The tribes of North America in 2010 are many and varied. They are here pictured that they may be recognized by the traveler and any encounters made peacefully.
Figure 1: Being the Electric Hudson Valley Tribe. They are proficient in electrics, in the manipulation of circuitry for music and art, on which many of their ceremonies center, mirthless though those ceremonies may be.
Figure 2: Here depicted being one of the Neon Ravers, their tribes numbers are heaviest in coastal areas. They eat the lotus and surrender to extravagant music, share women, trade each other neon beads, and are very amenable and welcoming to foreigners.
Figure 3: A Chieftain of After-Parties, being highly trained in fashion or video-arts. The Chelsea cut and spangled eye patch denote the wealth of the native, who can attend countless nocturnal ceremonies without laboring in the day. Will trade camaraderie for cocaine, demands large tribute of trinkets and swag from worshippers.
Figure 4: The tribal paint of the Juggalo Nation, an impoverished Mid Western tribe that comes together for days of war songs. Despite this seeming aggression they are ultimately benign. They count Faygo as a sacred drink, and do not educate their young.
Figure 5: A portrait of a Masked DJ Priest, who conducts the music machines during ceremonies. The mask allows him to step outside his roles in the tribe and assume the persona of sacred music conduit. He may at his whim give favored devotees mouthfuls of vodka.
Figure 6: Here being a Coachellan or one of many Summer Music Festival Braves. A rich tribe that does a sort of penance by undergoing the ordeals of weather-exposure, dehydration, exhaustion, and living in the wilderness to better break through to music-spirits. In this heightened state, they are highly suggestible and trade their wealth at a high disadvantage to themselves.
Don’t think I don’t recognize Gwenyth Paltrow’s bone structure, Miss Sparks.
do you have your own show yet?
You do realize that the US has 565 federally recognized tribes of actual “Native North Americans,” don’t you? I.e., some 4.5 million people of Native ancestry who don’t wear facepaint, drink and party, or revel in their ignorance? Not to mention all the Native tribes of Canada, Mexico, and Central America?
If you think this posting is appropriate, why don’t you do another posting on the African tribes of 2010? You could have gangstas, welfare mamas, love machines, and other stereotypes of black people. Because that would be conceptually identical to your “parody” of American Indian tribes.
I totally misunderstood this post. I thought it was a clever, mocking look at various overly-indulged party kid cultures. Now that I realize it’s maligning Native Americans using tired Insane Clown Posse-fan stereotypes, I’m incensed.
I’m sorry, but can’t you stereotype and demean your OWN people for a change? Like, say, the Cleveland Cossacks, complete with Comrade Wahoo stumbling in drunkingly on his pogrom horse wielding a fur hat, boots and a bottle of Stoli? Yeah, that’s funny. Not so this one. We’re tired of being the one group that it’s safe to lampoon. If you’re gonna do it, start with your own little lily white self, girlfriend.
Clever? I think not. Mocking? Yes. It uses Native stereotypes to mock “overly-indulged party kid cultures.” The question is why anyone thinks it’s okay to repeat these stereotypes as if they aren’t offensive to millions of Native Americans.
Again, would Lily write something similar about the African tribes of 2010? Perhaps comparing today’s slackers to witch doctors, head-shrinkers, and cannibals? Why not, if this kind of “satire” is okay?
Hey Deb and Rob, please quote even one line of this piece that references an actual Native American tribe or even stereotype. You can’t because it doesn’t. We are making fun of white people.
I think it’s totez kewl to defend a marginalized people, but please improve your reading comprehension first. That might help you stop being so embarrassing.
Hey, I love a good dialogue. This piece is a lot more about representations of native americans by colonials & “adventurers” (hence the sepia toned background & anno domini and stilted language) its all about having a sly laugh at my own peoples. If you read any account from europeans who traveled through north america before it colonization, they wildly misinterpreted what they saw- and if you brought one via time travel to our current times, this is how they might read our own actions (via misinterpreting them)
p.s. rob- the africa stuff? – not cool bro!
Here are the quotes you so foolishly overlooked:
* “Tribes of the Native North Americans.” In case you’re as ignorant as you seem, only American and Canadian Indians are “Native North Americans.”
* “share women, trade each other … beads, and are very amenable and welcoming to foreigners.”
