{"id":313,"date":"2017-12-12T21:28:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T02:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/?p=313"},"modified":"2017-12-12T21:31:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T02:31:26","slug":"why-theres-a-barstool-on-the-dance-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/uncategorized\/why-theres-a-barstool-on-the-dance-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Why There\u2019s a Barstool on the Dance Floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

For centuries, young people, especially students, have gotten drunk and done obscene things. In the name of carnival, they rebelled against prevailing societal norms; they pursued their whims. Today, on the surface, it\u2019s very much the same\u2014except people record it. In fact, with the rise of social media, students not only record their crazy debauchery, but also submit those recordings to highly-curated pages with millions of followers. Precisely choosing which few videos deserve to be seen each day, Instagram pages like TotalFratMove <\/i>and BarstoolSports<\/i> project images of elite carnival, and subvert the form into a facet of consumer culture which inevitably feeds the capitalist machine. These pages promote the lifestyle of particularly rebellious frat boys, accomplishing the monetization of elite carnival. Students now attempt to outdo each other in the most outlandish, which has paradoxically become the convention. Barstool<\/i> benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Barstool Logo<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One might wonder what qualifies young people getting drunk as elite<\/i> carnival. The salient point is that Barstool <\/i>and the like upload (mostly) videos of students at four-year colleges with the means to throw massive parties in large venues, participate in traditional nonchalance towards cost, and pay the dues associated with all of that. Obviously, only a minority of young people can lay claim to that ability. One user posted on the TotalFratMove <\/i>website, “If I had a nickel for every time I heard the phrase ‘You\u2019re an asshole’ I wouldn’t be any richer. I’m too frat and too rich to give a sh*t about nickels. TFM\u201d (Shontell).<\/span><\/p>\n

Barstool<\/i> and TotalFratMove<\/i> love to sexualize because it\u2019s an easy way to entertain their followers, most of whom are in the eighteen to twenty-four year-old male range. In \u201cSmokeshow of the Day,\u201d Barstool<\/i> consistently posts pictures of a tan, (almost always) white, scantily-clad woman, heaping praise upon the college or sorority who lays claim to her. Sexuality is also shown through the hijinks of partiers. In what has become a common occurrence, spontaneous heterosexual touching and lust is filmed. A distinctive feature is that couples almost never know they’re being filmed, and so their interaction can be deemed original. Pictures and videos of this variety not only provide easy content for the curators, but also fuel a desire, especially for males, to get so drunk that they get as caught up in public sexuality as the people in the videos.<\/span><\/p>\n

A “Smokeshow”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BcmzzaylKqu\/?hl=en&taken-by=barstoolsmokeshows<\/p>\n

For those who want even more physicality, Barstool<\/i> provides\u2014with fights. Anything from a classic one-on-one stand-down to group violence fits the bill. One caption reads, \u201cThis UF [University of Florida] dad came to Parents Weekend to drink some beer and kick some ass\u201d (TotalFratMove). The association seems to be that with alcohol, anything can happen\u2014and that\u2019s okay. In similar videos, students\u2019 rebellious tendencies are accentuated when they become antagonistic with authority figures. Despite the reactions of the authority, the videos all have a care-free air, yet students annoy the cops to the maximum legal extent. Such videos function as highlights of rebellion.<\/span><\/p>\n

An example of people rebelling against the cops for the sake of the video<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BXUH-TFhFRO\/?hl=en&taken-by=totalfratmove<\/p>\n

The debauchery continues. In one video uploaded to TotalFratMove,<\/i> a male punches a TV until, to the delight of the audience, he splits the glass open. Cheered on by the crowd, he destroys what seems to be his own property. As Randall Collins asserts, \u201cMaterial destruction at a wild party\u2026is generally destroying one\u2019s own property\u201d (Collins, 253); in doing so, these students are \u201dconspicuously flaunting an insouciant disregard for costs, conventions, and serious purposes\u201d (Collins, 255). After destroying the TV, his hand is revealed to the camera with a huge gash overflowing with blood. The young man\u2019s response is to stand around showing his battle wounds to the cameras and screaming \u201cFuck you!\u201d Quite clearly, TotalFratMove <\/i>wants followers to disseminate the choice to completely ignore normal conventions in the context of parties. Yet, even the destruction of property\u2014once a carnivalesque refutation of materialism\u2014has become a calculated formulation itself: On Barstool<\/i>, one of the most common tropes is a guy jumping onto and breaking a table, the more dangerous the jump and more expensive the table, the better.<\/span><\/p>\n

