Of the same phenomenon in the UK, Theodore Dalrymple notes that, unlike in earlier days when the lower classes sought to emulate the middle classes and the middle classes aspired to be more like the upper classes, these days the fashions and habits (piercing, tattoos, grunge) of the dregs of society are being adopted by people at every level.

? I see this every day. Am conditioned to a point where I don't pay attention to it.

Hideous.

Ah, well....time wounds all heels.

Cast your mind forward 40 years and picture what this chick will look like then.

Absolutely no incentive to click through.

Sauron's baleful influence spreads from Mordor...people are turning themselves into Orcs.

@Rob: SNL anticipated your thought in an extremely funny (yes, that's SNL and funny in the same sentence!) skit about lower back tattoo removal.

I wonder if her low self esteem issue ceased to exist after the ink was applied to her neck? Or maybe the lip ring did the trick.

Once, while delivering papers in an upscale McMansion neighborhood, I witnessed a gaggle of Goths emerging from one of the palaces to wait for their school bus.
As I passed by, I pondered the sight of privileged kids dressed as assorted outcasts and vampires huddling together for cold comfort...waiting for a low caste yellow bus, while Mom and Dad's matching Lexii were sitting in the driveway.

Being outcast was never so kewl as it is today.

The girl could have been a four. Now she's so far into negative numbers that she actually sucks beauty out of the world.

Osprey: You nailed it.

JWM

So much so I'm plugging it into the caption. Thanks, Osprey.

Fashion: A ruse invented by ugly girls to get pretty girls to look ugly.

Disordered sense of beauty = spiritually diseased.

I'd hit it.

I live in Vancouver, Canada and I can spot a visitor from Seattle or Portland in 2 seconds. They are really into looking like circus freaks.

The word that you all are looking for is decadence. It's what happens to all advanced civilizations when it all becomes to easy.

NJBob:
It is decadent. It is also worship of the primitive. This behavior emulates tribal cultures whose grand achievements consist of making bows and arrows, and colorful masks for the ceremonial worship of jungle gods. Not to mention eating one another.

JWM

Sad.

Seen it too often in the SF bay area. When she has two or three chins, the design looks like a Mobius strip or some other visual gimmick.

I have to imagine this applies to the trend towards facial tattoos and piercing, but someone once said that Goth was the method that the ugly and the dull used to appear interesting.

If I thought the poor girl would one day wake up and think "My God. What have I done to myself", I might feel sorry for her, but I'm afraid I don't think she'll ever reach that point.

Even hippies weren't stupid enough to permanently deface themselves. OK, maybe the Manson family...but they were exceptionally weird.

I'd hit it.

Posted by Jesse James at April 6, 2010 2:23 PM
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HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Excellent!

NJBob:
It is decadent. It is also worship of the primitive. This behavior emulates tribal cultures whose grand achievements consist of making bows and arrows, and colorful masks for the ceremonial worship of jungle gods. Not to mention eating one another.

JWM

Posted by jwm at April 6, 2010 6:28 PM
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Reminds me of the theme of an essay I keep meaning to write: "If You Want to Know What Life was Like in a Prehistoric Bad-level Society - Look at a Modern Street Gang"

True story:
I used to work for a large bookstore chain that everybody knows, and I had this uber-feminist store manager (I suspect she was a lesbian too, NTTIAWWT), and we got in a bunch of these, well picture books of a sort, by something called RE Search, If I remember correctly--all sorts of counterculture stuff--one of them was a volume called "Modern Primitives" with lots of people that looked like miss no-chin there, and the manager had this amazingly bad reaction to that book. Wouldn't let us put it on the shelves. Made us return it.

That stuff can offend anybody.

I like the captioning of your pics, Gerard. Ha ha! Comedy gold.
The folks in the pics are all so original...like everyone else.
Collective grunge.

I lived in Seattle for about 7 years. Your photos made me miss it. (Not fugly piercing chick, just the feel of the photos) I really miss pikes place market.

Every time I see someone with a nose or lip ring, I have this overwhelming urge to rip it out of their face.
Luckily, I've managed to restrain myself except for that one time - but people really should take care not to be hideous, repulsive and belligerent all at the same time.

I know that you people in Seattle like to think you are special but you are not. I can go to any big city in America and the people in your pictures are like all the others. Seattle, Portland, Los Angles, they are all the same.

To paraphrase Lennon and McCartney:

All the grungy people, where to they all come from...
All the grungy people, where do they all belong?

Seattle, obviously.