Post #777094 by Piddersthecat on Wed, Jun 21, 2017 6:51 AM

Please forgive my ignorance. I'm new here and I'm from Canada (so there's a fair amount of disadvantage going on), but I do like to learn...

Do people consider tiki kitsch because they equate kitsch with anything from the 50s? I don't think MCM is at all kitsch (but I could be wrong there too). Is that kitsch idea so ingrained that people just assume that 50s = tiki = kitsch and they walk away? And should I correct people when they tell me how kitschy tiki is?

I actually did look up the definition of kitsch because I thought maybe my own understanding of it was way off.

Definition of kitsch (Merriam-Webster)
1
: something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality
2
: a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition

There's not a lot on this site that I would consider poor quality (look at the handmade lamps for Pete's sake), it's popular among the few (not the masses), and after looking up the definition of lowbrow, I don't think that most of the art here is that either (that's probably subjective though).

I'm actually a lover of kitsch, always have been. In fact, some kitschy glasses brought me to tiki (believe me pint glasses with 1/2 naked hula girls on them is fairly lowbrow). But it took about 10 minutes on the internet to find Tiki Central and another hour of roaming around in here looking at the pictures (I didn't need to actually read any words) to figure out that tiki does not fit my understanding of kitsch. I actually use the idea of kitsch when I'm shopping. If I decide that something is kitsch, I generally won't buy it to put in my tiki space.

This thread probably isn't the best place to ask this, but they brought up kitschy...so am I in the ballpark of understanding?