Twitter Moment

[Angst]

Seventh, what is wrong with vacuum cleaner commercials? You want an earworm, listen to this: Mr. Clean jingle.

i'm unsure if you got my point. you probably did but i'll extrapolate.

there's nothing inherently wrong with any commercials (besides being commercials).

it is however strange to align your identity along a subset of corporate interests of the 50s. like, it's really weird. i wasn't being particularly snide with the vacuum cleaner note. it's what's going on; tradwife draws the vast majority of its imagery from a subset of now ancient commercials (i apologize to the elderly) specifically directed towards housewives. because that's what tradwife imagery is; the SoMe culture of dressing up and posing and such is literally lifting from specifically that kind of imagery from specifically commercials for housewives back. the commercials are the imagery of those people. it's weird.

if you start digging into the Struktur of what made the commercials tick, it gets absolutely insidious. i know it seems old and charming and is kind of romantic at this point, but you should be well aware of what kind of society that imagery appeal to; and it's not incidental, it's what most tradwife stuff pushes. it's before the sexual revolution, before increase of social mobility for women, before (part) normalization of women in the workforce (in the middle class).

it was an era of "your property is hot and you can bang it" or "you should be hot property so buy this to care for ya man's homestead" and that's what tradwife wants. or, at least, even if we say the era wasn't that, that's the idea these people have of the era. that's the ur-being they want to return to.

and no, nothing of this says you shouldn't be free to choose to be a homemaker. most people that have qualms with the tradwife movement don't have an issue with that.

like, a lot of tradwife people note it's a personal choice for themselves or whatever. but it's most probable that the same people turn around and decry the sexual revolution and free movement for women, swear by biological essensialism, it's drenched in regressive christianity and unfortunate hints of racial purity (it's near always WASP middle class stuff). it's not just men or women that want this, it's men or women that want to return to the Ur-time, some purity of being. what i noted before was that i just found it very depressingly hilarious that fascy types today have half abandoned other kinds of make pretend and now LARP 50s vacuum cleaner commercials. the LARP part is actually what's important. it's lifted imagery in the same ways that other ultratraditional movements have syncretized older things. it just looks innocious because that's what the commercials were meant to feel like, and that connection still remains for most WASPs today.

in another sense, the dress-up is not surprising. around the high point of vaporwave i found a fascist propaganda music video where a guy got redpilled, threw gays back in the closet, etc., and yea that was all framed as a good thing, cleaning up. the finality, the purity that the video ended up with, however, was not Turner Diaries or Norse Berserker or whatever stuff, but rather a serene-urban-pastorialism with the big white beefy dudes grilling in a suburban backyard, serving their happy, subservient families dinner.

so be a homemaker all you want. the question is not the option, the question is whether other options should disappear from society. or how often tradwives are "just concerned that these things are not anymore" and/or "just concerned that so many choose other avenues these days"

like i don't know how to put it. i know it doesn't look like fascism, but look closer.

 

[Arwon]

Every one of these RETVRN freaks should have their hard drives searched

 

[Valka D'Ur]

i'm unsure if you got my point. you probably did but i'll extrapolate.

there's nothing inherently wrong with any commercials (besides being commercials).

it is however strange to align your identity along a subset of corporate interests of the 50s. like, it's really weird. i wasn't being particularly snide with the vacuum cleaner note. it's what's going on; tradwife draws the vast majority of its imagery from a subset of now ancient commercials (i apologize to the elderly) specifically directed towards housewives. because that's what tradwife imagery is; the SoMe culture of dressing up and posing and such is literally lifting from specifically that kind of imagery from specifically commercials for housewives back. the commercials are the imagery of those people. it's weird.

if you start digging into the Struktur of what made the commercials tick, it gets absolutely insidious. i know it seems old and charming and is kind of romantic at this point, but you should be well aware of what kind of society that imagery appeal to; and it's not incidental, it's what most tradwife stuff pushes. it's before the sexual revolution, before increase of social mobility for women, before (part) normalization of women in the workforce (in the middle class).

