"Indie’s self-deception has had consequences for fans as well. One kind of fan, at least originally, was the lower-middle-class white person, frequently a college dropout, who got by on bartending or other menial work and tried to save enough money to move out of his parents’ house. This kind of person got involved in indie rock to acquire cultural capital that he’d otherwise lack. A pretty good example of this kind of indie rock fan is Ryan Schreiber. In the last decade, however, indie rock has classed up, steadily abandoning these lower-class fans (along with the midsized cities they live in) for the young, college-educated white people who now populate America’s major cities and media centers. For these people, indie rock has offered a way to ignore the fact that part of what makes your dead-end internship or bartending job tolerable is the fact that you can leave and go to law school whenever you like. A pretty good example of this kind of indie rock fan is me. In the two years since I graduated from college, I’ve had a pretty good time being “broke” in New York and drinking “cheap” beer with my friends. But sometimes I remind myself that the beer I’m drinking is not actually cheap, and that furthermore I am not actually broke: if I married someone who made the same salary I make, our household income would be slightly above the national median, which is also true of almost every person I spend my free time with. The truth is that I inherited expensive tastes and moved to an expensive city, and sometimes I get cranky about not being able to buy what I want. But when I don’t feel like reminding myself of these things, I can listen to indie music."
From 5.4: Pitchfork, 1995–present by Richard Beck. What else is there to say?