* “chieftain”
* “attend countless nocturnal ceremonies without laboring in the day”
* “demands large tribute of trinkets and swag from worshippers”
* “tribal paint”
* “days of war songs”
* “masked … priest”
* “braves”–a word that refers only to Indians, youngsters.
* “living in the wilderness”
* “trade their wealth at a high disadvantage to themselves”
Etc. Not to mention the headband, beads, and “warpaint” in the images.
Are you seriously arguing that these aren’t common beliefs about Native Americans? If you’re ignorant of what a Native stereotype is, I suggest you educate yourself before you open your mouths again.
Now that I’ve demonstrated the error of your ways, give me a tough challenge.
So the “africa stuff,” which is conceptually identical to your “parody” of American Indian tribes, isn’t cool? That’s the point, isn’t it? You have some vague awareness that African stereotypes are wrong, but you’re willing to engage in equally wrong Native stereotypes.
If this piece “is a lot more about representations of native americans by colonials & ‘adventurers,’” then do a similar piece using European representations of Africans from THEIR colonial period. Again, label it “African Tribes of 2010″ and make fun of white people by depicting them in grass skirts, with bones in their noses, chucking spears and boiling people in oil.
If you believe what you’re saying, why wouldn’t you do this? Your rationalization is that you’re satirizing white people, even though you’re doing it with Native stereotypes. Let’s see you satirize white people with African stereotypes instead.
Time travelers from the future would misinterpret tens of thousands of things in our present-day culture. Oddly, you’ve picked a couple of dozen things that strongly suggest how backward, primitive, and savage the “Native North Americans” (Indians) are.
At the same time, you’ve avoided stereotypes from other ethnic groups that you could’ve used instead. Therefore, your choices suggest a conscious or unconscious bias on your part.
Point of contention: I believe we are far more ignorant than we seem. After all, we mostly got degrees in English, Film and Art and are largely unemployable.
I also recommend that you look around our fair site to get a better sense of the Weak Nights aesthetic. I’d particularly like to point you to a couple of posts near and dear to my heart:
http://weaknights.com/blog/?p=1324
http://weaknights.com/blog/?p=1291
In both of those posts, I tried to use stereotypes to undermine stereotypes, but also to be funny. Mostly, I was trying to be funny.
I can readily identify the stereotypes I was exploiting. But, Rob, I disagree that many of the items on your list are actively exploited as stereotypes in Lily’s post. The weakest in the herd are probably “living in the wilderness,” “chieftain” and “masked… priest.” Those terms are just too widely applicable to prove your point, Rob. I happen to love the Chieftains. Also, you know ravers actually do trade beads? Insane Clown Posse fans actually do paint their faces? The Scenesters’s life consists of sleeping during the day and going out at night, and is subsidized by their parents hence the no “laboring during the day.” I have yet to see anyone wearing a grass skirt at a concert, but I haven’t been to Coachella in a couple of years. I’m also unaware of hipsters boiling anyone in oil. But if that happens, I’m sure it’ll make the cover of Radar. And while bars are not yet filled with kids who have a bone through their nose, I’m happy to make fun of gauges.
You are absolutely attached to the notion that within this humble bit of comedy, there lies a commitment to slandering Native Americans. And in a way, I applaud you for your singularity of vision. But this is kind of one of those “the devil can quote Scripture for his purposes” things. Clearly, you think you see an attack on indians in Lily’s post. Clearly, the rest of us think this is a funny critique of our peers. We both have our evidence, but I posit that we accomplish more by finding creative modes of social, cultural and anthropological exploration than you do by posting lengthy comments on a comedy website run by youngsters.
Hey Rob, if you’re thirsting for references to African tribes, almost all of the “references” to Native American tribes you’ve just listed below could also apply to African tribes. Or tribes anywhere. Because they are so intentionally vague as to apply to any primitive culture. In this case it’s used to make fun of white people– I’d think you’d applaud such a ripe turning of the tables. But no, you’d rather just be embarrassing.
Apparently our comedy is a big Rorschach test and all you see is insults towards Native Americans. That seems kinda racist to me.
This is stupid because it’s like explaining a hat to a man with no head. He can’t hear you because he has no ears, and he probably never asked you a question because he’s almost certainly dead at this point. Also let me tell you about the race of the headless man. Just kidding, it’s irrelevant.