Chris Crocker @ The Crib SF 10/25/07
As you can see in the video above, Chris Crocker proved his quote all too well on Thursday. The thing is, Chris IS talented. It's just that his medium is so new that it has not been acknowledged or even noticed yet.
Part of Chris' old shtick was pretending to be famous in videos posted on his MySpace. Most of his videos took place inside of his grandparent's rural house when they weren't around. His audience was the Internet; the wide, abstract and grossly impersonal Internet.
Not participating in human contact with your audience can provide a really interesting environment for an artist to develop. This kind of development has been romanticized in the art world forever. These personalities range from pretentious home-recordists like Jandek, to scared shut-ins like Henry Darger and countless other people probably including your mom. Outsider artists (for lack of a better term) are the one type of artist that goes unquestioned. Their motives seem true and their output feels authentic.
Chris' videos, for me, felt very much like a outsider artists' home-recorded album. His videos ranged the span of human emotion, they seemed sometimes... pointless. They felt lonely. They showed that same sort of sexy courage that we only posses when we are alone in our bedroom.
It was interesting to see Chris live at The Crib on Thursday. I realized Chris is now famous. I felt really lucky to see one of Chris' first performances on stage in front of hundreds of people. I understood his craft wouldn't translate to stage, but I was very curious to see how he was as an entertainer. His performance felt rehearsed but determined. It was fun and fanatical. It was new and nerdy. I loved it. This new generation is much different than my own. They didn't have their mind blown by Kurt Cobain or The Chronic. Something else happened that we're not aware of yet. It may have something to do with the Internet.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending the night locked in the club with my art/business partner Aaron. We didn't buy any drinks for the nineteen year olds who asked. We leaned around and people-watched just as fathers do when they become overwhelmed by shopping malls. We felt old.
2007/10/28
"I don't have talent. I only have fans."
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1 comment:
I'm used to being surrounded by obscurity: it is the prevailing culture of SF whatever people to relish the obscure and the discarded.
I tend to assume that the things I'm interested in (like Chris Crocker) aren't going to have a mass audience, especially of uncool teenagers. I'm not being a jerk saying that- its just thats what these teenagers at the Crib are- they are the ones who had a great time in high school.
But, I was totally wrong. Chris Crocker does have a mass audience, and the kids at the Crib LOVED him. They were a pretty emotional crowd, and they were expressive- when the guy from the Real World was on stage doing the costume contest, they could hardly get anyone to pay attention- but when Chris came on, the crowd went nuts. They were screaming and clapping and enthralled with him. When Chris got close to the edge, people reached there hands to touch him.
Chris was surrounded by fans. I had always seen something arty in Chris Crocker that I don't think these people saw in him. I think they deeply identify with him, and him with the kids in the crowd. I was definitely the outsider.
If anything, the internet has changed one vital pre-requisite for celebrity- you no longer need an "artistic" medium to replicate yourself with. In a world without Youtube, you had to have a record or a movie to spread your celebrity- some sort of mass market object.
I think the Youtube video is not even exactly art in the way that music or film or whatever is, because it does not require the mastery of a set of technical skills. You don't have to 'play guitar' or 'light the scene'. You just turn on and go dumb.
I think it might be better than art to, a purer expression of whatever we're trying to create. It's not 'formal' like any of the other mediums.
P.S.: Myles, I think your post is really good.
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