View attachment 666088

it was an era of "your property is hot and you can bang it" or "you should be hot property so buy this to care for ya man's homestead" and that's what tradwife wants. or, at least, even if we say the era wasn't that, that's the idea these people have of the era. that's the ur-being they want to return to.

and no, nothing of this says you shouldn't be free to choose to be a homemaker. most people that have qualms with the tradwife movement don't have an issue with that.

like, a lot of tradwife people note it's a personal choice for themselves or whatever. but it's most probable that the same people turn around and decry the sexual revolution and free movement for women, swear by biological essensialism, it's drenched in regressive christianity and unfortunate hints of racial purity (it's near always WASP middle class stuff). it's not just men or women that want this, it's men or women that want to return to the Ur-time, some purity of being. what i noted before was that i just found it very depressingly hilarious that fascy types today have half abandoned other kinds of make pretend and now LARP 50s vacuum cleaner commercials. the LARP part is actually what's important. it's lifted imagery in the same ways that other ultratraditional movements have syncretized older things. it just looks innocious because that's what the commercials were meant to feel like, and that connection still remains for most WASPs today.

in another sense, the dress-up is not surprising. around the high point of vaporwave i found a fascist propaganda music video where a guy got redpilled, threw gays back in the closet, etc., and yea that was all framed as a good thing, cleaning up. the finality, the purity that the video ended up with, however, was not Turner Diaries or Norse Berserker or whatever stuff, but rather a serene-urban-pastorialism with the big white beefy dudes grilling in a suburban backyard, serving their happy, subservient families dinner.

so be a homemaker all you want. the question is not the option, the question is whether other options should disappear from society. or how often tradwives are "just concerned that these things are not anymore" and/or "just concerned that so many choose other avenues these days"

View attachment 666089

like i don't know how to put it. i know it doesn't look like fascism, but look closer.

Okay, my younger childhood was in the '60s. I cannot remember my dad ever helping my mother with the dishes. EVER. And if he had, he wouldn't be wearing a tie while doing it (actually, the number of times I personally saw my dad wearing a tie can be counted on one hand; he did wear one for his wedding; the photo album says so).

The mother holding the kid in that picture looks absolutely creepy, as if she's trying to decide what sauce to serve with it when they commit cannibalism.

My mother did not wear housedresses, at least not after I got old enough to start crawling and toddling. Dresses are too awkward when you're trying to keep the kid from escaping the house, falling down the basement stairs, or getting into potentially lethal situations outside. There is a picture of her wearing a housedress while holding me, but I was likely not even to my first birthday yet.

My grandmother, on the other hand, always wore housedresses, at least until the '70s, when I finally persuaded her that it made no sense for her to freeze in the winter when she could wear a pantsuit or blouse and pants (she never unbent enough for a t-shirt) - especially when my grandfather didn't care what she wore.

Those revolting commercials of housewives in elegant housedresses, professionally-styled hair, makeup, pearl necklaces, sparkly jewelry, and high heels... when they're vacuuming, washing dishes, or cleaning the toilet is just so unrealistic. Yet it's the image presented on the "I Love Lucy" sitcom, and I'll admit that show is a guilty pleasure partly to stare in flabbergastation (that's my word; I coined it on the Cheezburger site over 10 years ago) at the ridiculous hats, kerchiefs, and dresses that I'm so thankful not to have had to wear much past age 6 when I told my grandmother that I wanted to wear pants to school instead of dresses.

One bit of my grandfather's patriarchy I never got away from other than once was hair length. His opinion was that girls should have long hair, and if you were older, long hair was appropriate until you got married. After that, short or put up in a bun or braids, or whatever, but he insisted that I keep my hair long.

Well, I cut it in high school - not really short-short, just chin-length - and he threw a fit. We had to point out to him that it would grow. By the time I was ready to start college, it was back to its former length. I haven't cut it since, other than to keep my bangs trimmed.

He died 37 years ago, and this is one thing I just haven't felt like changing "just because Grandad's gone and can't stop me anymore".

 

[Birdjaguar]

Life goals in the 50s were to be the Cleavers.

