Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

Here’s a story from 30 years ago that would make no sense today.

这是一个 30 年前的故事，今天看来毫无意义。

It’s 1992.

现在是 1992 年。

Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten is selling well.

But then MTV puts the music video for their song “Jeremy” in heavy rotation, and the band rockets into superstardom—shows suddenly sold out, fans smashing record store windows, the whole shebang.

但随后 MTV 大力播放了他们歌曲《Jeremy》的音乐录影带，乐队一跃成为超级巨星——演出门票突然售空，歌迷们砸碎了唱片店的橱窗，整个场面十分轰动。

That’s familiar enough, but what happens next is not.

这已经足够熟悉了，但接下来发生的事情却不是。

Pearl Jam responds to this hullabaloo by refusing to make music videos for the next five years .

珍珠酱乐队通过在未来五年内拒绝制作音乐录影带来回应这一喧嚣。

They decline photoshoots and interviews.

When their producer tells them that their song “Better Man” is a surefire hit, they cut it from their second album .

当他们的制作人告诉他们他们的歌曲“Better Man”一定会火爆时，他们将其从第二张专辑中删除了。

1 Nevertheless, that album sells nearly a million copies in its first week, setting a record.

1 尽管如此，这张专辑在首周就售出了近百万张，创下了纪录。

Then it sells six million more, staying at #1 on the Billboard chart for over a month.

然后它的销量又增加了 600 万份，在公告牌排行榜上保持第一名超过一个月。

They say that the past is a foreign country , and reading a Pearl Jam profile from the early 90s, it certainly feels that way.

他们说过去是异国他乡，读着90年代初期的珍珠酱简介，确实有这种感觉。

The writer takes for granted that fame is inherently bad.

作者理所当然地认为名声本质上是不好的。

And not just because fans might, say, break into your backstage dressing room and steal your notebooks—which they did—but also because commercial success and artistic integrity are so obviously at odds with one another.

这不仅是因为粉丝可能会闯入你的后台更衣室并偷走你的笔记本（他们确实这么做了），还因为商业成功和艺术完整性之间显然是不一致的。

Kurt Cobain had mocked the band for catering to the mainstream, and the criticism clearly stung.

库尔特·科本 (Kurt Cobain) 嘲笑乐队迎合主流，这种批评显然很刺痛。

It was understood that being popular was somehow, paradoxically, uncool , and that Pearl Jam owed everyone assurances that they hadn’t gotten too big for their britches.

大家都知道，受欢迎在某种程度上是一种不酷的行为，但自相矛盾的是，Pearl Jam 应该向所有人保证，他们不会变得太过自大。

I am just barely old enough to remember this era, when “selling out” was a bad thing you did with your career, rather than a good thing you do with your stadium tour.

我的年龄还不足以记住这个时代，当时“售空”是你在职业生涯中做的一件坏事，而不是你在体育场巡演中做的一件好事。

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century , the book where I first read this story about Pearl Jam, quotes the 90s chronicler Chuck Klosterman: “the concept of ‘selling out’ [...] is the single most nineties aspect of the nineties”.

我第一次在《空白：21 世纪的文化史》一书中读到有关 Pearl Jam 的故事，书中引用了 90 年代编年史家 Chuck Klosterman 的话说：“‘出卖’的概念……是 90 年代最具九十年代特征的一个方面”。

I gained consciousness at about the time that Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls gained worldwide fame, and I understood that it was hip to hate them.

大约在后街男孩、NSYNC 和辣妹组合享誉全球的时候，我才意识到，讨厌她们是很时髦的事。

2 This didn’t stop them from selling millions of records, of course.

2 当然，这并没有阻止他们售出数百万张唱片。

But there was a sizable sector of society that refused to join in, a clutch of (sometimes snobby) purists who were ready to turn on anyone who got too big or too rich.

但社会上有相当一部分人拒绝加入，一群纯粹主义者（有时是势利的）随时准备攻击任何变得太大或太富有的人。

As the music writer Chris Dalla Riva points out, around this time, a rock band could lose permanently lose their street cred for appearing in a Miller commercial .

正如音乐作家克里斯·达拉·里瓦 (Chris Dalla Riva) 指出的那样，大约在这个时候，一支摇滚乐队可能会因为出现在米勒广告中而永久失去其街头信誉。

That feeling part of a larger anti-consumerist vibe percolating through culture at the time.

