New Sincerity

New Sincerity is a reaction to the hipster culture's ironic desire to appear sincere in the face of insincere motives. This irony explicitly results from an attempt to imitate what what one is not in order to achieve hipness. An example, being middle class American's affinity for the urban outfitter, grungy, trucker type fashion styles that originated from the marginalized. This incongruity defines trends of modern hipster culture . However new sincerity rejects this artificially based culture by elevating sincerity above insincerity through the credibility of irony.

Understanding new sincerity can be tricky. Simplified it combines irony and sincerity. The ironic component being the contradiction of authenticity to it's cultural context, a culture which “values economics and consumption over the values of humanism and artistic enterprise.” as described in Hip Affected Earnestness. Again in Hip Affected Earnestness, Bon Iver's interview with ABC, well exemplifies the contrast of the authenticity of the artist's music to our generations commercial culture. In the interview, ABC questions Vernon about his emotional ties to his album, For Emma, Forever Ago. The interview, attempting to grasp at an emotional understanding of his work pathetically fails and therefore distinguishes the culture from the cultural object. Bon Iver is just one example of new sincerity that has attracted popularity recently. We can again justify this growing movement due to a desire to escape from the solidarity and insincerity of the mainstream hipster culture. On that note, as new sincerity gains more appreciation and attention, do you think it has the potential to become the mainstream replacing or at least dominating the more “Pre-2007” hipsterism? Has it already done so? Or does the intellectual capacity needed to appreciate the movement, restrict new sincerity to an elitist group? By intellectual capacity I am referring to the ability to understand and recognize irony ( a concept hard to understand to begin with) specifically in relation to authenticity within our materialistic culture. Trends that define much of culture today are typically dependent on visual accessibility through media and commercialism. But when a cultural trend is dominantly conceptual how will that effect its distribution within the population?

Looking specifically at Altered Ego, notice how the critic of Synechode, New York, reviews the film negatively due to its lack of meaning with “half filled ideas”. Synechode, New York undoubtedly skims over a multitude of topics, issues, ideas etc. Do you agree with the review of the film however that the amount of incomplete ideas presented constitutes a poor and ostentatious film?

Traditionally movies try to entertain a viewer while also leaving them with an explicit overriding message . However Synechode New York is not a traditional film with a traditional purpose. I'd argue part of its purpose is to display new sincerity perspective and its prevalence within todays society. If new sincerity is a perspective, doesn't it make sense to adopt a multitude of scenarios, ideas that reinforce the thought process? Also wouldn't it make the film more realistic including even mundane and unrelated aspects of life? Also if new sincerity is depicted indirectly through irony and the connection of context to authenticity, its interpretation is dependent on viewer. Therefore open-ended or “half filled ideas” as mentioned in Altered Ego would be necessary in to stimulate viewer perspective.​​​

Additionally look at how does the film specifically depicts new sincerity. How do elements of cinematography(acting style, the title,etc) and/or concepts within the film (themes such as artistic authenticity, fame, death,, etc.) create irony?