Thread 24810234

What books encapsulate the Gen X Soft Club aesthetic?

For those that don't know: https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Gen_X_Soft_Club

And for any oldfags out there, what was it like living through that aesthetic personally?

>>24810234 (OP)
>And for any oldfags out there, what was it like living through that aesthetic personally?
I don't remember that term ever being used then, and it was nothing more than a few album covers and magazine ads that I can even remember using that sort of aesthetic. I don't think it was ever a unified movement. Just trying to portray sleek, futuristic look that was trendy at the time.

>>24810234 (OP)

>What books encapsulate the Gen X Soft Club aesthetic?

WHAT A STUPID TERM; Z00MERS ARE SO STUPID.


>And for any oldfags out there, what was it like living through that aesthetic personally?

I AM A MILLENNIAL; IT WAS THE BEST TIME TO BE ALIVE; ONE COULD ACTUALLY BREATHE THE FUTURE; ONE WAS THE FUTURE, AND EVERYTHING LOOKED LIKE IT; IT WAS NOT A MERE ÆSTHETIC, BUT AN ETHOS.

THIS IS WHY MILLENNIALS ARE DAMAGED IN SEVERAL WAYS, AND WE ALL SUFFER FROM «DOROTHY SYNDROME» —ALL ACCEPTIONS OF THE TERM INCLUDED—: WE REMEMBER A WORLD THAT CEASED TO EXIST, THAT WE CANNOT RESTORE, TO WHICH WE CANNOT RETURN; THE FUTURE WAS CANCELLED, AND WE ARE STUCK HERE, IN THE PERPETUAL PRESENT.

WE WERE PROMISED ONLINE COMMUNITY: WE GOT ONLINE SLUMS; WE WERE PROMISED A WORLD OF CIVIC VIRTUES: WE GOT A WORLD OF BARBARIC VICES; WE WERE PROMISED A PULCHRITUDINOUS WORLD: WE GOT A SEPTIC GLOBE; WE WERE PROMISED FLYING CARS: WE GOT DRAGON DILDOS.

>>24810234 (OP)
>What books encapsulate the Gen X Soft Club aesthetic?
you zoomers really are a lost cause

>>24810234 (OP)
My former world is not your fad

at the time i was a child and also no one ever used that term or thought of this as a coecevie aesththic

>>24810234 (OP)
Will Self.

>>24810368

>[...] ONE COULD ACTUALLY BREATHE THE FUTURE [...]

I was recently thinking about how the air itself was different too.

>>24811486


HAHAH.

I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THAT; I DO NOT REMEMBER IF THE AIR USED TO SMELL DIFFERENTLY; I USED A METAPHOR.

>>24810368
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB0yH3O1Phw

>>24811486
>he hasn't noticed the change in the color of the sun

>>24810234 (OP)
>Gen X Soft Club aesthetic
kill yourself zoomer scum

I think that movie about the hackers is Gen X Soft Club. Or is it Y2K aesthetic?

>>24810234 (OP)
This shit and the “frutiger aero” stuff is just invented post hoc nonsense. I could name you the skibidi vibes era and declare it was all about wearing hoodies, toilet videos and listening to Kanye West. Apparently 30 years later people will believe it.
Now perhaps you realize yourself nobody identifies with this being a culture or aesthetic it’s just some random shit within a 10 year span I threw together?

It’s not like there’s some mystery as to what people at the time thought were styles or subcultures or fashion trends either.

>>24810234 (OP)
>And for any oldfags out there, what was it like living through that aesthetic personally?
Yeah, man, it was great. Before going out with friends we'd ask "Grunge or Gen X Soft Club tonight?" and then we'd dress accordingly.

>>24810234 (OP)
Guillaume Dustan, In My Room

>>24810267
exactly
>>24810234 (OP)
>What books encapsulate the Gen X Soft Club aesthetic?
the problem is that you're trying to perceive it as an "aesthetic" that was purposefully pursued at the time, which was not the case. it can be very loosely defined as a spirit of the time and because there was no mass convergence and curation of taste and interests via social media, there were a lot less tropes that were followed and hence it's really not reasonable to look at it as some sort of siloed self-contained movement or whatever. it was far from the only thing in the media and public consciousness, it just so happens to be the one that was used most in ads. zoomers are unfortunately the first generation where "what you consume defines you" rings fully true, and so they latch onto this as a le born in the wrong generation thing because for the last decade or so the majority of media is solely referential with nothing TRULY new, most likely because everyone is put onto the same tracks of learning creative skills - people watch the same youtube tutorials or the same books. there's a lot less people who are spending 5x time than necessary on figuring out their creative process through relentless trial and error with technological limitations (that prevent decision fatigue) which makes it unique to them in the process.

>>24812690
>the problem is that you're trying to perceive it as an "aesthetic"
ive noticed that this is an actual obsession (in the truest sense of the word) with gen z which is understandable has gen z is largery defined by self-referentiality and cultural stagnancy. these websites that try to box in and overly categorize and "genrefy" aesthetics is completely antithetical to how aesthetics arise in the first place. the biggest obsession in recent years was frutiger aero as if the designers and artists that made stuff that gets labeled as that consciously followed a retrofitted defined aesthetic when they were making that. like, they would be aware of what motifs and elements that they were working with, but not what the conjoined aesthetic was. it was developed naturally at the time and expressed itself that way. gen z really lacks that as there is no unique development anymore. as mark fisher noted, there arent any Burials anymore out there.

>>24812912
Why are you replying to yourself, dude?

>>24812916
i am not. i dont know why you think that.

