Because irony is for the weak
November 30, 2009 Forward, Jewish Community Eli Valley
Halfsours insists that Eli Valley’s new comic savaging the “cool Jew” phenomenon signals that we are at “the middle of the end” of the hipster movement generally.
I am inclined to agree. Frankly, in our troubled economic times, and with so many problems besieging our nation, many of us lost patience with this “ironic” nonsense a long time ago.
But who is Valley mocking specifically? I thought that the “Jewriffic” joke could be targeting The Zionists, but it was used a lot on Jewsweek as well. Were the body hair and cocaine references inspired by Heeb? Reboot, the parent organization of Guilt and Pleasure was referenced by name. Obviously Cool Jew herself is an obvious target of this satire.
But if we are in the middle of the end, when will we know when we are at the very end?
That will be when the Kiruvniks themselves embrace these tactics.
We shouldn’t have to wait long.
6 comments
The “targets” were not so specific, but as for kiruv, Judaism’s cults have been using what they consider to be “edgy” tactics for a while. For example, this or this.
That will be when the Kiruvniks themselves embrace these tactics.
If you mean they’ll resort to irony themselves – nah. They have no sense of it – e.g., when they accuse their opponents of having “closed minds”.
Jeff,
I think what EV is saying is that they already do. I know from my experience at Hebrew U. that the Jeff Sidellniks would ply you with booze on trips, invite you over to watch or smart movies, in the name of hip Judaism. I don’t know if that specifically counts as an attempt hipster Judaism.
I was speaking to David’s remark, That will be when the Kiruvniks themselves embrace these tactics. I know they’re already trying to be “hip”. I doubt they’ll try to be ironic, because, as is the case with all fundamentalists (again, it’s the same with evangelicals), they don’t get the concept of irony – the evidence being that they are walking billboards for it.
Rule-of-thumb (I suppose): if somebody calls themselves “cool”, they usually aren’t.
We’ll know we’re at the very end when other minorities start using “cool Jew” as an insult – as a compound noun, a quantifying or evaluating adjective, or a verb.
I’d have expected more intense reactions in response to the comic. Maybe indifference is the new cool.
Maybe it’s a tribe vibe thing.
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