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a guide to
fuccbois Ruby Rose: a FEMALE FUCCBOI, as exemplified by her occupation as a DJ / the only lesbian who is possibly cooler than Alex Vause on OITNB / IRL
Shayne Oliver founder and designer of Hood By Air, he helped spark a fashion movement for luxury streetwear brands
TOP 10
Mac Miller: the 23 yr old artist from Pittsburgh is best known as a frat rapper, thanks to Blue Slide Park & his other early successes, in spite of his recent unconventional genrebending work
Justin Bieber: obvi has 2 b on this list…2015 is his road to redemption…7 yr old girls were buying the doll version of him 2 yrs ago, r we ready for him to become a sex / pop icon?
Kanye West:Yeezus might have a God complex, but his track record as a producer-artist-designerbusiness mogul might just validate his ego.
Tyler, The Creator:the rapper’s meteoric independent rise through Tumblr in 2011 was quickly entrenched in controversy over his homphobic / anti-female remarks
Yung Lean: + Sad Boys 2001 Swedish rapper who killed the Tumblr game, amassing a global following by the age of 16…obvious issue here: c u l t u r a l appropriation
Zayn Malik: he broke the hearts of millions of tweens across the world with his abrupt departure from One Direction. Can he fly solo?
A$AP Rocky:his aesthetic is unique unto mainstream hip hop and he’s often credited as facilitating the popularization of HBA
fuck boys
Mike The Ruler:the 14-year old instagram star / socialite has a collection of luxury clothes that’s probably worth more than everything in your house combined and he’s only a freshman in high school
4 SNEAKERHEADS Adidas tapped into Sneakerhead culture in creating a series of limited edition collaboration sneakers with an array of high-fashion artists. Adidas elevated its brand.
FUCCBOI EVOLUTION According to Google search data, fuccboi popped up around 2007, gained steady traction over the next eight years, and surged in popularity in early 2015. Fuccboi is most popular in Perth, Australia. But it’s not an Australian term. Fuccboi is also popular in New York City. But it’s not an American term. Social media eradicates space as a barrier to colloquial language development.
Adidas X Stan Smith
Adidas X Kanye West Yeezy 350
Adidas X Yohji Yamamoto Y-3
Adidas X Raf Simons
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BRANDS ARE GODS Teens worship brands. Their opinions are malleable, which makes them a highly valued consumer demographic. The brands listed below are popular amongst fuccbois. Each label operates with a principle of exclusivity. For example, Supreme releases limited edition collaborations with designers — imbuing Supreme with strong brand equity.
Stussy: originally a surfwear brand, Stussy has since become a staple among a variety of subcultures from hiphop to skate to surf to tween mallrats
Hood By Air: consistently pushes boundaries for gender-neutral clothing; HBA’s A/W 14 collection was dubbed “Fubbboi”
Supreme: founded in ’96, the streetwear brand has become the singlemost luminary brand for fuccbois
Raf Simons: The designer is reinventing couture at Dior, but is also one of the most hyped streetwear designers in the world today.
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- Asia
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Knee High Socks I want to remember myself like how I looked in the Polaroid that you took of me and then hung above us right before it happened and i didn’t feel anything but “monochrome”-a word we will always disagree on the meaning of maybe if you had instructed me to pose like one of the girls on your website-it’s recently come to my attention that I might actually enjoy power dynamics I know in some cultures they say getting your photo taken can steal your soul and I was really hoping that you would take a piece so that as the chemicals developed with the exposing light particles that surrounded our bodies made of only nicotine, a choker, my knee-high socks and a mutual obsession with your face resembling Richard Hell they would work together to unveil a new framed mixture of me like everyone said they were supposed to But instead I just felt like a semi-erotic Urban Outfitters catalog (and I barely even shop there now) I don’t like you anymore but I do still like me in that photo so if you’re reading this you can mail it to me (if you haven’t lost it) and I might feel something different.
- Emma
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- Asia
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The Age of Hyper-Criticism A 2015 Response to Randall Jarrell’s 1953 “The Age of Criticism”
Everyone reads too much and no one reads anything. The contemporary ‘common reader’ reads articles until his eyes ache from the piercing artificial light of his iPhone. “Reads” may be too kind a word. A common reader does not read — he scans: a New Yorker piece someone shared on Facebook; a Buzzfeed listicle on 90’s tv series; a Vulture recap from the Walking Dead episode he missed last night; a Salon review of a bestseller that he might (but probably won’t) buy for his kindle; a book (wow) that his favorite television series was adapted from — or was it the other way around? Such a reader lives trapped in a circuitry of hyped op-eds, listicles, and think pieces. This common reader knows not what he likes or dislikes, but opts to adopt the trendiest opinion on his newsfeed, for remaining well-liked is most essential in our Age of Hyper-Criticism.
Even the common reader’s hipster brethren — the ‘serious reader’ — seems to scan more than read. The serious reader likes books. He defends old fashioned public libraries and printing and newspapers and maybe rolled his eyes at you on the subway when you took out your e-reader. At first
chance, he’ll tell you why Vice isn’t real journalism or why Ta-Nehisi Coates is relevant. But for the most part, he reverberates opinions. He’s an intellectual, more informed than the common reader, but nevertheless equally as stuck in a circuitry of someone else’s opinions, which he’s decided to trust.
remaining well-liked is most essential in our Age of Hyper-Criticism
Portlandia summed up this issue with flawless execution in a sketch titled “Did You Read It?” Two people meet for coffee. One asks, “did you read that thing in The New Yorker this month...?” The other responds, firing off another question: “did you read that thing in McSweeney’s?” The exchange continues, speeding up until they degenerate into robotic repetition: “did u read it…did u read it…did u read it?” They are lodged in a perpetual competition to stay on top of what’s trending: a criticism consumption loop.
