this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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it's conspicuous consumption as identity performance
THANK YOU. coming from a place where it is endemic and now living in the NE I was very confused about the love my rehab roomie had for it until she told me all about her extensive cop and conservative family and it clicked. Everyone else up here that listens to it that I personally have met is the same, and it’s never the kind of stuff I don’t mind hearing either (George jones or Gary Stewart or Delbert McClinton or even some patty loveless or juice newton). It’s always the trucks n flags n eagles shit, kinda reinforces the point
It's not really conspicuous but yeah.
It can totally be conspicuous consumption. Have you ever tried to buy a new pair of cowboy boots? That shit is expensive. As is a lot of the other trappings of the genre/aesthetic like big trucks. Plus there's an entire subset of people who spend a ridiculous amount of money to look like they're dudes helping out on the family farm.
That's not a country only thing but it definitely rubs people the wrong way.
Basically. White reactionaries in the middle class actually spend a good deal of money just so they can LOOK like poor people. Personally, I like to call them "cosplay cowboys".
If you're a poor fool like me who's born in North America AND can't afford to live in megacities like NYC, Montreal, Toronto, LA, etc. You know what I'm talking about.
Country music is not conspicuous. Which is the topic here.
I think the culture surrounding music is relevant when discussing it but even if we want to stick only to the actual music: steel guitars are super expensive and the lyrical themes of many country songs involve lifestyles most working class people are priced out of.
It is when its being played in public