Post #776317 by CosmoReverb on Fri, May 26, 2017 10:23 AM

I'm really starting to feel like the tiki community is going to have to adopt some sort of official Venn diagram of the various aspects that make up tiki culture. For its own edification and to better communicate "tikiness" with non-community folk looking to point fingers. (Especially since looking for victimization in culture groups seems to be a popular sport these days.) Because it was measured parts of many different and overlapping influences and has grown to include even more.

I know that I'm a relative newb and so any thoughts I have on the matter should be taken with a healthy grain of salt, but it seems to me that tiki started and is still being driven by the selling of a fantasy. That was the whole appeal and is still the gateway for people who get into it nowadays. The fantasy that is being sold might have changed over the decades, but the initial appeal is still one of reverie. Now once a person has entered that world there is a plethora of tangible interests that they can pursue and that is, what I think, "keeps" people involved in the tiki world. Everything from the academic (study of both Polynesian history and culture and/or the history of the tiki movement itself,) to the artistic, to the libatious (I may have just totally made that word up but it seems to fit for "having to do with cocktails,") to the purely social, to the merely stylish. The point is, there are deeper nuances beyond that initial draw and even that initial draw is a fiction. It's an escapist notion of a far-away adventure.

My second point might be a little more political, but at least in respect to the accusations of internalized oppressive behavior (misogyny, unrealistic gender expectations, etc.,) besides the fact that I have not personally been witness to these things, nobody is ever forced into a niche cultural movement. You join because it appeals to you for whatever reasons and you make that conscious choice to be a part of it. That being said, you may have bad experiences and encounter bad people within that social group, but that has much more to do with the individual interpersonal interactions you would find in any social group and has very little to do with the cultural tenets of the movement. (And I would have to say that the tiki folk do a much better job of self-policing negative behavior than many other sub-cultural societies I have seen.)

Sorry, looking back this seems a little "rambly" but hopefully my intent can be mined from all of that.