Constructing Lumbersexuality: Marketing an Emergent Masculine Taste Regime

Abstract

This article examines the online retailer Huckberry.com as a singular, centralized authority responsible for marketing "lumbersexuality" as an emergent, gender-normative taste regime. As an evolution of the devalued hipster marketplace myth, analysis reveals Huckberry promotes an adaptable taste regime to its young, educated, urban, White male clientele that unites goods, meanings, and practices across multiple fields of consumption that reconnect indie consumption and taste with a fantasy of "authentic" masculinity. We argue that Huckberry offers men semiotic resources that merge the urban with the outdoors in a way that enables the enactment of a fraught though seemingly durable masculine identity project that weaves the extraordinary and mythological into the quotidian. Implications of this gendered taste regime are discussed in relationship to the ways in which lumbersexuality is mobilized as a more authentically masculine alternative to the ironic stance of hipsterism and the supposed phoniness of mass culture.

Aspirational taste regime: Masculinities and consumption in pick-up artist training in China

“…However, for those who earn much less, the PUA taste regime imposes the same dress protocols, because the regime capitalizes on PUA learners’ aspirations for idealized masculinities without questioning or challenging the materialist trend in romance in any sense. While this does not imply that wearing shirts represents compensatory consumption per se, I argue that the PUA taste regime successfully nurtures a dependence on consumption, a self-serving, privileged act that is not necessarily authentic or reflexive, as an outlet to construct idealized masculinities and address feelings of alienation and disempowerment (Rademacher and Kelly, 2019: 41), especially for lower-class men.…”

“…Recently, scholars have applied Arsel and Bean’s concepts to illuminate a wide array of normative consumption systems including selfies, fashion blogging, home design, lumbersexuality, man caves, and tattoos (Eagar and Dann, 2016; Gannon and Prothero, 2016; Kedzior et al, 2016; Kumar, 2017; Rademacher and Kelly, 2019; Moisio and Beruchashvili, 2016; Roux and Belk, 2019). Notably, subjects in Arsel and Bean’s research belong to a very specific social class segment comprising predominantly white, privileged individuals and couples living in America (2013: 924).…”

Favela venceu! - Resistência veiculada em videoclipes de bregafunk

“…No caso do bregafunk, chama atenção como sua produção de videoclipes retrata a periferia recifense como um espaço de sociabilidades e afetividades, bem como de ambição por melhores condições sociais e econômicas. Caracterizados por conteúdos visualmente engajadores, geralmente focados em artistas que apostam em performances para chamar atenção do público (Doré & Pugsley, 2019), essas produções audiovisuais agem, também, como agentes de propagação discursiva, ao serem amplamente difundidos, permitindo que, para além do entretenimento, veiculem atos políticos ou ideológicos (Chen, Wang, & Qiao, 2021;Rademacher & Kelly, 2019;Van Klinken, 2018;Zanette, 2013).…”

“…Entendemos que, ao retratar a favela a partir de um olhar positivo e naturalista, os videoclipes de bregafunk promovem práticas discursivas focadas em mostrar a resistência das favelas aos dispositivos dominantes que impõem sobre elas a representação de uma sociedade marginalizada. Assim, o ritmo atua também como agentes de propagação discursiva, pois sua ampla divulgação permite veicular atos políticos ou ideológicos que vão além do fator entretenimento (Chen et al, 2021;Rademacher & Kelly, 2019;Van Klinken, 2018;Zanette, Lourenço, & Brito, 2013). Com base nessa perspectiva, o presente estudo é norteado pela seguinte questão de pesquisa: como a resistência da favela é evidenciada na produção de videoclipes de bregafunk?…”

White, Male, and Bartending in Detroit: Masculinity Work in a Hipster Scene

“…They contribute to the ‘gentrification’ of former ‘popular,’ working-class, ethnic or ‘exotic’ neighbourhoods in the big Western cities” (170) by supporting pricey coffee shops and trendy bars. Indeed, much of the academic research on hipsters has focused on them as a consumer segment (i.e., Arsel and Thompson 2011; Rademacher and Casey 2019). This work focuses on what hipsters wear, what they buy, and how they are marketed to despite the negative connotation of “hipster.” Other academic work has tried to define hipsters by examining how they are discussed online (Maly and Varis 2016) or by journalists and the popular press (Schiermer 2014).…”