In a previous post, I mused about how it seems to be the anonymous people who do much of the actual, meticulous (even autistic) work of creating something great–be it a beautiful couture dress or identifying an Antifa thug.

I got to thinking (quelle surprise!) more about what it means to do anonymous work.

There’s the trope of the writer or musician* who toils for years in obscurity before sudden, “overnight” success. That trope holds true–I can think of a few bloggers and musicians off the top of my head who have talked about it.

The only way those people have any hope of being successful once they break through into the public consciousness is by having a huge body of work standing behind them. They’ve refined their style, their ideas, and have a huge track record to establish credibility and trust. That’s an immense amount of work.

And it was all done when they were anonymous.

But thinking about it, the levels of anon-ness ratchet up (or down, I guess, depending on your scale) at each step of the way.

For instance, I’ve been working on a project at work. I’m at basic-tier anon status at work–indispensable to my one little area but virtually unknown to everybody else. And honestly, if I got hit by a bus on my commute tomorrow, they could find some other anon to do the work after me.

This project was started by other anons who were looking for a way to make a seasonal project slightly easier (a downgrade from “you’re going through hell but good luck with that” to “this is the worst thing I’ve ever done”). Myself and my co-anon worked with a process improvement guy to ~get this project off the ground~ with the blessing of a mid-tier Known Person.

(Say “anon” one more time.)

After weeks of toiling in obscurity, today was the day to present our findings to our Known Person. This person tasked us with presenting with her boss and big boss, which will mean that my team becomes less anonymous.

Then we might go on a roadshow around our organization…becoming even less anonymous.

Our resident career advisor thinks we may be able to leverage this into a consultant-type gig. We would become ever so slightly less anon with every project that we theoretically helped with.

Maybe we write a book. Maybe we growth-hack our way onto fake news. Maybe then we become keynote speakers at corporate events.

Maybe someday we will be a Known Entity (even in just a small circle).

And then we will be an overnight sensation.

Woohoo!

*I’m specifically referring to Travie McCoy’s rap bit in Cobra Starship’s “Kiss My Sass” (Yeah, took a little time but I’m finally here / Ten years deep just to make things clear). I forgot how much I appreciate that album–it’s really good to put on when you need to plunge through a bunch of work that makes you cringe. Listen to “Prostitution is the World’s Oldest Profession (And I, Dear Madame, am a Professional)” and you’ll know what I’m saying.

Nostalgia. Does it make the world go ’round?

Often it’s disguised as “innovation.”

I like Christina Tosi, and Milk Bar treats are something I wish I could have tried before going gluten- and sugar-free (along with Salt and Straw Ice Cream).

But there’s a fundamental difference between Salt and Straw and Milk Bar. Salt and Straw is recreating a common food (ice cream) with interesting flavors. Many other people are doing the same thing, but Salt and Straw is doing it well. Allegedly (having never tasted it).

Milk Bar, on the other hand, is doing some interesting things (I like the “naked cake” idea with the formula for a good balance of cake/texture/filling) but with a patina of nostalgia–the cereal milk, all the cornflakes, the birthday cake flavors. All things that take people of a certain age (Old Millennials, like myself–in their 30s) straight back to their childhoods.

All the comfort of Saturday morning cartoons, bowls of sugary cereal and the box cakes that our moms made for us on our birthdays–but that we’re too sophisticated for now, of course. We’ve moved to The City and identify as Progressive and have left that parochial lifestyle behind (except, of course, when we haven’t).

I think of it as “nostalgia porn,” which first occurred to me while rewatching an episode of Mad Men. It’s the second episode of the entire show, and the setup maybe acts as a thesis for the rest of the series*

As Betty pauses from gossiping to chastise her daughter, our minds leap immediately to the warning we see now on every plastic bag–NOT A TOY! KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN! DANGER!

So when Betty prioritizes her clothes over DANGER, we laugh. (Thanks, cognitive dissonance.)

But we also have the opportunity to feel smug. How could Betty love her clothes more than her own child?! What a spoiled bitch! Everybody knows ™ that Sally could DIE playing like that! Look at how safe we keep our children now! And smoking around children??? Quelle horreur! We have come so far! I would never do that!

A show like Mad Men allows us to cast the past in a glamourous light while simultaneously decrying how backward it was. We feel good for “progressing,” and also can pat ourselves on the back for emulating the style (or creating the style, for the older generation.

