the 2009 culture vulture awards.

I'm loving this, true haters. I have put Satchel of Gravel on my blogroll for my morning giggle. Enjoy. (warning: if you don't have a semi knowledgeable backgound in streetwear, you might not get all the jokes.)
xo.

Much like screening on AAA tees and matching New Era fitteds to hyperstrike Nikes, culture vulturism is a necessary and ugly part of the uber-cool guy lifestyle. Here, we salute the people and places who have gone above and beyond the call of duty by biting other people’s work, re-appropriating a lifetstyle they don’t come from, selling out quietly and ultimately being responsible for this blog.

Props to all of the other bloggers and writers who contributed suggestions and help narrow down the list.

And without any further ado, here are the nominations for Satchel of Gravel’s 2009 Culture Vulture Award:

Jim Jones

Jim Jones (and the white boys who get all their information about Harlem from Dipset mixtapes) exude a swagger that’s nearly impossible to achieve. And by nearly, we mean as in, it can only be purchased at Hot Topic where sales of glittered skull tee shirts, rhinestone belts and True Religion jeans have sky rocketed since Jones & co. made them mandatory uniform of Koch Records. Hopefully by 2010, Jim will open Hot Topic on 125th street to sell copies of Byrd Gang albums and bootlegs of Twilight. That’s hip-hop.

Kubrick

For everything that exists on the fringes of pop culture, there’s a Kubrick figure. Some are collectible, some are questionable and all are completely unnecessary.

KAWS

When we sent out the call to action email for who should be named the 2009 Culture Vulture, KAWS made it onto everyone’s list. Why, we’re not completely sure, but he’s got a nomination. Congrats, we guess.

Nigo/Pharrell

Like sneakers, these two come as a pair. As the creator of A Bathing Ape, Nigo’s single handedly defined what it means to be a culture vulture by refining the elements of hip-hop culture to its most granular level, manufacturing bootleg Nikes and filtering American Black culture through a Japanese lens to sell to back to Americans and Europeans of all races and genders.

Pharrell “Skateboard P” Williams on the other hand has been incorporated all of the elements of skate culture into his lifestyle, with exception of actually knowing how to skate. Which is fine, since he surrounds himself with people who actually can and thereby gain credibility through association.

Satchel of Gravel

A blog that exists solely to pick at the work put forth by brands, designers, and scenesters who want nothing more than to quietly steal other people’s creations and re-appropriate the iconography from 80’s cartoons. Blogging from the veil of semio-anonymity, the sites’ writers fail to realize that if none culture vulturism existed, they’d have nothing to write about.

Long Island City, New York

Tucked neatly into the collarbone of Queens, L-I-C has become the safe haven for surly hipsters looking to avoid the gentrification of Williamsburg. So while most Bedford residents are content to slum it in lofts paid for by their parents, true troopers are taking an up north trip to further the art of douchebaggery, coifed mustaches and forming two chord shoegazing bands.

Spongebob Squarepants

There’s hype, then there’s Spongebob hype. It’s the type of hype that can be enjoyed by toddlers, Japanese girls and Windy City rappers all at the same time. Sutured onto every cool-guy brand imaginable, Spongebob has wrung his spunk out on A Bathing Ape, Adidas, and Russell Simmons Jewelry Co., just to name a few.

(To be fair Big Russ’s jewelry farm isn’t a cool-guy brand, but you get the point.)

*honorable mention goes to our girl Hello Kitty

Google Images

One would be remise not to mention the power of the internets and its role in streetwear. Without Google Images, none of this would be possible. After all, if you can’t scour 55 pages of images looking for the perfect pic of The Goonies for your Spring Summer Collection, you might have to actually come up with something original.

The Hundreds

A blog to riches story, the trials and tribulations of the streetwear prom kings are admirable. Coming from humble roots as ravers turned law school dropouts, Bobby and Ben have crafted a brand that flipped the acronym of “D.I.Y.” and made it mean “Disney It Yourself” when they dropped their infantile co-branded line with a company that has consistently and historically disrespected Asians, Blacks, Arabs and Mermaids. Remember, you can’t spell “independent-mentality” without “overtly racist multi-national conglomerate.” At the same time, The Hundreds have also set the benchmark for collecting the most cosigns of any brand, by taking pics of any celebrity or designer within a 100 meter distance for their SLR.

The Olive Garden

If Italians were upset about their portrayal in The Godfather and Goodfellas, then they should be taking their arms up against the Olive Garden for butchering their native tongue while serving it alongside unlimited soup, salad, or breadsticks.

MC Serch

Every one gets that the Ego Trip crew’s whole thing is to approach hip-hop culture with a healthy spoonful of cynicism. And in most cases, it works. However when they cast Mc Serch as the host of the functionally retarded series that was The White Rapper Show (and its follow up Miss Rap Supreme) they allowed him to single handedly take hip-hop back to the dark ages where the notion of a white person in the genre was depicted as some douchebag waving his hands in the like he didn’t care while shouting cliched hip-hop phrases. Either that, or Serch just showed what he acted like during his days at Def Jam.

And the winner is… Vote HERE