 

[Kyriakos]

i'm unsure if you got my point. you probably did but i'll extrapolate.

there's nothing inherently wrong with any commercials (besides being commercials).

it is however strange to align your identity along a subset of corporate interests of the 50s. like, it's really weird. i wasn't being particularly snide with the vacuum cleaner note. it's what's going on; tradwife draws the vast majority of its imagery from a subset of now ancient commercials (i apologize to the elderly) specifically directed towards housewives. because that's what tradwife imagery is; the SoMe culture of dressing up and posing and such is literally lifting from specifically that kind of imagery from specifically commercials for housewives back. the commercials are the imagery of those people. it's weird.

if you start digging into the Struktur of what made the commercials tick, it gets absolutely insidious. i know it seems old and charming and is kind of romantic at this point, but you should be well aware of what kind of society that imagery appeal to; and it's not incidental, it's what most tradwife stuff pushes. it's before the sexual revolution, before increase of social mobility for women, before (part) normalization of women in the workforce (in the middle class).

View attachment 666088

it was an era of "your property is hot and you can bang it" or "you should be hot property so buy this to care for ya man's homestead" and that's what tradwife wants. or, at least, even if we say the era wasn't that, that's the idea these people have of the era. that's the ur-being they want to return to.

and no, nothing of this says you shouldn't be free to choose to be a homemaker. most people that have qualms with the tradwife movement don't have an issue with that.

like, a lot of tradwife people note it's a personal choice for themselves or whatever. but it's most probable that the same people turn around and decry the sexual revolution and free movement for women, swear by biological essensialism, it's drenched in regressive christianity and unfortunate hints of racial purity (it's near always WASP middle class stuff). it's not just men or women that want this, it's men or women that want to return to the Ur-time, some purity of being. what i noted before was that i just found it very depressingly hilarious that fascy types today have half abandoned other kinds of make pretend and now LARP 50s vacuum cleaner commercials. the LARP part is actually what's important. it's lifted imagery in the same ways that other ultratraditional movements have syncretized older things. it just looks innocious because that's what the commercials were meant to feel like, and that connection still remains for most WASPs today.

in another sense, the dress-up is not surprising. around the high point of vaporwave i found a fascist propaganda music video where a guy got redpilled, threw gays back in the closet, etc., and yea that was all framed as a good thing, cleaning up. the finality, the purity that the video ended up with, however, was not Turner Diaries or Norse Berserker or whatever stuff, but rather a serene-urban-pastorialism with the big white beefy dudes grilling in a suburban backyard, serving their happy, subservient families dinner.

so be a homemaker all you want. the question is not the option, the question is whether other options should disappear from society. or how often tradwives are "just concerned that these things are not anymore" and/or "just concerned that so many choose other avenues these days"

View attachment 666089

like i don't know how to put it. i know it doesn't look like fascism, but look closer.

I am of mixed feelings on the aesthetic itself. It's essentially what you see in all Hitchcock films. It's obviously boring for the women to be in such a role (I'd like it if there were males in that role in memes) but I do find the bearded nordic chad quite hilarious - maybe it's the history-related positive view of varangians
Then again, it's not a new idea for me, when I was a kid I was perfectly happy with the prospect of being in such a relationship (I mean myself being the one not doing any work ) with a super-rich girl, partly (but definitely not only) because I too was super-rich back then=>wouldn't need to work for money anyway.

 

[amadeus]

Life goals in the 50s were to be the Cleavers.

my goal is Mr. Howell

@Angst got you later smoke break almost up

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

This is a tradwife meme, right? Weirdos.

They're all.... extremely white. When its one image, you don't quite notice. When they seem to go out of their way to have crowd shots with only white people in them, well...

Just saying.

Exactly. I'm not one to casually call anyone or anything racist, but it is extremely suspect how whenever these Trad-enthusiasts show an image of the ideal family/society it's almost always blonde blue-eyed people

 

[Narz]

tradwife is deeply fascinating (and naturally, disappointing) because it, like the rest of its sphere, is solely structured from some Ur-incarnation of what you're supposed to be. however, instead of vikings or romans it's 50s vacuum cleaner commercials

I think people are sad that you can't buy a house and take care of your wife on one income and now both parents have to work and your kids are raised by strangers and screens

Some of the uglier ones might wish for being able to control a woman financially and feeling like without being able to provide they have no purpose but bringing home the bacon is a bit of shallow purpose, lose your job, lose your wife. I've usually managed to get gfs even being a broke lost soul who can barely manage his own life but then again I'm good looking so I can't really relate.

