[TheForge] [OT] Re: Harleys

[Andy Vida]

Mike wrote:
> 
> "Grover Richardson" <grover.richardson@gtri.gatech.edu> opined:
> 
> > It used to be about the Harleys, now it's a *&^@#$^& fashion show<G>.
> 
>     The dire thing that multinational globalization seems to be doing
>     is reducing the amount of genuine stuff in the world and replacing
>     it with imitation genuine stuff.        -- William Gibson

	I have to laugh at all the talk of "diversity" from certain
	sources.  They appear to be the very same sources of the
	global homogenization of human culture.

	Homgenization and the proprietization of anything even remotely
	salable seems to be the direction in which our world is going.  
	It is just my opinion, but this seems sad to me because it 
	appears that we end up with less and less that is in fact 
	"genuine" and more that is processed, sanitized, and targeted 
	to the middle of a market.  Some guy produces something... 
	art, a story, or what have you.  It becomes niche marketed,
	then some enormous corporate entity decides it can go big and 
	buys it, then commercializes the hell out of it, drastically 
	altering it so that it develops some kind of magical mass
	appeal.  I don't blame them for doing this because they make a
	living at it, but it seems sad that where money is concerned, 
	there is absolutely nothing that remains sacred.  Many things 
	seem to be desecrated and made common and vulgar in this 
	manner.  I suspect that a large portion of the vulgarity
	lies in the fact that so many of the people who jump on a
	bandwagon don't understand what it is that originally made it
	worthwhile.  They fall for the Madison avenue slick campaigns
	which usually distort and utterly pervert things in such a way
	as to gain the interest of a public that has shown itself more
	than once in the past to be interested only in fashion 
	statements.  

	H-D is a good example of this.  Through surgical alteration of 
	the bad boy image, the minds of the general public (people who 
	30 years ago would probably have had mainly nothing to do with 
	a Harley) was massaged in a way as to allow them their bad-boy 
	fantasy without having to deal with any of the icky aspects of 
	the reality.  They can talk the talk without having to walk it.
	This all seems to smack of chasing masturbatory	fantasies where
	all unpleasantness and potential danger has been gently washed 
	away for one's salami stroking pleasure.

	I'm probably wrong about this, but that's my impression, and I 
	think that as the years pass we will see less and less real
	diversity between people, replaced with some sadly mishapen
	and ill-bred substitute.  I guess you cannot stop progress.