The destruction of the TV<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BaSFm7zhABU\/?hl=en&taken-by=totalfratmove<\/p>\n

Before expounding upon the formulaic nature of Barstool\u2019<\/i>s curation, I would be remiss not to mention how crowds actually get partygoers to do the craziest, most entertaining things. In the 1700s at Oxford, for example, young men performed their wildest deeds in front of an audience with similar status (Collins, 255), comparable to today\u2019s college party which contains people of similar class all going to the same school. The same essay goes on to assert, \u201cit is where there is ongoing situational stratification, the sheer momentary attention-gaining of a noisy display of uninhibited fun, that carousing becomes destructive\u201d (255). Testing that claim against the above video yields similarities. The crowd has gathered around the one man; the center of the crowd is the most important area, while the fringes are simply onlookers. Multiple phone cameras record the young man in anticipation. Not wanting to let them down, he provides entertainment, and the cheers only get louder once his bloody hand is seen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barstool<\/i> carefully decides to show its follower various themes. In many uploads, people smash beer cans against their heads and drink the ensuing explosion. After seeing a few of beer-induced concussions, one can easily surmise their purpose: show viewers that nothing is worth as much as a good time, which is, of course, determined by the crowd\u2019s reaction. Similarly, other videos, celebrations of what\u2019s called \u201cWu-tanging,\u201d display college kids swallowing the butts of cigarettes with the aid of alcohol. In perhaps the most widespread variation, students make \u201cluges,\u201d ramps into which beer is poured and then drank, with the most obscene possible objects. For \u201cluge\u201d videos, it really runs the gamut, from dead fish to used athletic cups. Returning to the TV-punching video provides some insight into what this repetition actually means. The simple fact that most people in the crowd have their phone\u2019s cameras poised begs a question. Why? Why do they want to record the act? Each person wants to be able to say, \u2018I was there. Look here, I have proof on my <\/i>phone.\u2019 Each student wants to be the one who shows the others what happened. The ultimate goal becomes being the person who made it onto Barstool<\/i>, not only for the person performing crazy acts, but also for those recording. If one looks to the vast amount of content created in the college party sphere each day, and sees the lengths to which students go to make Barstool <\/i>or TotalFratMove<\/i>, it would be impossible to say these media apparatuses have no power.<\/span><\/p>\n

An example of beer head-smashing<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BZY8XfPhnum\/?hl=en&taken-by=totalfratmove<\/p>\n

Thus, an interesting paradox appears. There exists a counter-intuitive incentive. Yes, partygoers want to engage in spontaneous carousing\u2014where they can be rebellious and not care about societal norms\u2014but they also want to make it into Barstool, <\/i>and therefore must reconcile themselves to the successful formulations. Instagram pages can then affect the content of the elite carnival, and actually steer it towards what will make the most money.<\/span><\/p>\n

The curation of videos to create certain incentives and affect elite carnival allows Barstool<\/i> to advertise very effectively because, as a demographic, it doesn’t get much better than young, wealthy students. As Kenneth Tucker puts it, \u201cModern advertising retains the carnival ideas of excess and abundance, alongside the notion that selves can be transformed through the purchasing of goods\u2026These elements are no longer necessarily critical of capitalism, as they are promoted by the entertainment orientation of the mass media and rebellion has become part of the marketing machine.\u201d (Tucker, 108-9). Indeed, advertisers approach Barstool<\/i>-like pages all the time. On TotalFratMove<\/i>, there is an ad for going on the spring break of a lifetime, full of the same excess that the rest of the page contains. There are also ads for boxing matches with motto, \u201cAre you man enough?\u201d and other Instagram pages with fratty appeal. Most often, the pages advertise their own clothing, which typically has a rebellious and satirical slant. Embroidery includes \u201cMerry Christmas, Bitch,\u201d \u201cLegalize Cocaine,\u201d and \u201cGinger Jesus.\u201d The uniting factor is that each ad feeds on the over-the-top theme of the entire page.<\/span><\/p>\n