>>24810234 (OP)
>And for any oldfags out there, what was it like living through that aesthetic personally?

As a 40's 'unc' there was a lot more freedom in 2000's dressing because nobody but the house party or friends were going to see you. /LIT/ wise female friends ordered Fashion magazines from Japan or Paris and everyone would gather around and look at them. The only males seriously into fashion were very music based, and you got your ideas from constantly going to shows and events. This post is a bit rambling but I miss the 90's because everyone actually read books. The internet was slow and boring.

>>24812581


In childhood, I liked the sunlight —to the point of disliking sunglasses—, but not enough to intently stare or look at it —at least not as much as I care to now—, and to potentially remember something like that; I was more in tune with the sky.

The sun has been particularly repletive for Millennials these past few years.


Everything seemed so much larger back then.

Heaven is perceptually akin to the high sensorial resolution that one had as a child, when the dimensions of everything appeared to be larger than they do now.

>>24812581


In childhood, I liked the sunlight —to the point of disliking sunglasses—, but not enough to intently stare or look at the sun —at least not as much as I care to now—, and to potentially remember something like that; I was more in tune with the sky.

The sun has been particularly repletive for Millennials these past few years.


Everything seemed so much larger back then.

Heaven is perceptually akin to the high sensorial resolution that one had as a child, when the dimensions of everything appeared to be larger than they do now.

>>24813132
WTF is going on here namefag?

Does anyone remember when the people really into Gen X Soft Club went highkey crazy over this bag+cd player combo? It was all over tiktok for a hella min.

>>24813183
Why would anyone want this?

>>24813187
no idea, maybe aura farming

>>24810234 (OP)
OP, I'm really sad to see all these awful reactions to your post from other anons. I think that the classification of aesthetics and the work that CARI is doing is important. I wish people on here weren't so bitter. GXSC for me is melancholic techno-optimism. It feels pretty mellow and blue, and like the passage of time around you. That feeling better translates visually than through books. And I can instantly think of 10+ movies that would fit. It's tougher with books.

Anyway, I think Infinite Jest is an obvious recommendation, unironically. Atomised/The Elementary Particles by Houellebecq is also good. I don't know.

>WTF is going on here namefag?

>Why would anyone want this?

>no idea, maybe aura farming


The proper term is «triphero».

Most of you, Z0Omers, are ontologically deficient, and have poor sense of community, which, in its wholesome form, consists of persons who are identifiable & verifiable via their autonyms, and/or tripcodes.

This is baside the fact that /lit/, amongst other boards, has a rich triphero history, ignored by Z0Omers' surfacelevel browsing "prowess".

>>24813309
Who are the infamous trip heroes of /LIT/ I thought besides /SOC/ and /LGTB/ it was just discouraged as it slippery slopes into clout chasing for your name instead of the preferred strong posting.

>>24813271
>awful reactions
they're just realistic. there was never "melancholic techno-optimism", people didn't actually feel that way, these are retrospectively assigned qualities. i'm not sure how old you are, but if you were there, you'd know that too. that's just how the current generation defines it based on visuals and music (like trip hop and early downtempo) - you said it yourself, it's blue and melancholic etc. people didn't feel that it needs definition at the time because there was no concerted effort, it just was. opposed to now, because of zoomers experiencing intense anemoia, every ad has atmospheric jungle music (but bastardized obviously) and fashion mag photoshoots using that grainy blue texture on everything - all forced due to multiple reasons, mainly the fact that consumption of culture is now seen as participating in it, even though it primarily happens through a pocketsized touchscreen on which the rules of engagement are decided by tech capital.

>replying to tripfags, ever
This board stinks of newfags nowadays.

>>24813354

>Who are the infamous trip heroes of /LIT/ [...]

«REI», «Deep&Edgy», and Caterpillar («Butterfly»), constitute the bulk of what has made this board worthwhile.


>[...] I thought besides /SOC/ and /LGTB/ it was just discouraged as it slippery slopes into clout chasing for your name instead of the preferred strong posting.

Nameless poster fantasies.

>>24813132
>Heaven is perceptually akin to the high sensorial resolution that one had as a child

wait til you find out that hell is too. wouldn't want you to miss a thing.

>>24814111
>Nameless poster fantasies.
One should respond to a post based on the strength of the idea, not the worth of the trip heroes, or am I just being naive?

>>24814116


No living human who actually knows what hell is —let alone if he has seen it, or even directly experienced it— would wish it upon anyone.

>>24814129
oh, you misunderstand me, i mean to say the keepers of hell don't want you to miss anything. i don't wish hell upon you. even the dim glimpses of it i have witnessed, well.

>>24814127

>One should respond to a post based on the strength of the idea, not the worth of the trip heroes [...]

I. One should respond whenever it is pertinent to do so.

II. Obviously, posts should be critically evaluated based on their quality, but having/using a name & tripcode also serves, as implied in >>24813309, to refer the posts to the author's personhood, whereby he conveys the essence of whatever he posts: all this is vital to any wholesome community.

>>24814236

>Obviously, [certain] posts should be critically evaluated based on their quality [...]

>>24813600
You do not understand aesthetic categorization. Stop sperging out, please. OP is looking for specific kinds of books. But what they're looking for is hard to find. In books, that is. There are plenty of movies that capture this feeling and aesthetic. They were shot and made in the late 90s. It was a deliberate, concerted effort. Lost in Translation, Wong Kar-Wai movies, Lily Chou, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Garden State, maybe Donnie Darko. You are just aging and old and you will die.

that fandom madeup aesthetics stuff is fake and gay