper setting and they still make sense.

Thanks to all of those whom I have met and grown friendships with through this blog, you know who you are and thanks to all the enemies and haters out there, you also know who you are.

You can catch me here from now on.

All the best-

Steven

**Discuss

[keagan]

I couldn’t believe that people took pictures of themselves to compare their “styles”.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

You best believe.

L.U.V......

[homi29]

he sounds kinda salty, its not like he made money and cashed in on the whole thing

i agree with some of his sentiments, but he didnt have to dig himself neck deep into it when at the same time he didnt even fully enjoy it

[Brooklyn Zoo]

yeah he wrote a fucking book titled

streetwear: the book

[aziz]

yawn*

10char

[Christmas In A Submarine.]

Clothes are absolutely irrelevant in today’s street culture. They no longer help to identify ones self with a certain sub culture. When I see some one decked out in all the cool shit, I actually turn away now and ignore them unlike 15 years ago when you saw someone in a Stüssy tee and sat down and talked.

online street culture communities.

As absolutely inane and stupid a ramble as that was, he seems to have inadvertently put his finger on issues that were perhaps larger than intended. That is: of course clothes are irrelevent, and of course the paradoxically phrased "online street" blogs, etc had something to do with it. But they have only intensified what other forms of widely accessible media had already begun- homogenization. While radio/TV/etc may have given us a common language, it also supplied the conditions for the death, or perhaps more accurately, the explosion of "the local" which is what gave "streetwear" it's appeal, if indeed it ever had any at all. Like other forms of creation which straddle communal and personal creation it found its only redemption in the possibility of creating "new", unique combinations or styles which alternately confounded or affirmed the expectations of the agreed upon whole, but still retained their status within the overall perameters.

It seems that our good friend steve is arriving late to a party at which "flaneur", "bricolage" and "floating signification" have already been tossed around and discarded. While he is running to wikipedia to figure out what's going on I would hope the rest of us can help him get his head out of his self important ass and recognize that the processes he is describing have not only played themselves out in the "online streetwear" communities, but throughout all of our society. Whatever illusion of locality, individuality or personal statement that steve was imbued with in 2005 was already long gone. He's not wrong, just late. (And a horrible writer.)