这种感觉是当时文化中渗透的更大的反消费主义氛围的一部分。

This was the era of Super Size Me and the anti-World Trade Organization protests that came to be known as the Battle of Seattle .

这是“Super Size Me”和后来被称为“西雅图之战”的反世界贸易组织抗议活动的时代。

My parents furnished me with copies of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Naomi Klein’s anti-capitalist manifesto No Logo .

我的父母给了我埃里克·施洛瑟（Eric Schlosser）的《快餐国家》（Fast Food Nation）和娜奥米·克莱因（Naomi Klein）的反资本主义宣言《No Logo》。

3 My English teacher made the whole class read anti-consumerist YA novels like Feed and The Gospel According to Larry .

3 我的英语老师让全班同学阅读反消费主义的青少年小说，比如《Feed》和《Larry 的福音》。

I got so caught up in the fervor that I almost showed up to a school dance with a handmade sign that said “I AM PROTESTING CONSUMERISM”.

我被这种狂热所吸引，差点就带着手工制作的标语出现在学校舞会上，上面写着“我抗议消费主义”。

I chickened out at the last second, but clearly there was some potent zeitgeist going on if a 13-year-old was about to stake their reputation on, I guess, not buying stuff?

我在最后一秒退缩了，但如果一个 13 岁的孩子要把自己的声誉押在不买东西上，显然有一些强有力的时代精神正在发生？

Fast forward to today, and that zeitgeist is long gone.

快进到今天，那种时代精神早已不复存在。

Meghan Thee Stallion is a Popeyes franchisee , Drake would like you to try online gambling , and Maroon 5 is covering Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as a tribute to Hyundai .

Meghan Thee Stallion 是 Popeyes 的特许经营商，Drake 希望您尝试在线赌博，Maroon 5 正在报道 Bob Marley 的“三只小鸟”，以向现代汽车致敬。

4 Shortly after she charted her first hit, the rapper Ice Spice was partnering with Ben Affleck and Dunkin’ Donuts on an Ice Spice Munchkins Drink .

4 说唱歌手 Ice Spice 推出第一首热门歌曲后不久，就与 Ben Affleck 和 Dunkin’ Donuts 合作推出了 Ice Spice Munchkins Drink。

5 We’ve got punk icon Iggy Pop selling insurance and Bob Dylan appearing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial .

5 朋克偶像伊基·波普 (Iggy Pop) 推销保险，鲍勃·迪伦 (Bob Dylan) 出现在维多利亚的秘密 (Victoria’s Secret) 广告中。

6 Lollapalooza once featured alt rock and heavy metal; these days, you can catch a set by DJ D-Sol, better known as David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs .

6 Lollapalooza 曾经以另类摇滚和重金属为特色；如今，您可以欣赏 DJ D-Sol 的表演，他更广为人知的名字是高盛 (Goldman Sachs) 首席执行官大卫·所罗门 (David Solomon)。

And if you love Lady Gaga’s album Chromatica and the associated HBO special Gaga Chromatica Ball , then don’t miss these limited edition Lady Gaga Chromatica -themed Oreos !

如果您喜欢 Lady Gaga 的专辑 Chromatica 和相关的 HBO 特别节目 Gaga Chromatica Ball，那么不要错过这些限量版 Lady Gaga Chromatica 主题奥利奥！

Hyper-commercialism is nothing new, in music or anywhere else.

无论是在音乐领域还是其他领域，过度商业化都不是什么新鲜事。

(See, for instance, the band KISS’ officially licensed Kiss Kasket ).

（例如，参见 KISS 乐队官方授权的 Kiss Kasket）。

People who bemoan our era of “late capitalism” rarely realize that phrase is 100 years old .

那些哀叹我们这个“晚期资本主义”时代的人很少意识到这句话已经有100年历史了。

The only thing that’s unprecedented about these craven cash-ins is how well they seem to be working .

这些胆怯的现金收入唯一前所未有的地方是它们似乎运作良好。

Selling out no longer carries a stigma—if anything, fans are excited for tie-ins between their favorite bands and their favorite brands, no matter how shameless.

售罄不再带来耻辱——如果有的话，粉丝们会对他们最喜欢的乐队和他们最喜欢的品牌之间的搭配感到兴奋，无论多么无耻。

The Chromatica Oreos reportedly flew off the shelves, earning a thumbs-up even from the Washington Post ’s food critic .