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Readers read this way because of the internet. The internetsaavy reader shifts his attention from tab to tab, window to window, article to article, iPhone to iPad to iWhatever. There is too much content. And too many means of receiving it. Once criticism was confined to a collection of reputable or small publications; but today an infinite variety of publications exist via the web. Almost all internet-based criticism is bad or mediocre, but it’s difficult for people to tell. And doesn’t the internet abandon the dichotomy of good and bad? Mediocrity is a virtue on the web — look at YouTube, or the blogosphere, or Buzzfeed. A brand’s prestige plays far less a role on the internet than IRL. Hence why an intern writing for a digital startup magazine may reach a wider audience than a seasoned critic writing for The New York Review of Books. One can understand why there’s too much criticism; the digital economy depends on amassing impressions across a wide breadth of content. In a pay-perclick economy, excess trumps expertise.
These days, when a young millennial finishes school, he buys a new macbook, logs into Facebook, checks his phone for texts, then instagram, Twitter, the Facebook app, remembers he opened his computer, and settles down to write… a new blog, a listicle, a personal essay. If he works away, with simplicity, speed, and banality, at a few pieces, he after a while will find a digital home for his work. Everyone can get published on the internet. The young millennial does not strive to become a practitioner of the English language — why learn the proper use of a semi-colon, apostrophe, or even how to spell in a world with Google? Write an expose on Kylie Jenner’s plastic surgery, and be praised as a fine young critic… for Hellogiggles. For the young millennial, becoming a critic is a matter of concentration. And so another young critic enters the Age of Hyper-Criticism.
- Laura
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things i remembered that didn’t seem important till now:
1. "I don't know, sometimes I just feel sad.” "What kind of
sad.”
"It's hard to explain..." "Well, will you try to explain it to me?" "Sorry, I don't think I can. Not yet, at least. It's...
…complicated.”
2. "You're so beautiful.” I love you. I love everything about you.” "(Laughing, self-consciously) Oh really, like what?" "Like, your hair, your eyes, even your nose." "My...
…nose?”
"Yeah, I've never seen one like it." "I hate my nose.” "But I love it." "I still don't like it."
3. "What are you gonna do, huh? Write a sad poem about it?"
12 4. (Watching the first episode of Gilmore Girls) "Do you like the show?" “Cool.”
"Yeah, it's good.”
"Luke and Lorelei...? Right? They're gonna get together, aren't they?" "Yeah, they are... ...Do you want to kiss?"
5. "I'm not the kind of guy who's gonna buy her flowers, you know?" "Mmm... ...hmmm." "Like, they're so done, you know?" "But what if she wants them?" "Like, what if she wants some flowers sometime?"
"I don't know...
"What?"
...I'll figure something out."
6. "I didn't like you like that." "Ok." "I just think we were such good friends that the love I felt for you as a friend–" "Wait, you love me? " "As a friend." "Ok. Sorry. Continue." "So I confused that love with like, a fantasy of liking you." "Oh." "But I don't like you like that." "Yeah, that makes sense." "Sorry. Are you alright?" "Yeah, I guess so." "I'm sorry." "Don't be. I'm sorry I'm being stupid."
- Kit
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THE MEANING OF FUCCBOI Fuccboi is polysemous. For instance, to some fuccboi is synonymous with ‘douchebag.’ But to others, fuccboi is an elevated term reserved for fashionable teens obsessed with streetwear brands, i.e. Supreme. And to some, fuccboi is a vindictive label in dating, attached to dudes who fuck over a girl. Urban Dictionary is of no help in finding a clear definition, as its most popular definition goes, “A pussy ass nigga with no common sense that laccs good judgement and is constantly coming incorrect at REAL NIGGAS who will whoop them at a moments notice at any time and any place. Is also known to call the laws on a nigga therefore endowing them to a status of life long whoredom.” Unsurprisingly, the most common Google query related to fuccboi is “what is fuccboi,” followed by “fuccboi urban dictionary.” Semantic confusions inevitably lead to miscommunication. So, what exactly do we mean by the word fuccboi? Fuccboi(1). Insult to young men who in some way violate social order. Fuccboi, like its antecedent ‘douchebag,’ can check the systemic supremacy of the average male. Take the lame digressions Justin Bieber has committed over the last few years -- from egging his neighbor’s house to getting a chimpanzee taken away by German customs.
Fuccboi(2). Cultural appropriation. Take Slim Jesus, a white teen rapper from Ohio, whose video for his track, “Drill Time,” went viral last month. He rejects the label of fuccboi in his lyric, “you a fuccboi, you can’t hang.” Or take Yung Lean, the 19 year old internet rapper from Sweden, whose autotuned adolescent wales detail his existential dissociation and drug addictions. And denies his innate fuccboi-ness in “Kyoto”: “too weird for them other fuccbois.” Their rejection of fuccboi-ism only seems to substantiate the label. Fuccboi(3). Fashion. Contemporary streetwear is complex, unbound by convention. Take a Health Goth teen decked out in Adidas or Raf Simons or Balenciaga or Supreme. Shayne Oliver’s Fall/Winter 2014 Hood By Air collection was dubbed FUCCBOI, in honor of “all the FUCCBOI’s who shred the status quo with aggression and lush energies.” But, is there any common ground between fuccboi(1), (2), & (3)? I think there’s something ineffably internet-ish about fuccbois. Take that kid standing outside the Supreme store in Soho, dressed in an ironic baseball cap and dark chinos that rest just below his ankles. Tumblr raised this kid. Shaped his consciousness. Gave him a dictum of cool. Fuccbois and the word itself are contemporary products, brought about through the collective wisdom of social media.
- Laura