That is what I think of Milk Bar, to an extent. We would never think of eating sugary cereal for breakfast anymore (think of the! it would throw off my macros for at least three days! and Lucky Charms aren’t available at Whole Foods anyway!)–but we can indulge in cereal milk on cheat day.

We’re raiding the past to make ourselves feel good while simultaneously also feeling good because we’re more progressive now.

Christina Tosi credits her midwestern roots for much of her inspiration. Her grandmother’s recipes form the basis of many of her most popular offerings like Corn Cookies or Crack Pie.

At the same time, it’s not enough simply to recreate those recipes. They must be deconstructed and reinvented. Rainbow chip birthday cake used to raise the profile of The Rock. Would Christina Tosi’s grandmother vote for The Rock? (I don’t know.)

I could see this being used for good–to wake people up to the fact that many of our core values come from a more wholesome time and place. Perhaps it could be the start of a reawakening.

Considering the way that Coastal Elites view flyover country, I see this as yet another iteration of disdain for American values. Taking the enjoyable core of something and twisting it beyond recognition to fit into their progressive paradigm.

(Let us put aside for a minute the issue of rainbow chip birthday cake being sold to us by the corporate-industrial complex as an easy-but-soulless alternative for delicious, homemade cake, also subverting culture. It’s turtles all the way down, people.)

I think this is intentional in Mad Men. I doubt Christina Tosi is thinking about intentionally subverting midwestern values. Obviously this approach sells well. I personally take the bait–I greatly enjoy Mad Men and would 100% eat at Milk Bar if I could.

We have our cake and eat it too…but at what cost?

*Put a fork in that one, I’m going to have to explore it further. Maybe an excuse for a Mad Men rewatch?

Two things got me thinking. A common thread between totally different genres.

One

Yesterday on Twitter, Lauren Southern got awfully close to trying to use /pol/ as her personal army (anonymous hates that) and NotPaxDickinson laid out a plan for fighting Antifa through lawfare (as opposed to warfare). Which also involves /pol/ and assumes that polacks will remain interested in doing this sort of work.

We have a world class distributed video analysis division in this movement, give them what they need and they will produce arrests. /FIN

— Not Pax Dickinson (@NotPaxDickinson) June 10, 2017

(The whole thread, and strategy, is quite interesting so I do recommend reading, but the underlying assumption of “oh anon will do it they love that sort of stuff” rankles me a bit. I love Pax tho.)

Two

Then, today as I fed my Crippling Youtube Addiction, I watched a bunch of “making of” videos for French haute couture collections. The big fashion houses have an interesting setup, because the Brand is king (each has its own “house” style and ideal woman), but then there’s typically a lead designer (many of whom have a cult of personality surrounding them, such as Lagerfeld at Chanel), and under that designer is a small army of sub-divided categories (couture, ready to wear, men’s, accessories, fragrance, cosmetics, etc.), and then under all of those categories are the artisans who actually do the work. Who are, to all of us on the outside, completely anonymous.

And as much as the lead designer will provide sketches and specs for each collection, those are just IDEAS. The execution is left to the individual person crafting each garment or stitching each piece of embroidery. The idea/vibe/theme comes from the Named person, but the actual creation of the garment, the placement of each embellishment, are done by anons.

Unlike the anons on /pol/, these people are paid for their work, but I find it quite interesting that the two are very similar. Painstaking, detail-oriented work that can’t be shortcut. Identifying Eric Clanton took a lot of sifting through photos, identifying details, and matching up to the photo of him at the rally. Creating a couture gown involves sifting through materials, paying close attention to detailed stitches, and matching up the final product to the sketch of the designer.

The work done on /pol/ won’t be attributed to any one person–they pretty much got the credit, if only as an aggregate entity–but the anons who did the work aren’t paid (although that is not to say that the only work worth doing is for pay; it’s absolutely not but that’s a post for another day).

The work done by the atelier anons will never be credited to them (except maybe internally), but they do get paid. Perhaps part of the unspoken agreement with work-for-pay is that your individual contribution gets subsumed into the larger entity for which you get paid.

No, scratch that–there is no “perhaps.” If someone else pays you to do work for them, they get to decide who gets the credit.

At the end of the day, though, it’s the anons who do the work.