i guess i'm just goth

[mellowtigger]

bitterlawngnome pointed out a picture gallery devoted to wresting the name "bear" from its traditional base and giving it solely to the devotion of hairy fitness buffs. It's been a while since I posted my own definition of bear, but this new picture collection called "Bear | Not Bear" (semi-safe viewing for most workplaces) seems diametrically opposed to my definition.

Basically, I think that "bear" includes the unpopular kids, the D-list crowd, all the folk who don't fit the popular culture's image of what is desirable. We remind each other that we don't have to be X, Y, or Z in order to be desirable.  We innoculate ourselves against the contamination of popular culture's dislike of fringe appearance or fringe behavior.  I enjoy thinking of bears as the Stuart Smalley fan club: "We're good enough, we're smart enough, and doggone it, people like us."

When the bear population grew large enough to attract mainstream attention, then suddenly the popular kids developed an interest. Nothing good can come of that mixture, and the discord is effectively satirized in the South Park episode about the Goth kids being overtaken by the Vampire kids.  Their tension is presented in this video segment...

You guys, I do not want to be grouped in with douchey little vampire kids. ... Get out of our space you little twerps!
More preppy straight-A students turning into vampires. What the hell is going on?
- http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/210819/douchey-little-vampire-kids

... and the difference is skillfully defined in the closing moments of the episode.

Fellow students, over the past week there has been a lot of confusion, and so we have asked for this assembly to clarify the difference between goth kids and vampire kids. Let us make it abundantly clear. If you hate life, truly hate the sun, and need to smoke and drink coffee, you are goth. If, however, you like dressing in black 'cause it's fun, enjoy putting sparkles on your cheeks and following the occult while avoiding things that are bad for your health, then you are most likely a douchebag vampire wannabe boner because anyone who thinks they are actually a vampire is freaking retarded.
- http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/137227/detail/

So the metaphor of the popular kids trying to steal a movement from the unpopular kids is what I use to interpret the recent "redefining" of bear.  Unlike the resolution in the South Park episode, I don't know that the bears can actually reclaim their original identity.  Words are fluid, though, and language always changes, so maybe there's still reason to hope.

Or maybe we need to take a cue from Dan Savage and go on the offensive.  We could create our own new word to apply to these people, thereby deflecting their criticism of the original bear culture.

Comments

[mellowtigger]

NBCS 1.0 does a good job of reminding that "Bear" was initially about facial hair back in 1989. That's the primary scale of "Bear-ness". Already recognized as secondary characteristics, however, were other undesirable traits (by gay male standards of the time) like weight, general hairiness, peculiarity, and stereotypical effeminacy. Since then, we do seem to have lost the initial hairy face focus. Maybe everybody got bored with it after the years that all of America spent fixating on Wolverine in the X-Men movies?

It makes me sad when guys show up at Bear functions and feel actively excluded. A year or two ago as a Bear coffee night was winding down, an old guy in his late 60s stopped me and thanked me for being so willing to chat with everyone. I prefer treating everyone the same so it really was nothing unusual that I did, but it made me realize that some people there felt excluded because they weren't popular enough to rate as "desirable company" by others. :(((

Yeah, I feel like I've earned a few bear brownie points over the years too.

1) I just did a scan for my old RELAY and IRC intro text file, but I wasn't able to find it. I hope I haven't lost it forever. I'm pretty sure I included my NBCS classification in it. Where did NBCS first show up, was it on Usenet maybe? Or did it even come from FidoNet initially?

2) I still have my "Just say Woof!" t-shirt from the mid 1990s, but it's looking rather thin and worn these days.

3) I've attended Bear coffee locally for over a decade, with a few breaks here and there.

[furr_a_bruin]

Yeah - as I recall, "bearish" guys had sort of been a subset of the "girth and mirth" phenomenon, but those who weren't thrilled with the idea of being lusted after for being chubby didn't entirely fit there. When the bear phenomenon kicked off with the focus on fur, they came a-woofing. ;)

I haven't read the whole NBCS in a long time, but as I recall they focused on beards because it's generally obvious if someone has a beard or not; a guy could have three hairs on his breastbone or a forest primeval from the collarbone down, and in a lot of circumstances (clothes, ya know) it would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to tell the difference.

I agree with you about people being left feeling excluded at what's supposed to be a social meet 'n greet kind of event. I don't understand people who won't talk to someone they don't find sexually attractive.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly where NBCS was first published - I first encountered it through the then-popular Bears' Mailing List.