It's not CC. The scale of value is off by several orders of magnitude. Drop me in any large city in the world and I can hunt those things down in a day for less than a $1000. Heck, I could probably do a limited run of mix tapes for that too.
The story in my head is the sampler was a thrift store find or a high school graduation gift and all the vinyl is from their dad or uncle (rare 70s grooves). Poor people can have nice things too.
Sure, that's the story in everyone's head. Maybe that's not conspicuous consumption. More like "conspicuous authenticity"?
Everyone loves the story of "Well, he just got a beat up synth from his uncle's basement and was so inspired/gifted/dedicated/whatever that he then made this awesome music in spite of not having the latest gadgetry."
But, because we all love it, we fetishize it. And then people come along and productize and monetize it. And now you've got 303s selling for several grand on eBay.
Meanwhile, if you stray off script in a way that's cheap but not in a way that fits the hipster authentic narrative, it doesn't quite work. Putting together tunes using a beat up analog sampler and a crate — it always has to be a milk crate of course, too cheap to afford real shelving! — of records is hip. Putting together tunes using, I don't know, FruityLoops, your mom's old ThinkPad, and a bunch of old MP3s doesn't have the same cachet.
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That's conspicuous consumption as well, just of a different flavor.
Tracking down a working vintage sampler and a pile of rare groove records is a large investment in both money and time.
It's not CC. The scale of value is off by several orders of magnitude. Drop me in any large city in the world and I can hunt those things down in a day for less than a $1000. Heck, I could probably do a limited run of mix tapes for that too.
The story in my head is the sampler was a thrift store find or a high school graduation gift and all the vinyl is from their dad or uncle (rare 70s grooves). Poor people can have nice things too.
Sure, that's the story in everyone's head. Maybe that's not conspicuous consumption. More like "conspicuous authenticity"?
Everyone loves the story of "Well, he just got a beat up synth from his uncle's basement and was so inspired/gifted/dedicated/whatever that he then made this awesome music in spite of not having the latest gadgetry."
But, because we all love it, we fetishize it. And then people come along and productize and monetize it. And now you've got 303s selling for several grand on eBay.
Meanwhile, if you stray off script in a way that's cheap but not in a way that fits the hipster authentic narrative, it doesn't quite work. Putting together tunes using a beat up analog sampler and a crate — it always has to be a milk crate of course, too cheap to afford real shelving! — of records is hip. Putting together tunes using, I don't know, FruityLoops, your mom's old ThinkPad, and a bunch of old MP3s doesn't have the same cachet.