据报道，Chromatica Oreos 被抢购一空，甚至赢得了《华盛顿邮报》美食评论家的竖起大拇指。

Some people complained about the texture and the color, or how it was simply a re-release of the much-hated “golden” Oreo , but they did not complain that it is cringe, perhaps even depraved, for a musician to collaborate with an international food conglomerate to stick her name on a million mass-produced sandwich cookies.

有些人抱怨它的质地和颜色，或者它只是重新发布了令人讨厌的“金色”奥利奥，但他们并没有抱怨一个音乐家与一家国际食品集团合作将她的名字印在一百万块批量生产的三明治饼干上是令人畏缩的，甚至可能是堕落的。

And if that doesn’t send Kurt Cobain spinning in his grave, wait until he finds out that Gen Z thinks Nirvana is a clothing brand .

如果这还没有让库尔特·科本 (Kurt Cobain) 在坟墓里旋转，那就等到他发现 Z 世代认为 Nirvana 是一个服装品牌。

W.

David Marx, the author of Blank Space , has a theory that I think is correct, but incomplete.

《空白空间》的作者大卫·马克思有一个我认为正确但不完整的理论。

He blames an ideology called poptimism : the idea that popular art (and especially pop music) is just as meritorious as any other kind of art.

他指责一种名为流行主义的意识形态：流行艺术（尤其是流行音乐）与任何其他类型的艺术一样有价值。

Poptimism was meant to be a reaction to rockism 7 , a strain of cultural snobbery that insisted rock ‘n’ roll was the only authentic form of art—if it ain’t a white guy with a guitar, it ain’t real music!

乐观主义是对摇滚主义的反应 7 ，这是一种文化势利派，坚持认为摇滚乐是唯一真正的艺术形式——如果它不是一个拿着吉他的白人，那它就不是真正的音乐！

Both sides of that debate might sound stupid now, but the poptimist critique made sense back when people were flocking to baseball stadiums to blow up piles of disco records :

这场辩论的双方现在听起来可能都很愚蠢，但当人们涌向棒球场炸毁成堆的迪斯科唱片时，这种乐观主义的批评是有道理的：

Unfortunately, Marx says, the critics took poptimism too far, and they brought the discourse with them.

不幸的是，马克思说，批评者过于乐观，他们带来了这种言论。

They embraced pop music not only because they had suddenly discovered the musical genius of Britney Spears, but also because they realized the political winds had changed.

他们拥抱流行音乐不仅因为他们突然发现了布兰妮·斯皮尔斯的音乐天才，还因为他们意识到政治风向已经改变。

In the words of one music writer, poptimism was “ a kind of penance, atoning for past rockist misdeeds ”.

用一位音乐作家的话说，乐观主义是“一种忏悔，为过去摇滚乐手的罪行赎罪”。

Saying that some art is better than other art started sounding too much like saying that some people are better than other people.

说某些艺术比其他艺术更好，听起来就像是在说某些人比其他人更好。

And once you’re unwilling to judge art for its artistry, you’re stuck judging it by its popularity.

一旦你不愿意以艺术性来评判艺术，你就只能以它的受欢迎程度来评判它。

I don’t doubt Marx’s thesis that culture writers abandoned their posts, but I do doubt that this was enough to kill the anti-consumerist vibe on its own.

Something even bigger was happening at the same time: while the critics were changing their tune, they were also getting tuned out.

与此同时，更大的事情发生了：批评者改变论调的同时，他们也被忽视了。

The internet decapitated art criticism, elevating the YouTube commenter to the same level as the Pitchfork editor.

互联网斩断了艺术批评，将 YouTube 评论者提升到了与 Pitchfork 编辑相同的水平。

And although there are plenty of problems with professional tastemakers—they can be condescending and exclusionary, they can have their heads up their butts, etc.—they are at least, in theory, concerned with separating art from schlock.

尽管专业时尚引领者存在很多问题——他们可能居高临下、排他性、他们可能昂首挺胸等等——但他们至少在理论上关心将艺术与劣质分开。

Casual consumers have no such hangups.

They don’t care whether every pop song they listen to is written by the same middle-aged Swedish guy ; they just want their eardrums vibrated, their retinas tickled, and their pleasure centers stimulated.

他们不在乎他们听的每首流行歌曲是否都是由同一个中年瑞典人写的；他们只是希望耳膜振动，视网膜发痒，快乐中枢受到刺激。

And so, the more you cater to the consumer over the connoisseur, the more you’re going to be serving up slop.

