Ninakix

“There’s another way to understand Fukuyama’s boredom with history’s end: success breeds its own type of sadness. Once a goal is achieved or an adversary vanquished, the victor’s sense of purpose becomes less relevant. The import of future endeavors begins to lack the significance of what has already been achieved. And that’s always a depressing state of affairs.”
― Kevin Craft, Grunge, Nerds, and Gastropubs: A Mass Culture Odyssey

“What’s interesting about craft brewers’ proclivity for such elaborate exercises in branding is how this behavior so closely resembles the longstanding practices of the global beer conglomerates craft beer folk claim to despise. There’s an old and telling adage about business that says mass market companies, take Budweiser and MillerCoors for example, don’t sell products, they sell advertising.”
― Kevin Craft, Grunge, Nerds, and Gastropubs: A Mass Culture Odyssey

“Once virtually every song produced[22] was available at the click of a mouse (via legitimate purchase or more nefarious means), music lost some of the power it had long held as a marker of selfhood. It became just another product that could be downloaded in the privacy of one’s own home, not something that was easily trotted out as a symbol of the buyer’s tastes and beliefs. That didn’t mean music was ever in danger of disappearing from the culture entirely; it just meant that it would no longer be much use to people obsessed with not only finding examples of authentic self-expression but letting every person they came in contact with know that authenticity was integral to their conception of self.”
― Kevin Craft, Grunge, Nerds, and Gastropubs: A Mass Culture Odyssey

“Being a nerd is about being so uncool that embracing one’s inner weirdo and showcasing that personality to the world without fear of repercussion is the only tenable path for achieving peace of mind. It involves dropping all pretense and attempts to construct a socially normal personality. It’s about letting the kooky shine through.”
― Kevin Craft, Grunge, Nerds, and Gastropubs: A Mass Culture Odyssey