The photos above are connected, not by geographical location or photographer, but rather by hashtag: #liveauthentic. A quick Google search will yield endless images tagged as such, most of them highly-curated and (ironically) inauthentic in their likenesses. The spare, wholesome, outdoorsy aesthetic seen in these photos has had an influence on numerous aspects of commodity culture and design. It can be seen in the DIY hipster trends made popular by stores such as Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters and publications like Kinfolk, a magazine devoted to “small gatherings” and slow living. Inherent to the movement, which I will call the “neopastoral,” is a particular combination of North American nationalism, nostalgia for a pre-capitalist past (as iterated by and through present-day consumer culture) and a yearning for direct “contact” with nature.

The neopastoral aesthetic has by now become popular enough to be the subject of satire, having been critiqued by projects like Summer Allen’s Kinspiracy Tumblr and Instagram’s “Socality Barbie.” The parody account, which features a Barbie doll – the ultimate commodity symbol – posing against various wilderness backdrops, was started in June of this year and has now reached 1.3 million followers. The anonymous Portland-based wedding photographer who runs the account shoots her pictures in real locations and makes much of Barbie’s wardrobe by hand, but she also relies upon Photoshop to achieve the kind of “seamless” authenticity that she satirizes. She tells Wired, “People were all taking the same pictures in the same places and using the same captions […] I couldn’t tell any of their pictures apart so I thought, ‘What better way to make my point than with a mass-produced doll?’”

Instagram seems to be the perfect technology for this type of satire, given that it is a primarily visual platform which operates on a model of plurality and reiteration, while also capitalizing on nostalgia for old media such as the polaroid camera.

Many of the qualities of postmodernism that Fredric Jameson identifies in Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism can be detected in the neopastoral: the weakening of historicity (or an unrealistic, nostalgic depiction of history such as the romanticization of homesteading activities); a breakdown of the distinction between “high” and “low” culture (seen in Instagram as host of both photography as art and photography as window to popular culture); a “depthlessness” (manifest in the superficiality that the aesthetic propogates); a proliferation of images and a world of “screens”; the “waning” or “flattening” of “affect” (emphasized in the uncanny similarity between the images that propel the neopastoral trend); and a set of new technologies (such as Instagram and Tumblr) concerned with “reproduction of images” rather than “industrial production of material goods” (Jameson).

Likewise, Stuart Hall explains:

“In so-called postmodern society, we feel overwhelmed by the diversity, the plurality, of surfaces which it is possible to produce, and we have to recognize the rich technological bases of modern cultural production which enable us endlessly to simulate, reproduce, reiterate and recapitulate” (Hall 49).

The neopastoral is especially well-mobilized by technologies like Instagram that enable this kind of endless simulation and reproduction. There are other factors, though, that help to influence and formulate the popularity of the trend. Hall’s model of “articulation” and Jennifer Daryl Slack and J. Macgregor Wise’s notes on “assemblage” can help to further analyze the various components that converge in such cultural movements. The qualities that Jameson attributes to postmodernism are just a few of the many “articulations” that comprise the neopastoral trend as “assemblage.” Jameson’s notorious pessimism regarding postmodernism foreshadows the kind of techno-phobia at play in “kids these days” arguments by baby boomers and the like. Slack and Wise write against the tendency to identify the “problem” solely in “technology and its effects,” as this is a “mechanistic” and “technologically deterministic” approach that does not account for why these technologies were developed in the first place, nor for their ubiquity in today’s world (126).

Therefore, though it’s tempting to blame the negative effects of the neopastoral on the IOS or on social media technologies, Slack and Wise advise us to avoid this tendency. Sure, Instagram can bring out the most superficial and inauthentic qualities in the best of us, but it alone cannot be held responsible for the symptoms of a cultural phenomenon.

“Articulation can be understood as the contingent connection of different elements that, when connected in a particular way, form a specific unity” […] “Elements, understood as articulations, can be made of words, concepts, institutions, practices and affects, as well as material things”  (Slack and Wise 127).

Socality Barbie, for example, may not be a technology in its own right, but it is an articulation, a “unit” that “connects many elements” including social media technologies, photography, the iPhone, the desire for community, advertising, in-jokes, parody, commodity culture, etc.