因此，你越是迎合消费者而不是鉴赏家，你提供的泔水就越多。

The internet makes this possible; competition makes it irresistible.

Together, the decline of art criticism and the ascent of art populism can explain how corny, lowest-common-denominator kitsch went from being a guilty pleasure to simply being a pleasure .

艺术批评的衰落和艺术民粹主义的兴起可以共同解释陈腐的、最低公分母的媚俗是如何从一种罪恶的快乐变成一种纯粹的快乐。

The line separating art and entertainment went undefended, and then it was washed away by a tsunami of swill.

艺术和娱乐之间的界限变得毫无防御，然后就被泔水海啸冲走了。

However, that doesn’t explain why we became so tolerant of shameless greed and self-promotion.

然而，这并不能解释为什么我们对无耻的贪婪和自我推销如此宽容。

As we lost the ability to distinguish between Joni Mitchell and Celine Dion, why did we also lose the ability to distinguish between a single and a jingle?

正如我们失去了区分乔尼·米切尔和席琳·迪翁的能力一样，为什么我们也失去了区分单曲和顺口溜的能力？

Listening to Lady Gaga is one thing, but where did we acquire our appetite for her Oreos?

听 Lady Gaga 的歌是一回事，但我们对她的奥利奥的胃口是从哪里来的呢？

In every country on Earth, poor people outnumber rich people.

在地球上的每个国家，穷人的数量都多于富人。

Many of those countries are ostensibly democratic.

其中许多国家表面上都是民主国家。

This leaves us with a puzzle: why don’t the poor people vote to take all the money away from the rich people and redistribute it amongst themselves?

这给我们留下了一个难题：为什么穷人不投票将富人的钱全部拿走并重新分配给他们自己呢？

John Steinbeck’s famous explanation was that, in the United States at least, poor people see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.

约翰·斯坦贝克的著名解释是，至少在美国，穷人认为自己是“暂时尴尬的百万富翁”。

8 You don’t want to outlaw affluence if you might have some for yourself one day.

8 如果有一天你可能会拥有一些财富，你就不会想禁止财富。

That wasn’t a crazy thing to think when Steinbeck was writing in the 1930s, as some of the richest men in America had come from modest means—Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Edison, Hershey, and Chrysler.

当斯坦贝克在 20 世纪 30 年代写作时，这样的想法并不疯狂，因为美国一些最富有的人都出身贫寒——洛克菲勒、卡内基、福特、爱迪生、好时和克莱斯勒。

If fortunes are popping into existence all the time, it may seem like the wealthy are a group to be joined rather than beaten.

如果财富总是突然出现，那么富人似乎是一个需要加入而不是被打败的群体。

The average American is not feeling so upwardly mobile these days, and so people aren’t as sanguine about the super-rich as they might have once been.

如今，普通美国人感觉自己的地位不再那么高，因此人们对超级富豪的看法也不像以前那么乐观了。

When YouGov surveyed Americans about their opinions of 40 different rich people, not a single one of them was liked by more than 50% of the population.

当 YouGov 调查美国人对 40 名不同富人的看法时，没有一个人得到超过 50% 的人口喜欢。

(For instance, 90% of respondents know who Jeff Bezos is, but only 19% approve of him).

（例如，90% 的受访者知道杰夫·贝佐斯是谁，但只有 19% 的人认可他）。

An increasing number of people—and especially young people—say that billionaires are a bad thing for the country:

越来越多的人，尤其是年轻人，表示亿万富翁对国家来说是一件坏事：

As the public has soured on the rich, however, they seem to have sweetened on the famous.

然而，当公众对富人越来越厌恶时，他们似乎对名人却越来越好感。

In similar YouGov polls , celebrities do extraordinarily well compared to billionaires.

在类似的 YouGov 民意调查中，与亿万富翁相比，名人的表现非常好。

Lady Gaga, for instance, has 97% recognition and 61% approval.

例如，Lady Gaga 的认可度为 97%，认可度为 61%。

Samuel L.

塞缪尔·L.

Jackson: 96% recognition, 81% approval.

Even Paris Hilton’s 40% approval rate is better than every single rich person except Warren Buffet (he’s at 41%).

甚至帕丽斯·希尔顿 (Paris Hilton) 40% 的支持率也比沃伦·巴菲特 (Warren Buffet) 以外的所有富人都要好（他的支持率是 41%）。

9 Not bad for someone who once described her life’s mission as, “I want to be famous.

9 对于一个曾经将自己的人生使命描述为“我想出名”的人来说，这还不错。

[...] And I want to monetize that, like a lot .” 10

[...] 我想将其货币化，就像很多一样。” 10

This Great Switcheroo happened, I think, because as it got harder to become rich, it got easier to become famous.

