The Macaroni in ‘Yankee Doodle’ | Hacker News Reader

The Macaroni in ‘Yankee Doodle’

atlasobscura.com

76 pointsadolph45 comments

I remember seeing the analogy made that "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" could be translated into a modern context as "wrote a G on his belt and called it Gucci".

Oh, interesting! I'd seen the "macaroni" articles before, but until your comment I had not realized the song is making fun of the character's low-effort mimicry.

It was not just the unsophisticated mimicry part, but the fact that he was trying to mimic something that was already being widely ridiculed.

I'm not sure what the modern analogy would be, because I'm not sure what fashion is widely ridiculed. "Drew a fake tattoo with a ballpoint pen and called himself 90's emo goth kid."

Hipsters.

Drew a moustache on his lip and called himself hip.

This is spot on.

Some dumb American came around

driving an abomination.

Clipped a tie onto his shirt

and called it sophistication.

I like it.

Brooklyn hipster came to town

In an '83 Mercedes,

Slapped a moustache on his lip

And belted out "Mmmm'ladies."

This seems to conflate hipsters and neckbeards.

Brooklyn->Mmmm'ladies makes me think Beasties

Was not expecting that to be controversial.

In the latest taxonomy revision (spec 2020.3 §4-12) you'll find that hipsters and neckbeards were re-classified to make the genus relationship clearer.

SV techie came to town

Escaping covid lockdowns

Bought up all the real estate

And thinks it’s Churchill Downs

Old Bill Gates his deal went down

buying all the comp'nys

the internet knocked down his door

he said "no that's for phonies"

Brooklyn has 2.6 million residents, a couple of them aren't hipsters.

You're probably thinking of Williamsburg, which the hipsters were priced out of long ago, into Bushwick. Those hipsters are now being priced out to Ridgewood (Queens).

Go into Brownsville and let me know how many hipsters you see.

"In a society that emphasized individuality, it is not hard to imagine that they became folk heroes of a kind—and that many of the people who laughed at them felt a tug of longing for the freedom with which they lived."

This is similar to the canard that "your bully is just jealous of your <favorable attribute here>." It's codswallop: more like to be the normal reaction to a trend taken "too far," as it were, and something like the backlash one thinks of regarding the grunge, goth, "emo", and "hipster" fads. Nobody was jealous of the supposed freedom that these people had, so much as they were amused (or appalled) at the absurd lack of introspection and awareness they exhibited by latching onto a played out trend.

Grunge, goth, emo, hipster “fads” still exist and have, to a greater or lesser degree, been absorbed into mainstream style and culture. Maybe there’s more to the argument than simple “codswallop.”

That’s an interesting categorization of the sub-cultures/scenes you listed. Are there any sub-cultures you would classify as “other” (in the sense of being other than the status quo of its era) and having introspection and awareness?

Furries?

I mean, their whole schtick is that they feel like a different animal trapped in a human body. That's pretty introspective and self-aware, I guess.

The absurdity of the original comment is that goths and emos are characteristically introspective to a fault. Grunge and goths embodied an attempt to flee from self -- the awareness of which was a necessity for that dynamic. Finally, hipsters (not the original hipsters[1], of course) were painfully self-aware, and self-mocking.

The funniest part is where it's asserted that these "fads" were "played out" by the time they gained any popularity. Which was only true of emos; they swept aside everything that made grunge and goth culture aesthetically interesting, and adopted normcore instead. Well, true of hipsters, too, but "before it was cool" was their whole thing; the played-out nature of the fad was effectively a joke on everybody who cared enough to be bothered by shat beer and silly facial hair.

But, no, I don't think you're right about furries. They aren't "animals trapped in a human's body," that's a mischaracterization used by edgelords who dunk on transgender people. Furries extremely diverse in their internal and external narratives, and I won't attempt to provide an alternative characterization.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_(1940s_subculture)

That’s quite a bit of post facto rationalization for various fads that amounted to little more than “this generation’s angst manifest and given a larger platform thanks to an ever-expanding media footprint.”

I was a grunge/goth raised by hippies; when I went back to university, I was surrounded by emos and hipsters. It isn't so much "post facto rationalization" as much as a quick summary of decades of observation. You're describing these subcultures that I've been immersed in with a dismissive outsider's perspective. Stay curious

I'd be willing to guess that the common denominator in those scenes is that the GP encountered them as teenagers. I've met plenty of introspective and self-aware Goths, but self-aware teenagers are rare.

Nerds/geeks. If you want to reduce it down to teen-movie-level stereotypes, then people in both the "popular" and "counterculture" groups are making decisions about what to wear and how to act based on what other people do or don't see as popular or trendy. The nerds and geeks are the ones who ignored all of that: band geeks, computer nerds, anime nerds, whatever. Of course they still try to "fit in" within their respective groups but their groups are centered around a shared interest, rather than solely what is or isn't popular.

I agree with you that it's codswallop, but I wholly disagree with you that people into the grunge, goth, emo, hipster, etc., aesthetic are absurdly lacking introspection and awareness by latching onto a played out trend.

