The Rise And Fall Of Indie

I can't take it anymore. The word indie has been so altered from what it means so much, that I just can't take it anymore. Indie was originally used in music as in Independent and non-major lable music. DIY or Do It Yourself, that is what indie is meant to be. Then indie got applied to books and film, and I have no problem with that because there are independent films and independently published books so it still fits in the mantra and philosophy of Do It Yourself and being anti-major distrubution.

What I can't stand is when someone says I'm indie. What does that mean? What are you independent of or from? Isn't everybody indie then? Maybe it's some kind of counter-culture thing to say and be and the non-conformists are indie, but when law students and business majors call themselves indie and they act no different than the trendy want to be philosopher who uses "hip" words and acts anti-social and works at Belmont Army then who is indie? I think the term was been used way past its means, and indie needs to go back to what it means and refers to which is art.

People are not indie. Clothes are not indie. Just because your tight jeans and v-neck looks really cool and "hipster", guess what it's made in china and bangladesh and it's not indie! If you like to go to major brand stores and national chain businesses like Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, American Apparel, Borders you are not indie! You want to be indie, then do it yourself. Make your own damn clothes, or at least design them and get them custom made, then I would say you have a better grasp on what it means to be indie. As a musician who makes independent music all I can say is that most people would not survive trying to do everything yourself. I've designed my own shirts, recorded my own music, designed and distributed my own albums, booked my own shows, and it's hard work. It's not easy to have a DIY ethic, and I see all these people who claim to be indie when they don't even know what it means to be indie. Even having said and done that I still don't consider myself indie. I considered myself an independent musician because I play indie music and have a DIY ethic, but as a person I'm not indie.

It seems everyone is indie anymore. Why can't people be themselves. No one is naturally indie, because indie is not a term that describes people, it describes art. Indie music, and indie films became marketable so then people have a desire to be like those who make indie music and indie films and indie books and then people start calling themselves indie, but when people say they're indie all they are doing is vicariously living through someone else and someone else's art really.

If someone really is indie, or what it indie means as being independent and having a Do It Yourself attitude then someone who is independent wouldn't label themself as such and thus categorizing who they are. It's a contradiction to call yourself indie. It's like using the term freedom fighter, it's an oxymoron, it doesn't make any sense and doesn't have any relevance being used in society.

I will still use indie to describe independent music, film, design, and books, but I just wish people would stop describing themselves as indie, because no one is. The term has been bastardized, and it makes me sad because indie is kind of like emo now where so many different people use it in different contexts that no one knows or can define what it means anymore. I don't blame the people who use the word indie for ruining it, I blame the capitalist blood-suckers who marketed indie and made it trendy to the masses.

Marketing and capitalism ruins everything eventually.