我认为，这种伟大的转变之所以发生，是因为变得富有变得越来越困难，成名也变得越来越容易。

It’s hard to remember now, but going viral on the internet was once a bad thing.

现在已经很难记得了，但在互联网上病毒式传播曾经是一件坏事。

Back in 2002, when Star Wars Kid got famous for pretending to be Darth Maul in a home video, he got death threats, not brand deals.

早在 2002 年，当《星球大战小子》因在家庭视频中假装达斯摩尔而出名时，他收到的是死亡威胁，而不是品牌交易。

His classmates bullied him so badly that his family sued them; meanwhile, his school asked him not to come back .

他的同学欺负他，以至于他的家人起诉了他们；与此同时，他的学校要求他不要回来。

The “Numa Numa” Kid was originally “distraught” and “embarrassed” by his fame (he later tried to capitalize on it, mostly unsuccessfully).

“Numa Numa”小子最初对自己的名声感到“心烦意乱”和“尴尬”（后来他试图利用这一点，但大多不成功）。

Afro Ninja, a Black stunt performer whose disastrous audition tape went viral, said of his unexpected notoriety, “If I had a choice to do it all over again [...] I would pass”.

非洲忍者是一位黑人特技表演者，他灾难性的试镜带在网上疯传，他谈到自己意想不到的恶名时说，“如果我可以选择重来一次……我会通过”。

Once the attention economy built out its financial infrastructure, however, overnight fame suddenly went from painful to profitable.

然而，一旦注意力经济建立起其金融基础设施，一夜成名就会突然从痛苦变成有利可图。

The YouTube Partner Program ( 2007 ), Stripe ( 2010 ), and Patreon ( 2013 ) all made it easier to turn eyeballs into dollars.

YouTube 合作伙伴计划（2007 年）、Stripe（2010 年）和 Patreon（2013 年）都让将眼球转化为金钱变得更加容易。

The first wave of internet celebrities peaked too early to cash in, but subsequent waves became icons rather than pariahs.

第一波网红的出现太早，无法赚钱，但随后的几波网红却成为了偶像，而不是被遗弃的人。

Just as the Americans who lived through the Gilded Age watched industrial moguls build business empires, we watched tweens become millionaires in their bedrooms.

正如经历过镀金时代的美国人目睹工业大亨建立商业帝国一样，我们也目睹青少年在卧室里成为百万富翁。

They got Andrew Carnegie; we got Mr. Beast.

They got Andrew Carnegie;我们找到了野兽先生。

11

As a result, the attention economy is the one corner of the overall economy where people are still feeling upwardly mobile.

因此，注意力经济是整体经济中人们仍然感觉向上流动的一个角落。

57% of Gen Z (and 41% of older adults!) say they would like to be influencers.

57% 的 Z 世代（以及 41% 的老年人！）表示他们想成为有影响力的人。

And why not?

为什么不呢？

You are not going to escape the underclass by driving an Uber or dusting the server racks at a data center, but you might be able to do it by posting mukbang videos .

你无法通过驾驶 Uber 或清理数据中心服务器机架来逃离下层阶级，但你也许可以通过发布吃播视频来做到这一点。

I think this is why we now tolerate such blatant greed among famous people: we think we have a chance of becoming one of them.

我认为这就是为什么我们现在容忍名人如此公然的贪婪：我们认为我们有机会成为他们中的一员。

We once saw ourselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires; now we see ourselves as temporarily unknown celebrities.

我们曾经把自己视为暂时尴尬的百万富翁；现在我们把自己视为暂时不知名的名人。

(Of course, the celebrities we look up to are also millionaires, but their riches are incidental to their fame, rather than the other way around.)

It doesn’t matter whether you’re actually trying to become TikTok famous.

你是否真的想在 TikTok 上出名并不重要。

The fact that there is a path between us and the stars—however tenuous, however unlikely to be trod—makes it feel like they are, somehow, just like us.

事实上，我们和星星之间有一条路——无论多么脆弱，无论多么不可能被踏过——让人感觉它们在某种程度上就像我们一样。

You and I could never be Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Sam Altman, and so they seem distant and despicable.

