the question of whether modern internet humor is dadaist is fascinating because sure on a surface level, it absolutely resembles dadaist art of the 1920′s but my question is…………..is it art?
the original dada movement emerged specifically to interact with that question, of whether an incoherent collage, or a gold-plated toilet seat, or poetry pulled out of a hat should be considered art
but internet humor? it exists solely for us to entertain one another. it doesn’t give a shit about what art is or isn’t, and comments like “this belongs in a museum” or “where’s her oscar” always come after the fact, and, more importantly, are made specifically to add entertainment value
so my take for today is that internet humor isn’t neo-dada, or post-dada, or even “e-dada” or “#dada”; as a mass movement concerned more with community participation than performance to an audience and wholly unconcerned with questions about higher meaning…………….this is folk dada
FOLK DADA
It’s kitsch dada – kitsch is a common derogatory term used to degrade the “art of the masses” aka what the everyday person enjoys and appreciates looking at (which I prefer to call proletariat art).
Dada, both in the WWI original Dada context and then post WWII neo-Dada context were/are considered “avant-garde” high art that exists as an intellectual stimulus moreso than it does as an aesthetic one. It also functioned as political and social commentary and was somewhat humorous due to its absurdity.
The truly defining factor is that today’s dada will not be embraced by the art community because there is no intent to be artistic behind it. And if it is accepted as art it will be sidelined because it is so popular and mass consumed, which runs counter to the very nature of dada, as it is an avant-garde art made for intellectuals to ponder over rather than something to be enjoyed by the masses.
it’s because reality is terrifying and our world’s dying, and our developmental years were spent in a constant state of using increasingly nonsensical humor to cope
It’s called the rise of neo-dadaism and the same thing happened during WWII
well that’s not concerning At All
time out hold up sweetheart let’s get it together before you wanna spread art historical misinformation
@biggest-gaudiest-patronuses has a spot on summary of the dada ideology; these artists reacted to the horrors and atrocities of WWI by embracing nonsense in a world that no longer seemed to make sense
but the period we’re in right now is decidedly not neo-dada! you know why? because neo-dada already happened, and not during WWII but during the 60s and 70s, through artists like robert rauschenberg, yves klein, yoko ono, and nam june paik.
what was going on in the 60s and 70s that might involve “terrifying” reality and “increasingly nonsensical” coping methods? the cold war! now the cold war is in much more recent memory,
but if you wanna talk about nonsensical coping methods among millennials? i would say “lol xD so random” culture is probably the best starting point, which is definitely post-cold war (knowyourmeme is giving me 2004 as a good benchmark date).
2004 is only three years after 2001 so this resurgence of dada thinking could easily be seen as initially a reaction to 9/11, and we can then trace the antics of the bush administration, the shift of the overton window, the rise of internet culture, the 2016 election, and the current political moment as developmental factors behind this current dada moment.
so since neo-dada already happened and this is definitely its own thing with its own factors, and since a big part of our dada is the influence of the internet on modernity, i posit that we start calling this e-dada or #dada
tl;dr: neo-dada is already taken, it happened in the 60s/70s, we’re doing our own kind of dada now
e-dada
dada kink
Is it too late to delete my tumblr?
it’s never too late
This is deep, concerning and yet heavily ironic, because right after the profound historical post comes…dada kink. This is an effect of e-dada
I have not laughed at anything as hard as I just laughed at cornn flaek
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