The Art Snob Archive

Manifesto - February 03/06

artsnob tip #1: ANIMAL HOUSE IS NO LONGER AN OPTION (sorry)

The demon that is the popular media has established two different perceptions of University life in our culture. The first is of a John-Belushi-in-Animal-House nature: the drunken, drug-addled, sex-infused bullet-train through campus life, characterized by failure and apathy towards that failure. The second is the glorified “groves of Academe”, the idea of university as a congregation of brilliant and curious intellectuals, gathering in wood-paneled rooms full of books to discuss philosophical ideas, literary movements and the like.

The University of Waterloo is an interesting case. It is not crazy enough to fit the first category, nor is it enough of a cultural hub to belong in the second. There is room for development however, and that is the purpose of this new column: The Artsnob.

Unfortunately, this column is not about teaching you to drink whiskey like water. It will attempt, however, to help you at least pretend to be an intellectual, which may or may not be more appealing. The truly worldly and well-read student is not a rare specimen at the University of Waterloo, but is certainly a minority. It is the unfortunate result of attending a math and engineering university in the “heart of Mennonite country”: there are little opportunities for a Basquiat-admiring, Tarkovsky-watching, Mogwai-listening art snob to find a like-minded soul.

It is this humble writer’s belief that university should be about the exchange of ideas, academic revelations, spontaneous creative bursts, weighted-down libraries and ivy covered buildings, post-structuralism and existentialism, cubism and dialectical materialism, Foucault, Thurston Moore and Apollinaire. Most of all, University should be about being able to show off your massive intellect by using these terms and dropping these names. It is this column’s quest to turn you into an elitist, to allow you to stick your opinion in everyone else’s uncultured face, to feel confident in proclaiming “oh, that’s so post-modern,” to truly become an art snob.

Each week, this column will cover a new idea, place, or thing that any elitist snob must know in order to remain an elitist snob. The reader will be exposed to literary movements and political ideologies, hole in the wall bookshops and independent cinemas, new and innovative writers, unheard of musicians, and the most avant-garde of young artists. You may even learn what ‘avant-garde’ means. It is hoped that, under the influence of this column, an intellectual fervor will spread through the campus; UW will turn into a sea of knowledgeable art snobs, and perhaps I will be able to talk about Basquiat with the next person I meet in the SLC.

It is time to reclaim the intellectual spirit, o eager students, to come to the unfortunate realization that, yes, there is more to university life than beer and getting laid. As the University of Waterloo grows more and more prestigious, we must learn to act the part of the elite. We must stand out at dinner parties, make snide remarks at art galleries, look too good for any concert we go to, and be able to outshine those U of T kids in any debate. Students, the time is now. The artsnob is here, pay attention.

posted by HLL @ Friday, March 24, 2006