你和我永远不可能成为杰夫·贝佐斯、比尔·盖茨或萨姆·奥尔特曼，因此他们显得疏远而卑鄙。

But some part of us believes that we could be Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, or Taylor Swift, and so we exempt them from the noblesse oblige that we used to demand of the aristocracy.

In fact, while most of us feel like billionaires owe us something (see: the California Billionaire Tax , heading to ballots this fall), many people apparently feel like they owe something to their favored celebrities.

Millions of people have joined the ranks of fan clubs like the Rihanna Navy, the BTS Army, Ariana Grande’s Arianators 12 , Justin Bieber’s Beliebers, Beyoncé’s Beyhive, and so on.

The paramilitary-esque branding of these groups is not accidental.

这些团体的准军事风格并非偶然。

These are the folks writing guides on how to inflate BTS’s streaming statistics, issuing death threats to a music writer who dared to give Taylor Swift an 8.0/10, and enlisting themselves as copyright police when an Ariana Grande album leaked early, hunting down and flagging links to the pirated music so it wouldn’t hurt her advance sales.

As the author of that BTS guide put it in an interview with The New York Times , promoting her favorite band feels like “we are also promoting our own voices, our own struggles, our own hope for a better world.”

This has got to be the greatest marketing coup in history: convincing fans that they are “promoting their own voices” while they are helping a record executive afford his second yacht.

I’m being harsh, but look around: are you pleased with the state of our culture?

我很严厉，但环顾四周：你对我们的文化状况感到满意吗？

Are you excited by music videos that double as commercials for Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip ?

您是否对兼作 Wonder Bread 和 Miracle Whip 广告的音乐视频感到兴奋？

13 Do you enjoy jockeying with ten million other people for Taylor Swift tickets, nine million of whom are attempting to invest in them as speculative assets?

Does it warm your cockles when The Rock brags on Twitter that Red One , his Christmas movie, has “a long shelf life and multiple verticals - kudos to our Amazon partners for their strategic win”?

This is what decades of poptimism, populism, and celebrity worship have gotten us:

这就是几十年来的乐观主义、民粹主义和名人崇拜给我们带来的结果：

If we want this to stop, the solution is simple: we have to stop eating Lady Gaga’s Oreos.

如果我们想让这种情况停止，解决办法很简单：我们必须停止吃 Lady Gaga 的奥利奥。

We have to stop pretending that celebrities are just like us, and that their success is our success.

我们必须停止假装名人和我们一样，他们的成功就是我们的成功。

We have to redraw the line between art and entertainment, and more importantly, we have to redraw the line between art and advertisement.

我们必须重新划定艺术和娱乐之间的界限，更重要的是，我们必须重新划定艺术和广告之间的界限。

I have no problem with artists making money—everybody has to pay their rent somehow.

我对艺术家赚钱没有意见——每个人都必须以某种方式支付租金。

I don’t even have a problem with artists getting rich—if you can write a song that makes the whole world sing, then you deserve a big fat check.

I have a problem with artists doing commerce under the guise of art.

我对艺术家打着艺术的幌子做生意有意见。

I listen, I read, and I watch because I want to inhabit, even if just for a moment, the mind of another human.

我听、我读、我看，因为我想占据另一个人的思想，即使只是片刻。

I want to feel what it’s like to be them, and in so doing, I want to better understand what it’s like to be me.

我想感受成为他们的感觉，通过这样做，我想更好地理解成为我的感觉。

But if I journey to the center of someone’s psyche and all I find there is a billboard for Pizza Hut, I’m turning around.

但如果我走进某人的心灵中心，发现那里只有一块必胜客的广告牌，我就会转身。

If your art is just one node in your business empire, if your albums are merely commercials for your cologne, if you’re trying to turn your first billion into your second billion, you are no longer an artist at all.

You are a credit default swap with a discography attached.

您是附有唱片目录的信用违约互换。

If we can revive the stigma of selling out, maybe we can also revive the rest of the punk ethos that we seem to have lost.

如果我们能够恢复出卖的耻辱，也许我们也可以恢复我们似乎已经失去的朋克精神的其余部分。

To the extent that anti-consumerist sentiment survives at all today, it mainly exists in two diminished forms.

就反消费主义情绪今天仍然存在的程度而言，它主要以两种减弱的形式存在。

One is the environmentalist variant, which says it’s naughty to buy stuff not because it’s bad for your soul, but because it’s bad for the Earth.