In no particular order, here’s a list of some elements that “articulate” or assemble themselves via “contingent connections” in the formation (or assemblage) of the neopastoral as satirized by Socality Barbie:

• The privileging of images over text in magazines like Kinfolk.
• The lack of racial diversity in magazines like Kinfolk and websites like FOLKlifestyle.
• A desire for an authentic experience and the verisimilitude (as seen in hashtags like #nofilter) that drives particular modes of self-expression on social media sites like Instagram
• Upper-middle class boredom/fetishization of “leisure” activities like camping, picnicking, canoeing, etc.
• North American heteronormative ideals and expectations
• Instagram as a medium capable of editing, photoshopping, photo-sharing and photo-rating via “likes”
• The hashtag as a “community-forming” device
• The impulse towards community, as facilitated by social media.
• The fact that the iPhone is always at hand (for those who own them)
• The growing force of advertising on Instagram, which has become inundated with subtle product placements which are meant to “feel organic” to users’ feeds.
• Disenchantment with consumer culture, yet a feeling of powerlessness to escape it.
• Millenial nostalgia for pre-capitalism (as stemming from that powerlessness, but also as an independent articulation), evidenced in a return to projects such as grass roots co-ops, handmade artisanal products and other previously anti-consumer categories. This tendency can also be seen in the use of hand-crafted Mexican blankets and rustic backpacks as props on Socality Barbie.
• Back to Nature fantasies: the idea of a “pure” nature is more a fantasy now than ever before, due to widespread environmental devastation brought about by urban sprawl, pollution, and the possible exhaustion of key natural resources. Hall’s note about Marxists believing that “something is ultimately only real when you can put your hands on it in Nature” can perhaps also be applied here (57).
• Hipster Christianity: Another trend that Socality Barbie satirizes is right there in the name itself. The Socality Movement is a group that, since 2014, has been committed to the evangelism of communal Christian values. They aim to “bring the heartbeat of God to humanity” via social media platforms. That the neopastoral is driven by movements like Socality supports Hall’s observations about “the extraordinary cultural and ideological vitality which religion has given to certain popular social movements” (54). He writes that “no political movement in society can become popular without negotiating the religious terrain. Social movements have to transform it, buy into it, inflect it, develop it…they must engage with it” (54).
  
• Nationalism, and especially Americana (on display in countless #liveauthentic Instagram posts that use the American flag as backdrop)
• Mason jars
• 3rd wave coffee
• Mountains
• Wood: as prop, texture, and symbol

In order to avoid mapping this cultural phenomenon as a kind of teleological “accumulation,” I have created a mind map to more accurately represent the always-moving impermanence of these kinds of articulations, in a kind of “constellation”:

text2mindmap (1)

What is fascinating to me about the concept of technology as assemblage is that it is both ephemeral  and yet also has some kind of affective power:

“It is important to remember that a technological assemblage is not a simple accumulation of a bunch of articulations on top of one another, but a particular concrete constellation of articulations that assemble a territory that exhibits tenacity and effectivity” (Slack and Wise 130).

In a year or so, the neopastoral will likely have been usurped by another cultural movement. Socality Barbie’s already becoming residual. But the fact that the neopastoral movement does have power right now is evident in its influence on consumer culture (it makes us (ME) buy stuff) and also in its ability to be satirized (via Socality Barbie). Linda Hutcheon has argued that postmodernism operates via parody, and that postmodernism’s “initial concern is to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as “natural” (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism) are in fact “cultural”; made by us, not given to us” (Hutcheon 1-2).

So what role does parody play in today’s post-postmodern culture? Is Socality Barbie a successful satire or does it only succeed in reinforcing (and not critiquing) the neopastoral aesthetic? If, in post-postmodernism, we have already accepted and internalized the fact that nothing is “natural,” why do we still earnestly pine for the natural and the authentic? Why do we create elaborate personal identities (brands, even) based on this longing? What has happened to postmodernism’s sardonic approach and is there still a place for irony in cultural critique?

Works Cited

Grossberg, Lawrence. “On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 10 (1986): 45–60.

Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1989.

Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991.

Slack, Jennifer Darryl, and J. Macgregor Wise. “Agency”, “Articulation and Assemblage.” Culture + Technology: A Primer. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. 115–33

Su, John J. Ethics and Nostalgia in the Contemporary Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.