One thing I'm curious about--have you ever found yourself in a space where you _were_ the fan or where you _were_ the creator?
I think the core distinction that Chapman makes--and I should pause here for a moment to cop to having thought about the piece quite a lot, and quite a lot more recently than I've actually read it, so I may be representing my own thoughts as Chapman's--is the distinction between the people who have come together because of the Creation itself, and the others who are _somehow_ spiritually on the outside and can only sort of . . . vibe with it secondhand.
Even more than crass ethnography, to me it is (or has become, over time, and only in my own head) almost more a meditation on the ephemerality of transcendence.
Maybe I wish he'd written an essay about that instead, but maybe by its nature it can't be communicated, and so we're left seeing it in the empty space.
I can't say for sure but that piece resonated with me more strongly as a critique of (sub)cultural consumption...culture. David Chapman seems accessible enough on, say, Twitter that you might be able to just ask him directly if your interpretation applies (took a peek just now and he's been commenting on subcultures as recently as 14 hours ago: https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1760334547743387749 ).
I think I can kind of get what you're gesturing at but there's maybe just barely not enough shared context. I think the closest personal anecdote that applies to what you're asking is having gone to Evo in person a few times, enjoying the spirit of competitive gaming but very much literally and spiritually not being a part of the community most closely involved.
By teasing at the difference between "people who have come together because of the Creation itself" and "others spiritually on the outside who can only vibe" I think we're either struggling to use longer phrases to describe "hipster" vs "nerd" (in the context of my writing here) -or- we're getting at different ends of a spectrum of hipster--between hipsters closer to the Creation and hipsters appreciating the Creation more at arms length. Chapman's "mop" seems to me to match how I'm using "nerd" here in the sense of an impurity of intention with regards to the Creation (ie participation in the subculture as a status game versus participating in the subculture for the joy or furthering of the Creation), whereas "secondhand vibers" seems like it may be either a more charitable interpretation of mop/nerd or something that fits more on the geek/hipster side.
Definitely possible you (and Chapman) are thinking about this on a higher level that I'm not quite catching too though.
One thing I'm curious about--have you ever found yourself in a space where you _were_ the fan or where you _were_ the creator?
I think the core distinction that Chapman makes--and I should pause here for a moment to cop to having thought about the piece quite a lot, and quite a lot more recently than I've actually read it, so I may be representing my own thoughts as Chapman's--is the distinction between the people who have come together because of the Creation itself, and the others who are _somehow_ spiritually on the outside and can only sort of . . . vibe with it secondhand.
Even more than crass ethnography, to me it is (or has become, over time, and only in my own head) almost more a meditation on the ephemerality of transcendence.
Maybe I wish he'd written an essay about that instead, but maybe by its nature it can't be communicated, and so we're left seeing it in the empty space.
I can't say for sure but that piece resonated with me more strongly as a critique of (sub)cultural consumption...culture. David Chapman seems accessible enough on, say, Twitter that you might be able to just ask him directly if your interpretation applies (took a peek just now and he's been commenting on subcultures as recently as 14 hours ago: https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1760334547743387749 ).
I think I can kind of get what you're gesturing at but there's maybe just barely not enough shared context. I think the closest personal anecdote that applies to what you're asking is having gone to Evo in person a few times, enjoying the spirit of competitive gaming but very much literally and spiritually not being a part of the community most closely involved.
By teasing at the difference between "people who have come together because of the Creation itself" and "others spiritually on the outside who can only vibe" I think we're either struggling to use longer phrases to describe "hipster" vs "nerd" (in the context of my writing here) -or- we're getting at different ends of a spectrum of hipster--between hipsters closer to the Creation and hipsters appreciating the Creation more at arms length. Chapman's "mop" seems to me to match how I'm using "nerd" here in the sense of an impurity of intention with regards to the Creation (ie participation in the subculture as a status game versus participating in the subculture for the joy or furthering of the Creation), whereas "secondhand vibers" seems like it may be either a more charitable interpretation of mop/nerd or something that fits more on the geek/hipster side.
Definitely possible you (and Chapman) are thinking about this on a higher level that I'm not quite catching too though.