I find glorification of the past a bit stupid, the past led inevitably to the present so clearly people weren't happy w it

 

[Snowygerry]

There’s one cartoonist here that blatantly abuses the style for comical effect..

Edit, Sorry, English version here :

But part of the joke is the contrast between the US/50s style drawings and the modern Dutch text, also plays on the obvious stereotypes.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I find glorification of the past a bit stupid, the past led inevitably to the present so clearly people weren't happy w it

The past leads to the present even if you were happy with the past. Time has a habit of doing that.

 

[Narz]

The past leads to the present even if you were happy with the past. Time has a habit of doing that.

What I'm saying is if things were so perfect we would've kept them that way but life moves forward and there's no returning.

The 50s seems like a time when communities were starting to get destroyed and the fantasy of individualism really started taking hold. But I don't really know as I wasn't there and of course billions of things were happening at once

 

[AmazonQueen]

What I'm saying is if things were so perfect we would've kept them that way but life moves forward and there's no returning.

The 50s seems like a time when communities were starting to get destroyed and the fantasy of individualism really started taking hold. But I don't really know as I wasn't there and of course billions of things were happening at once

"tradwives" are essentially cosplayers with husbands wealthy enough to indulge their fantasies but I doubt many of them will be declining the use of hoovers, washing machines and dishwashers..

 

[amadeus]

i'm unsure if you got my point. you probably did but i'll extrapolate.

Maybe, probably. Stream of consciousness ahead.

I don’t like any subculture that requires its members—adherents?—to be bound by rigid purity guidelines, have its own kinda-secret lexicons, and the aires of supreme egos. I’m lost in all that stuff, an identity around a kind of esoterica, that’s my bag but it’s my bag and I don’t want to be inflexible, or responsible, to any group that has a bug in its bunghole about things.

I’m also not enough of an attention-seeker to build up expectations to which I’m beholden, especially for something that is just matters of personal preference. It’s like some of these people never grew out of junior high school and still will take personally someone else’s thoughts on things so trivial.

I think a lot of this stuff is macho head games, asserting power and tantamount to trying to make other people mental slaves. I see this kind of thing play out every day and I’m exhausted by it. It’s like [WarGames]: the only winning move is not to play.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

View attachment 666062

I thought the screenshot was absurd enough to stand on its own, but I think I'd better point out some things that stood out to me:

1) The screenshot-OP's profile picture of Elon Musk in a 19th-century medalled uniform. Elon Musk the Paragon of Tradition and Domestic Felicity

2) The background image of what is almost certainly a picturesque European settlement. Trad enthusiasts seem to view small countryside towns and villages as the ultimate lifestyle, but it seems to contradict their moaning about the loss of elaborate Gothic architecture and the art of sculpting, which both to the best of my knowledge arose in urban centres sponsored by filthy-rich patrons

3) The exaggerated endowments on the Tradwife's upper region. I know some women look like that, but the original Tradwife image looks more normal so

4) I would prefer to feign ignorance of whatever's going on with the reply, but I hate to admit that I have some idea of what he's talking about. There is the possibility that he's referring to transgenders in there somewhere, but I'm not touching that, not even with a ten-foot pole. What I am touching is the idea at the beginning of the comment that breasts are somehow key to the arts. It's an idea I often see cropping up in Tradthink, that women's beauty stirs men to do great historic stuff. That 'Western' 'civilization' is the product of noble men being inspired by (good, pious) women and God™... Also, I'm pretty sure that mammary organs aren't what drive elephants and ants to reproduce.

 

[Angst]

I am of mixed feelings on the aesthetic itself. It's essentially what you see in all Hitchcock films. It's obviously boring for the women to be in such a role (I'd like it if there were males in that role in memes) but I do find the bearded nordic chad quite hilarious - maybe it's the history-related positive view of varangians

[/URL]
Then again, it's not a new idea for me, when I was a kid I was perfectly happy with the prospect of being in such a relationship (I mean myself being the one not doing any work

[/URL] ) with a super-rich girl, partly (but definitely not only) because I too was super-rich back then=>wouldn't need to work for money anyway.

