Soon, sooner than most of us
posters, scrollers, refreshers
and general internet lurkers
would like, Twitter is going to
up its character count to 280 —
double the current limit. And
while that increases potential
for
memes
and
political
screaming,
it
also
affects
a community of poets who
use Twitter as their primary
means of publication.
When Twitter first appeared
on the web 11 years ago it was
a space to talk about what you
ate for breakfast. About 2011,
people started to toss around
the idea that the website might
actually be — like most other
text-based media before it —
literary. That maybe it was
possible to fit art, and more
specifically
poetry,
within
Twitter’s
humble
character
limit.
Poets
established
in
print took to the site to be
playful and human — to point
out, with the sincerity of early
internet culture, the beauty
in toast and jam and bowls of
cereal.
Poets like Mary Karr and
Sherman
Alexie
used
the
platform to send blips of beauty
into the web and to reaffirm
a kind of canonical body —
retweeting and quoting poetry
from other, equally established
poets. Poetry on Twitter was,
in many ways, merely the
transposition of pre-existing
words.
For some poets, that kind
of literary Twitter was more
a means to talk about poetry
than one to create it. Because
the site, and specifically this
sub-community, maintained a
false air of professionalism and
careerism, it became an echo
chamber to reaffirm what was
already established offline.
The internet was growing up
quickly and it was becoming
more and more apparent that
instead of just a new platform,
it was a new world that could
house art and inspire it. From
this world, a generation of
posters and poets was born.
There has been resurgence
in Twitter as a platform for
organic and original creation.
The origins of the alt-lit online
community — which started
on Tumblr and Twitter in 2011
and came into its own as those
platforms did, about 2014.
Alt-lit is literature on the
internet that is a direct product
of internet culture. In its earlier
stages, it was poetry that was
stylized to look internet-y —
chat room messages, Facebook
statuses, lowercase letters and
abbreviations abound. It was
characterized by a proximity
to the “New Sincerity” literary
movement that includes IRL
writers
like
David
Foster
Wallace and Miranda July.
Online,
poets
like
Steve
Roggenbuck
and
Mira
Gonzalez rose to prominence.
Early on, they blurred the
lines between self-deprecating
observation
and
more
traditionally
recognizable
poetry.
Both poets still use Twitter,
as well as traditional print,
as a means of spreading their
poetry to the masses and
bridging the gap between what
can roughly be characterized
as alt-lit and post-alt-lit. Yes,
now, it’s a movement that
is established enough to be
considered in a post phase.
Still alt, still lit, just post what
it was before.
Like all the great “post”s,
this iteration of internet poetry
is interested in what poetry is
as a concept and an institution.
It’s funnier, sharper, more
cynical and nihilistic.
Popular accounts intersperse
their verse with memes and
retweets from “weird Twitter”
accounts like @dril.
This brand of poetry is post
New Sincerity’s rejection of
postmodernism’s
cynicism,
which is just a convoluted way
of saying it’s cynical again.
But, cynical in a different
way, a way that knows how to
spin multiple plates — beauty,
despair, self-deprecation, self-
love — all at once.
On Twitter, users like @
atreewithagrape
and
@
simulacra1990 and @RAF_i_A
blend
memes,
political
retweets and small lines of
verse into poetic and holistic
expressions of the self. Profiles
are often devoid of real names,
photos or other points of
identification. Poets are known
by their handles in a
“At home, there’s this little
coffee shop … our friend owns
it … his dad used to own it but
he passed it down to his son,
and his son is super chill and
he’s like, ‘We need to start
throwing
shows
here.’
So
we threw a show,” said Alex
Stoitsiadis, lead singer of a
local Ann Arbor band, Dogleg,
which also includes Chase
Macinski on bass and Parker
Grissom on drums.
“It went over really well.
And then we threw another
show at the end of summer and
like 200 people showed up. In
this little coffee shop, they all
just piled in. And it was one
of the craziest nights of our
lives.”
It’s
hard
to
describe
exactly
what
the
people
in
that
impromptu
venue
heard when they saw Dogleg
perform for the first time.
As a band, they’ve developed
a sound that’s difficult to
pin down. A blend of driving
energy, powerful vocals and
instrumentation that leaves
you speechless, Dogleg’s music
dares you to try and neatly
categorize it. The rush of color
and catharsis that burst to
life in that little coffee shop
must have shaken the very
foundations of the building:
an aftermath of toppled-over
chairs and cracked coffee cups.
It’s not surprising in the
least to hear that such a large
crowd came to watch the
second performance.
The different elements in
each of Dogleg’s songs are
unrestrained, allowing their
two albums to spark with a
distinct dynamism. Songs are
almost like scrapbooks in the
way they are pieced together.
“Star
67”
from
Remember
Alderaan? hangs off the edge
of
spiking
crescendos
and
jagged vocals. The mellow
intro of “11 AM Drunk” from
Dogleg trips into a racing
tempo that jolts toward the
finish line. Untraditional but
not amateurish, irregular but
not haphazard, it’s art that is
redefined.
It’s DIY.
Even
though
this
very
broad label can encompass a
variety of different aspects,
the importance of DIY comes
in the fact that, at its core,
it allows art to be malleable,
deconstructing the unyielding
stone
of
more
traditional
definitions in order for people
to create their own systems of
production. DIY is art at its
most accessible and ingenuity
at its finest. Still-life paintings
can be made out of instant
coffee and water. Movies can
be filmed in backyards.
Music can be recorded in
basements.
“Dogleg
was
just
me,
initially,”
Stoitsiadis
said
as he explained the band’s
beginning.
“The
friend
of
mine who was in the old band
let me borrow his recording
equipment, which was literally
just a little box that could
record two microphones at a
time.
It wasn’t music production
in the conventional sense, but
it worked.
“I would just record stuff on
there and just kind of make it
as good as possible … just kind
of working with the limits,” he
said.
Even
with
limitations,
Stoitsiadis found the feedback
he
received
after
publicly
releasing his music to be
overwhelmingly positive.
“I didn’t really expect (the
music) to go anywhere,” he
said. “I threw it out online
and pretty soon people were
really liking it a lot and I was
like, ‘I should start playing
shows. I should start actually
mobilizing this thing.’”
Dogleg
emerged
from
the inconspicuous form of a
piece of borrowed recording
equipment;
Stoitsiadis’s
ingenuity
and
passion
empowered his music to grow
into the established band it is
today.
“My old friends, we went to
music school together: School
of Rock,” he said. “So I called
them up … they’re itching
to play in a band. So, we get
together and everything just
gels completely. We’re all on
the same exact page as to what
we want to do, where we want
to go, how we want to sound
and things just exponentially
took off from there.”
Yet, even as Dogleg continue
to branch out, the band never
strays too far from Stoitsiadis’s
original
means
of
music
production.
“I would go and write five
different riff or song ideas,
just in one day,” he explained.
“And then the next day I would
come back to them and see
what can I change, what can I
put together, what can I piece
apart.”
It’s a casual process.
Even when writing vocals,
the
component
that
gives
Stoitsiadis the most trouble
during the creation of new
2B —Thursday, September 28, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
COURTESY OF SHANNON MAHONEY
COURTESY OF BEN LESER
Dogleg is a on-campus band really into DIY
B-SIDE LEAD
Dogleg digs up power of at
-home recording and DIY
Local University band Dogleg has perfected the art of DIY
having made it a part of their image and mode of production
SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Arts Writer
See DOGLEG, Page 3B
140 characters
(sometimes more, often
less)
B-SIDE SECONDARY
MADELEINE GAUDIN
Senior Arts Editor
See TWITTER, Page 3B