That’s a fine way to feel, but there are plenty of ways to sell your soul without increasing your carbon footprint.

这是一种很好的感受方式，但有很多方法可以在不增加碳足迹的情况下出卖你的灵魂。

The other is the anti-capitalist variant, which says it’s bad for rich people to have so much more money than poor people do.

另一种是反资本主义的变体，它认为富人比穷人拥有更多的钱是一件坏事。

That’s also a fair critique, but if you’re not careful, you can make it sound like it’s actually awesome to own tons of stuff, and the only problem with Birkin bags and Patek Philippes is that some people don’t get to have them.

We’re missing the most potent part of that 90s counterculture, the part that said there’s nothing noble about the act of consumption itself.

我们错过了 90 年代反主流文化中最有力的部分，即消费行为本身没有什么高尚之处。

I’d like to live in a world where a heavy metal musician who shills for margarine would become a laughingstock rather than a millionaire.

我希望生活在这样一个世界：一个为人造黄油付钱的重金属音乐家将成为笑柄，而不是百万富翁。

Our world used to be a little more like that, and I think it could be again.

我们的世界曾经有点像这样，我认为它可能会再次出现。

We don’t need to revive rockism—it was always stupid to think that you can only make good art with a Fender Stratocaster.

我们不需要复兴摇滚主义——认为只有使用 Fender Stratocaster 才能创作出优秀的艺术总是愚蠢的。

But we do need to revive our desire for seriousness among our cultural elite.

但我们确实需要重振我们的文化精英对严肃性的渴望。

If we’re going to let these people into our lives, they ought to stand for something more than themselves.

如果我们想让这些人进入我们的生活，他们应该代表比他们自己更重要的东西。

They should to be willing to put their art ahead of their pocketbook and their follower count.

他们应该愿意将艺术置于钱包和粉丝数量之上。

And, ideally, they should not also be the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

而且，理想情况下，他们不应该同时担任高盛的首席执行官。

I have seen the future that awaits us if we fail to bring punk back, and it looks like this:

我已经看到了如果我们不能把朋克带回来的话等待着我们的未来，它看起来像这样：

Experimental History is also available as a breakfast cereal and a skin moisturizer

实验历史也可作为早餐麦片和皮肤保湿剂

The producer was right: they later put it on their third album, and it spent eight weeks at #1 on the rock charts , despite not being released as a single.

制作人是对的：他们后来把它放在了他们的第三张专辑中，尽管没有作为单曲发行，但它在摇滚排行榜上保持了八周的第一名。

I mean, c’mon, the founding members of NSYNC were former Mickey Mouse Club actors , and Backstreet Boys was assembled by a music producer in a blimp hangar in Orlando .

我的意思是，来吧，NSYNC 的创始成员都是前米老鼠俱乐部的演员，而后街男孩则是由一位音乐制作人在奥兰多的飞艇机库中组建的。

The magazine ad that announced auditions for the group that would become the Spice Girls read like this :

宣布参加辣妹组合试镜的杂志广告是这样的：

If there is a less-cool origin story for a band, I’d love to hear it.

如果乐队有一个不太酷的起源故事，我很想听听。

Bob Marley is one of the greatest artists in the history of music, he is truly a genius, so we were excited to be given the opportunity to cover ‘Three Little Birds” for Hyundai’s new campaign.

No relation to the Spice Girls nor to the dancehall artist Spice.

与辣妹组合和舞厅艺术家 Spice 没有关系。

In the comments, Dylan fans claim this commercial is merely performance art.

迪伦粉丝在评论中声称这则广告仅仅是行为艺术。

In 1965, a reporter asked Dylan, “If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?” and Dylan replied , “Ladies’ garments”.

1965年，一位记者问迪伦：“如果你要出售给商业利益，你会选择哪一个？” and Dylan replied , “Ladies’ garments”.

That means his Victoria’s Secret collab is more like a prophecy fulfilled than a legacy shilled.

这意味着他与维多利亚的秘密的合作更像是一个预言的实现，而不是一个传承的遗产。

In that case, I, uh, also hereby declare that I would only ever sell out for a company that hawks brassieres, and so if I ever appear in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, rest assured I am during it in a cool and ironic way.

The “millionaires” framing of this quote is probably a later paraphrase.

这句话的“百万富翁”框架可能是后来的解释。

The original quote says “temporarily embarrassed capitalist”.

