distinctivecat

SG Gentrifying?

I tried to find the right discussion group to toss this idea out there, but I couldn't find the right one. I'm not unhappy--look, I'm a member of the Yuppie Scum group, and I'm used to moving in with the rest of the artsy urban pioneers and watching the slow process of upscaling turning all the bodegas into pottery stores and fancy stroller shops. But I've noticed that the models here (would you even use that term five years ago?) are becoming modellier. Some of it has to do with the photography which has just bloomed amazingly--I guess some poeple are making a living and getting better and trading tips and forming a house style that's just progressing, as any art should. And no way I'd complain about the beauty for beauty's sake sets that have become more frequent--maybe it's a recessionary thing, and everything gets more conservative in tough times. But I'm missing the mud and prison tats and the amateur style and the "let's-give-a-show" haphazardness of the old classic sets. But I've noticed an antiseptic quality seeping in, a sort of Smith & Hawken tone in the settings, a reliance on photo flimflam, and a comparatively lukewarm reception to the ballsier soulful stuff. This is clearly a response to membership preferencethe cotton candy stuff gets all the votes in number that are starting to get huge, and to crowd out the rougher more interesting stuff. Agree, or roundly object?