Yes, people mocked them, but they were perfectly happy demonstrating that they were a member of some given group - or maybe just happily enjoying some given aesthetic.

This seems an idiosyncratic characterization to me. Bullying is driven by insecurity, though not necessarily jealousy.

This seems quite separable from the general arc of subgroup/subgenre identity which seems to follow a typical arc of from groundbreaking through "cool", to mass adoption, to "played out" as you put it. The article suggests "macaroni" was something beyond the predictable cyclic arc, in at least that it's impact was unusually strong and short lived.

>Nobody was jealous of the supposed freedom that these people had, so much as they were amused (or appalled) at the absurd lack of introspection and awareness they exhibited by latching onto a played out trend.

Mocking them was just as much of a played out trend though. We've got evidence of it as far back as 1772 linked right above.

The macaroni penguin, with its colorful headfeathers, also gets its name from this same root.

(2016)

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12356070

A lot of fashion is about bravery, as mentioned in the article.

People look on those who can wear what they want as free, because they know they are not, and that they are afraid of being judged.

I saw a guy wearing a kimono and a belt yesterday. Was quite a sight.

Typical judgmental thoughts of "look at that odd dude“ went through my head. But I realized that I couldn’t wear that and the reason would be other people judging me for it, or assigning questionable gender identity upon me.

When looking back to 18th century fashion it is extreme compared to the extremes that people are chasing today.

Everyone is trying to be different. Maybe wigs will come back.

Imagine a world without fashion judgement. What would you wear?

I was thinking the other day about half the signers of the Declaration of Independence either had their hair curled or in a ponytail, but today a grey-haired man with a short ponytail says "old hippy" not "founding father". Anyway if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get fitted for a new pair of spats.

Judgement is a critical aspect of fashion, at least as defined in practice.

But leaving that aside, without judgement 1/2 would probably just wear enough to stay warm and the other 1/2 as ridiculously colorful as they could manage.

A world without fashion judgment what I would wear is probably close to what wear now, functional clothes that optimism for price, durability, and utility. Plain black or grey T-shirt under work a breathable (earth tone) button up shirt, (long sleeve in spring, winter, and fall short sleeve in summer). A light jacket/sweater, and canvas or thick denim pant (shorts in the summer). hiking/ work boot for shoes.

The only thing I see changing really is I would probably accelerate toward buying multiple of the same outfit for every day but I have been headed in the direction incrementally already.

But I am more of 'function over form' person when it comes to clothes.

In a world without fashion judgement everyone would dress the same. It would be boring and functional and no one would care.

> And with the girls be handy

I'd never really given much thought to what this line meant but knowing the context it's pretty gross.

I think "handy" may have an ordinary meaning here of "available". Ironically suggesting that women will fall for Yankee Doodle, so he'd best make himself available to their adoring attention.

It's saying the ladies like him. That's not gross at all. The pathologizing of heterosexuality seems to have roots in American Protestantism.

I always just took it as "good with", as in "handy with a chainsaw". Though it's old enough that it could mean almost anything—I don't know how far back the "good with" meaning of "handy" goes.

Hold on, let's see what Webster's 1913 says...

2. Skillful in using the hand; dexterous; ready; adroit. "Each is handy in his way." Dryden.

OK, that one seems a bit... vulgar, at worst, and is the sense I took it in, basically.

What I find very funny is sense 4:

4. (Naut.) Easily managed; obedient to the helm; -- said of a vessel.

Might the line have a double-meaning? The obvious one of "knows how to please a woman", but also a near-opposite second reading of "women walk all over him"? Kinda fits with the rest of the song, which reminds me a lot of The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)".

No, because he's handy "with" a lady, not "for" a lady.

"With", as in "among or in the company of", "the girls".

[EDIT] yeah, in context it probably just means handling your partner well while dancing as the surface reading, with a possibly-intended somewhat-vulgar "hur hur hur, if you know what I mean" subtext.

This use of the word 'handy' reminds me of the classic Red Green Show quip: "If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

I have always taken this to mean that if you aren't good to look at, you can still make yourself appealing by being good at things. There is a possible double entendre with foreplay, but I never considered this joke to be suggesting unconsensual groping (I think that's the implication being suggested above?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Green_Show#Handyman_Co...

I definitely think it’s a vulgar double-meaning but I think it’s less “women walk over over him” and more “he’s gay”. It’s practically lifted right from The Miller’s Tale where the “dandy” and feminine male boarder is repeatedly described as “handy” and is both clever and literally very handy with his landlady in the “locker room talk” sense. The story ends with the dandy boarder taking a hot iron rod to the butt and the cuckholded landlord, a carpenter who you would expect to be stereotypically “handy”, breaking his hand.

The person quoted in this article[1] from NPR describes the stanzas "Mind the music and the step, and with the girls be handy" as referring to dancing properly with a lady.

Given the era it comes from I can't imagine that there's a sexualized meaning to the words. There was certainly bawdy stuff back then, but from what I've read of the era I don't think it was casually thrown around like it is in today's (US) culture.

[1] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=497026...

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