View attachment 666094

yea sidenote on this: i actually understand the draw to the aesthetic, as i understand the draw to wanting to live such a life, as i understand the need to make both of these feel to be part of a movement or group. i don't think we can do away with preferences of aesthetics, preferences of behavior, or the need to have an ingroup in extension of those. and the cultural signifiers here are pretty (as are, eg, the old norse stuff that, while largely coopted by right wingers, has its life on its own in denmark among nerds and far left hippies).

the issue comes up with the fact of cumulatively it being a sheer commercial artefact of its time all while containing and promoting much more sinister structures (@Valka D'Ur 's post was really helpful here). its both detached from the actual concrete world of the 50's, swearing by the signifiers of homemaker commercials, and wanting to return to a structure of behavior that's completely contrary to the freedom and well-being of women. the artificiality is part of the appeal today; tradwife largely having been a SoMe thing, where young girls (apropos @amadeus 's note that it felt like junior high behavior of tribal belonging over just preference; most of the SoMe tradwife people are really young) dress up like the commercials, and then perform like the commercials, in full aestheticized 50s hot housewife getup doing house chores, while seeding ideas about traditional christianity and biological essentialism. so it contains many of the same ideas as the 50s, but done so through the dressup of the 50s that weren't really always a thing in practical lived life. they become the false product while channeling the sinister crap the products are promoting.

so yea, it's pretty because it's aestheticized. of course it is. the question is what the aestheticized thing is doing.

 

[choxorn]

I think people are sad that you can't buy a house and take care of your wife on one income and now both parents have to work and your kids are raised by strangers and screens

The thing is that the 1950's middle class suburbia fantasy of "man works and provides all the money, woman works and does all the domestic chores and raises the kids" was always kind of a fantasy of that one time period in that one place of that one sub-set of Americans.

Poor people never had the luxury of providing for a family on one income- the dad worked, the mom worked, often the older kids worked too (where "older" could mean anything from "teenagers" to "old enough to walk in a straight line and follow directions"), and rich people outsourced all of their domestic labor to poor people, often including much of the "raise the kids" part of it, to the point that a young rich kid might spend more time around random nannies and housekeepers and servants than their own actual family.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well my grandfather who lived in 1950s tell my just how poor it was, tell me difference between today and 1950 is absolute enormous in terms of how much wealither people are today.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well my grandfather who lived in 1950s tell my just how poor it was, tell me difference between today and 1950 is absolute enormous in terms of how much wealither people are today.

How one views and experiences a particular time period is heavily dependent upon one's age at the time and one's situation in life. We all view current events from a context that is mostly our own. Events that we experience closely that happen earlier in our lives can affect how we experience later events. Middle class Americans, poor Americans, negro Americans, Indian Americans, etc. will each have a very different experience and thoughts on what life was like in the 1950s. In addition, being 18 in 1955 would be very different than being 48. The dominant advertising media were radio and magazines until TV took over by 1960.

 

[Narz]

The thing is that the 1950's middle class suburbia fantasy of "man works and provides all the money, woman works and does all the domestic chores and raises the kids" was always kind of a fantasy of that one time period in that one place of that one sub-set of Americans.

Poor people never had the luxury of providing for a family on one income- the dad worked, the mom worked, often the older kids worked too (where "older" could mean anything from "teenagers" to "old enough to walk in a straight line and follow directions"), and rich people outsourced all of their domestic labor to poor people, often including much of the "raise the kids" part of it, to the point that a young rich kid might spend more time around random nannies and housekeepers and servants than their own actual family.

Money still went a much longer way than today (housing, school, vehicles were cheaper) but yeah obviously poor people still had it rough (probably most of them rougher than today)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Money still went a much longer way than today (housing, school, vehicles were cheaper) but yeah obviously poor people still had it rough (probably most of them rougher than today)

You earned much less money as well, the question should be if salary paid for more in the past and according to my relatives the answer is a clear no, the difference in technology and such is simply too huge.