I thought I should say something about the art of labeling as it applies to our society today and how Londoners and in particular the London media have taken this art form to heart for better or for worse.
Firstly this essay is in two halves, the first half is heavy and considers the evil outcomes of labeling or stereotyping in recent history. Second half, on a more light hearted note, considers London's post-modern labeling trend. Trend not culture, as there is often nothing that is permanent about London. This city functions like its famous pop-ups - here today, gone tomorrow!
I don't believe in labeling or stereotyping things and I hate the idea, but yes, there are instances when you should label stuff for practical reasons e.g. labeling cans of food or pharmaceuticals for identification purposes, but not when we start to apply this principle to humans as if it is the most natural thing to do, but who says it isn't? We've had to label things since the dawn of man, in order to survive, therefore this art form is inherent within us, we're even labeled at birth with a name and a surname, which we carry through life as if our very existence depended on it.
I know I am stating the obvious and contradicting myself afterwards, but yes do these labels really mean that much to us humans? Do we really need to label everything? I think the answer lies within our post-Garden of Eden psyche. After eating the forbidden fruit - the fruit of knowledge (and shall I say 'of sin') - we became so knowledgeable to the point of losing our animal instincts for survival. Thus being the most knowledgeable but physically among the weakest of animal species, man had to label things in order to discriminate between what was or wasn't essential or right or wrong for its survival, this included other human beings and every other living and non living thing under the sun (and now, beyond it), for it is through active labeling that we live our lives, even our speech is made up of a string of labels and we question everything on the basis of which label is right or wrong or good or bad for us and for those around us. Thus before and during the second world war, for example, the German National Socialists branded themselves as NAZIs, labeled every non-Jewish white European as Aryan, labeled the Jews 'Inferior' and proceeded to exterminate them from the face of the earth.
Closer to our times the Hutus of Rwanda labeled the Tutsis as 'Cockroaches' and proceeded to murder almost a million people in the space of two months. Our obsession with finding polarity in everything, from the standpoint of good or evil, right or wrong has affected everything we touch or encounter, in fact our rational for existence stems from the art of labeling to survive. Our religions are essentially belief labels, used to distinguish ourselves from each other, as are the languages we speak and the foods we eat. Essentially a label is a method for distinguishing things into good or bad by the human psyche or better put by the egoic-self - that part of us that is in constant conflict with itself and with everyone else.
Now coming to London, (and on a light hearted note) - here the art of labeling is at its most advanced albeit without the aim of physical annihilation. We live in a media controlled society, largely thanks to the ubiquitous presence of digital media - the smartphone, tablet, laptop and PC, which all enhance the labeling experience, along with the ever present social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Youtube Yahoo, Buzzfeed, Twitter, Bing, Instagram and Flickr plus numerous magazines, newspapers, TV and Radio. We are wired in 24-7 except when asleep. Views are shaped primarily by and through these media. Crowd surfing is a game apparently!
In London, labeling has become a sophisticated artform because apart from being an ever present reminder of where we slot in under the English class system, it is often used to tie us to locations and lifestyles. Living in a big, vibrant and fast moving metropolis, Londoners have taken their addiction for labeling things even further from splitting the city into boroughs and postcodes to tagging individual localities with good or bad labels, usually by the media (Evening Standard, Metro) and depending on a range of parameters such as modern tribal affiliations, ethnicity, religion, wealth and poverty.
The most recent and most interesting is that of artificial tribal labels. Usually people do not consciously select the individuals they live with in an area, however, the art of tribal-zoning is usually consciously done by the popular media. For example the word hipster was cached from New York (Brooklyn) to represent arty, sophisticated and edgy young people with an edge for promoting the untried and untested. This tribe initially congregated around gritty Hoxton Square and Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney before fanning out to colonise the rest of the Borough - Dalston, Clapton, Hackney and parts of Tower Hamlets such as Bethnal Green and Bow. Likewise in the mid nineties the Clapham- Wandsworth Nappy Valley became the spiritual home of the Yummy Mummy (glamorous professional mothers with strollers) tribe and Clapham Common the home of the young and trendy professional tribe. It wasn't long before Label hungry Londoners began to affiliate themselves with both tribes and fanned out to found identical colonies elsewhere.
Nowadays gullible young people and the not-so-young slaves of social media will gravitate towards and congregate with their label flocks in specified London locations even at a premium, just to belong. Here's what the London location labeling system has achieved:
Ultra-hip Hipsters flock to Hackney, Dalston and Shoreditch,
Arty-types to New Cross, Bethnal Green, Woolwich and Peckham,
Left-wing politicians to Kennington
Young professionals to Balham and Clapham,
Designers to Clerkenwell and Fitzrovia
Breeding Professionals to Wandsworth and Chiswick,
Techno-geek's to Old Street (now labeled silicon junction by the media)
Chattering classes to Islington and Clapham
Alternatives to Camden
Oligarchs and foreign money to Kensington and Chelsea
Old money to Richmond, Holland Park, Hampstead, St Johns Wood
New money to Notting Hill and Battersea
Bankers to Notting Hill, St Johns Wood, Docklands and Clapham
Affluent and not-so-affluent pot-heads now want to live in Brixton purportedly to be close to Brixton Market but in reality to buy or rent Brixton's no longer affordable housing in order to be permanently near their dealers!
Aha! One can only laugh!
No comments:
Post a Comment