THIS WEEK ONLINE – The Age of Average

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• Victoria to raise the age of criminal responsibility
• “I LIKE IT!”
• The Age of Average
• Is it boyband time in Australia?
• Australia’s ‘Witch of Kings Cross’ destroyed men’s careers, practised sex magic, painted erotic gods and scandalised puritanical 1950s society
• hhhhhh

To 12. After years of expert advice and rage, stress and disbelief from the community, Victoria has agreed to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. Two years off the age recommended by the UN, two years off the international standard and two years off the age they say they’ll look to lift it to in 2027, after the next Victorian state election. 

It all prompts the question: why? Why not just raise it to 14 now? Studies show that the earlier a child has contact with the criminal justice system the more likely they are to have long-term involvement in crime. Further, in April 2022, First Nations kids made up 5.8% of the total population of Australians aged 10-17, but represented 49% of the youth detention population. It isn’t right, nor is the maintenance of a law from the times of yore when we had our 10 year olds working 12 hour days in the mines

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'I LIKE IT!'

The writer tells of being subjugated to the derision, judgement and withering gazes of snobs who insist on degrading the subjects of their “basic bitch tastes”. 

The writer discovers a simple, chirpy “I like it!” will shut those swine up for good. 

The writer encourages the reader to include “I like it!” in their social arsenal. 

What the writer might not know is that this is bimbo logic. Bimbo as in nouveau bimbo, the 21st century’s answer to soliciting empowerment via embracing the fact that maybe you are just a little bit basic, a little bit silly, and a little bit stupid. And so what? If people smirk, if they deride, if they unload a hot steaming spray of unintelligible and pretentious opine when you express your appreciation of something “basic”, you simply insist: I like it! 

They don’t know how to take it. They want you to cower, admonish yourself, apologise for your tastes. But hold your ground, girl. This is bimbo logic applied to everyday living, and it never fails.

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THE AGE OF AVERAGE

Q: Which of these cities is Sydney?

You may have noticed there is an all-encompassing averageness seeping out from our souls and into our architecture, our homes, our offices. 

Our cities all look the same. Melbourne is an “Air Space'' city. But it isn’t alone. Airspace aesthetics drown AirBnbs in the same chic familiarity that washes across all new cafes, bars and restaurants. The colours are fading, the differences are shrinking, and everything is starting to look the same.

But is it really coming from us? Or somewhere else? Capital greed? Developer disinterest? Surely no one could actually want this homogeneity

But perhaps we do. After all, an experiment in the early 1990s found what everyone desired in a piece of art, across multiple countries, was for all intents and purposes, the same. 

The artists polled over 11,000 people, from 11 different countries, and produced artworks to their tastes, and “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.”

A: None. But all of them could be. And therein lies the point.

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As Ben Madden writes for VICE, Australia’s tall poppy syndrome mixes with its aggressively lackadaisical attitude to make a culture incredibly hostile to the rise of boybands. Not to say we haven’t had any to reach stardom: Human Nature, Justice Crew and 5 Seconds Of Summer are just a few. May I add Short Stack to that list…? Either way: it has happened, and maybe it should happen again.

But ahhh the boys are in bands but they won’t go for pop. As Madden writes, “Part of the reason that pop remains a dirty word in many Australian circles is that it’s a genre that attracts a lot of love from young women, who are often dismissively described as “fangirls”. 

Justice for fangirls! Industry bigwigs understand they are the real tastemakers. Without fangirls you are nothing. And if you want the fangirls, you’re gonna have to give them a little something something [Watermelon Sugar starts playing somewhere in the distance] and you know what that something is.

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When researching THE OCCULT for April’s theme, I was enthralled, enraptured and pleased to come across Rosaleen Norton – a truly revelatory artist and woman who called Sydney’s Kings Cross home in the 1950s. She was far ahead of her time, and while her refusal to acquiesce to the [largely Christian, deeply regressive] status quo of the era put a target on her back for life, she did not give two fucks. 

Rosaleen’s art is erotic, fantastical, sexy and very cool. A couple of highlights: She was kicked out of a Christian girls’ school at age 14 for her “depraved” drawings of ghouls, witches and vampires; and she is accredited with destroying the career of a famous composer who was guesting at the Sydney Orchestra. He was caught at the border with photographs and correspondence between himself, Rosaleen Norton, and her lover Gavin Greenlees. The revelation that he’d been involved with Rosaleen’s coven, participated in sex magic, and performed “unnatural sexual acts” [BDSM], meant he was charged, and effectively disgraced from society. Love!

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NEWS TIKTOKS FOR BIG BRAINS AND BIGGER AWARENESS OF TODAY'S UTMOST PRESSING ISSUES.

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