What Does Indie Mean Today: The Corporatization of Independent [Guest Post by Laura]

[Editor's Note: Here's a guest post from Blogulator friend and reader Laura Knepper, owner of LKc Style, a personal shopping and image consulting company exclusively for male clientele. Services are based out of Chicago, Illinois but can be provided via phone and e-mail for national and international clients.]

It’s a regular tale, the totally cool and underground people discover things they love and try to keep them that way—away from “The Man,” who is decidedly uncool and monopolizing. But The Man is smart. He eventually finds out our beloved things and wraps them up and sells them back to us for a profit. It happened before with the alternative movement of the 90’s (anyone still listening to their alternative rock radio station or wearing flannel??). And it happened with hip-hop, a once reviled and edge market now turned into the dominate Top 40 phenomenon with your mom watching So You Think You Can Dance.

Most recently, the indie movement of the Millennials has served up quite the topsy-turvy tale of sorts. The indie or Independent movement was an exacting pierce against corporate America that infiltrated music, movies and fashion by local artists of all sorts. We fell in love with their creative tunes, their awkward tableaus and funky t-shirts. The indie movement was also promulgated by the availability to connect faster to more people than ever before and with unconventional advertising. Indie creators are using Myspace, Facebook, blogs and Twitter to push their ideas and individualism. A sound, look and feel became identifiable in the indie scene.

And all at once, The Man became indie too. The Man was wearing skinny jeans, listening to Crystal Castles and tweeting about Kanye’s sunglasses. But He still has His old pocket book in mind…He made the iPod and Urban Outfitters and Little Miss Sunshine. And we bought it. And continue to buy it. This creates the ironic mess of Independent being married to the exact opposite of what it stands for. It makes me a little emo, how about you?

But The Man can’t sell out to himself, can he?!?

None of the above is probably “news” to you readers as you are all, no doubt, savvy of your surroundings. I bring up the idea to create a springboard for thinking ahead. So, as a final thought, if you, dear reader, got through all of this verbosity, I’d like to take a poll: How do you feel about indie becoming mainstream? And what do you think is the next movement to be eventually harvested by corporate America?

Consider the following indie to mainstream infiltrations:

Pete Wentz: Pioneer or Sweatshirt Sellout?

Starbucks: Franchising coffee sluts or recent independent mocha maker?

Nirvana & Soundgarden Lovers Meet $150 shoes

Indie Spongebob: Don’t cry over your crabby patties.

Pop sensation Hillary Duff: Skinny jeans + giant bowling bag = brand whore indie

Lenscrafters promotes Emo glasses to Beautiful People

You can read the LKc Style blog for tips too, where you can soon be on the lookout for a guest post from our very own Qualler. Thanks to Laura for extending her talents to The Blogulator!

This entry was posted by chris, on Monday, September 14, 2009. You can leave your response.