原引言是“暂时尴尬的资本家”。

Michael Jackson is currently at 67% approval, which is impressive considering Netflix just released a documentary about whether he sexually abused children .

迈克尔·杰克逊目前的支持率为 67%，考虑到 Netflix 刚刚发布了一部关于他是否性虐待儿童的纪录片，这一数字令人印象深刻。

If Star Wars Kid had debuted a decade later, he’d probably be a Disney brand ambassador right now.

如果《星球大战小子》十年后首次亮相，他现在可能会成为迪士尼品牌大使。

Instead, he is making documentaries about the dangers of the internet .

相反，他正在制作有关互联网危险的纪录片。

No offense to Ariana Grande, but I would have encouraged my fans to pick something that didn’t sound like a rejected name for the Hitler Youth.

无意冒犯阿丽亚娜·格兰德，但我会鼓励我的粉丝选择一个听起来不像希特勒青年团拒绝的名字。

Somewhat tangential to the discussion about burning disco records: I watched a documentary about the Bee Gees and Barry Gibb believes that the reason the *Saturday Night Fever* soundtrack did so well is because the disco music was done by white guys.

与关于燃烧迪斯科唱片的讨论有些切题：我观看了一部关于比吉斯乐队的纪录片，巴里·吉布认为《周六夜狂热》原声带如此出色的原因是迪斯科音乐是由白人创作的。

He believes racism was a key factor in the "disco sucks" movement, and it's hard to argue, particularly when you've already stated here that only "white guys with guitars" in rock music count as authentic.

It's essentially the same argument black people have made about Elvis Presley stealing black music and making it palatable to a white audience.

这本质上与黑人关于埃尔维斯·普雷斯利窃取黑人音乐并使其为白人观众所接受的论点相同。

Both rocketed to stardom (or in the case of the Bee Gees, had a major comeback) with music originated by black/latino artists.

两人都凭借黑人/拉丁裔艺术家的音乐一举成名（或者说比吉斯乐队卷土重来）。

As a general rule, celebrity endorsements tend to turn me off a product.

一般来说，名人代言往往会让我对某种产品失去兴趣。

Tie in packaging, you’d have to pay me (and well) to use it even if I liked the celebrity’s work.

就包装而言，即使我喜欢这位名人的作品，你也得付钱给我（而且还得付钱）才能使用它。

No, not giving YOU money for that.

Dunno if it’s because I was around for the nineties.

不知道是不是因为我是九十年代的人。

Think I always kinda felt that way.

I think it’s just annoyance with the noise and commercialism.

我认为这只是对噪音和商业主义的烦恼。

Not so much a reasoned boycott as a twitch.

I can maybe excuse it if there is possibly relevant domain knowledge—a musician I like or an athlete performing well saying hey I like the instruments or equipment or sporting gear X company makes for Y reasons, I might pay some attention if it looks like they’re really saying it because that’s really their experience, and okay maybe that’s not unreasonable of them to do.

Even then tho I’m probably more thinking, yeah, okay, taking note of your opinion and maybe I’ll give them a try but I do want to try them myself first.

And always a little suspicious they were more looking at the endorsement money than the actual quality.

他们总是有点怀疑，他们更看重代言钱而不是实际质量。

And generally, if you’re paying someone to endorse your cookies, or to let you print their name on them, you’re paying them to chase me away from them.

Even a product I already like enough to use, you don’t want to film a pop star saying I love those.

即使是我已经很喜欢使用的产品，你也不希望拍摄一个流行歌星说我喜欢这些产品。

It’s likely to make me less enthusiastic.

I might look elsewhere.

我可能会去别的地方看看。

I think a part of me is thinking wait what’s wrong with those you feel you need to do this?

我想我的一部分在想，等等，那些你觉得你需要这样做的人出了什么问题？

Or more likely: I really am just a bit annoyed again.

或者更有可能的是：我真的又有点生气了。

It just seems cheesy, a little too manipulative.

Granted, I get advertising is meant to be the latter: the message is always buy this.

当然，我得到的广告应该是后者：传达的信息总是买这个。

But while I get promotion is just part of commerce, and fine fair play saying we make a thing we think is good and we want you to buy, I find it, I dunno, kinda especially insulting to the intelligence a pop star saying hey now you can have Oreos with my name on them.

Thanks, no. I think I’d be a little embarrassed having those in my kitchen.

谢谢，不。我想把它们放在厨房里我会有点尴尬。

Don’t care if it’s trendy.

I can live with being untrendy.