A quintessential ad<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bb5GfsAj54f\/?hl=en&taken-by=barstoolsports<\/p>\n

The profound idea is not that Barstool<\/i> sells clothing, but that it sells a lifestyle. In the world of TotalFratMove<\/i>, throwing up due to intoxication is not a bad thing; it\u2019s the price one pays for having a good time. And nothing matters more than having a good time\u2014which the crowd determines, influenced by Barstool<\/i>. In one chapter of his book, \u201cThe End of the American Avant Garde,\u201d Stuart Hobbes argues that the avant garde has become commodified, \u201creduced to a lifestyle\u201d (Hobbs, 168) by the media, which favors sensationalism over serious ideas and creates pseudo-events, \u201cmanufactured occurrences presented in the media for self-serving motives\u201d (Hobbs, 150). Barstool<\/i> and alike pages, by similar means, are accomplishing something comparable, except they are not only commodifying a lifestyle, but creating that lifestyle in the process. If Barstool<\/i> were to have its way, all the events of the elite carnival would be formulaic pseudo-events, created for the prescribed purpose of making it onto Barstool. <\/i>That\u2019s why the only time you\u2019ll see someone in class in one of these videos, they\u2019re either drinking or display their dislike for the lecture.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/i>Some might argue that Barstool <\/i>and TotalFratMove<\/i> are simply collections of depravity that young people enjoy watching. Yet, when one considers the highly-curated characteristic of these pages, the themes become especially important. And it is plain to see that the motifs point towards a certain lifestyle that incidentally serves the economic interest of the pages themselves. Clearly, there is a deliberate formulation to control elite carnival. So, the next time you\u2019re drunk at a college party and some person decides to go insane, think about why everyone\u2019s got their phone out\u2014it\u2019s not just<\/i> to tell their friends. <\/span><\/p>\n

An earlier draft of this essay was read by Sam Gilman.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have written this essay in the style of Ta-Nehisi Coates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Collins, Randall. \u201cViolence as Fun and Entertainment.\u201d Violence: a Micro-Sociological Theory<\/i>, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 242\u2013281. JSTOR<\/i>, www.jstor.org\/stable\/pdf\/j.ctt4cg9d3.11.pdf.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hobbs, Stuart D. \u201cConsumer Culture Commodification.\u201d The End of the American Avant Garde<\/i>, NYU Press, 1997, pp. 139\u2013168. JSTOR<\/i>, www.jstor.org\/stable\/pdf\/j.ctt9qfvp7.11.pdf.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shontell, Alyson. \u201cMeet The Genius Frat Dudes Who Turned Bro Humor Into A Multimillion-Dollar Media Empire.\u201d Business Insider<\/i>, Business Insider, 21 Mar. 2014, www.businessinsider.com\/how-total-frat-move-and-grandex-were-founded-2014-3<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

TotalFratMove. “Dad hits Student.” Instagram<\/i>, October 8. 2017, www.instagram.com\/p\/BZ9rJ_PhxtE\/?hl=en&taken-by=totalfratmove.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tucker, Kenneth H. \u201cThe World Is a Stage and Life Is a Carnival: The Rise of the Aesthetic Sphere and Popular Culture.\u201d Workers of the World, Enjoy!: Aesthetic Politics from Revolutionary Syndicalism to the Global Justice Movement<\/i>, Temple University Press, 2012, pp. 91\u2013120. JSTOR<\/i>, www.jstor.org\/stable\/pdf\/j.ctt14btddp.8.pdf.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For centuries, young people, especially students, have gotten drunk and done obscene things. In the name of carnival, they rebelled against prevailing societal norms; they pursued their whims. Today, on the surface, it\u2019s very much the same\u2014except people record it. In fact, with the rise of social media, students not only record their crazy debauchery, … Continue reading Why There\u2019s a Barstool on the Dance Floor<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1683,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}