LOL just occurred to me that you could explain cultural appropriation to yt ppl as rent-seeking but lowkey that is exactly what it is...
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"rent-seeking involves seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth."
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Add cultural value as a kind of wealth and you see how, say, the Beatles' lame cover of Twist and Shout isn't much more than rent-seeking but, say, Don't Let Me Down makes new "wealth" (cultural value) of its own despite its many sources.
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Of course there's the added dimension of how cultural appropriation also serves to change how cultural element x is seen in the broader culture, and sometimes you'd rather have mainstream culture know nothing about x than know white lies about x.
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So the argument is, essentially, without improving the product at all (usually by making it worse), white folks increase their share of the "wealth" (including non-material positives like attention and praise and whatever).
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of course they do add something, that something being whiteness, or in other cases, American-ness or Western-ness (bc American/Western POC absolutely appropriate all the time, from each other and from ppl of other nations).
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this lens also maybe sheds a little light on marginal cases like accents. Are you getting more value out of this accent than a person who "naturally" has it would without adding anything? If so, might be cultural appropriation or at least yucky.
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I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying "if it ONLY works for u bc of your privilege, don't do it."
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End of conversation
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(actually their twist and shout is OK a better example is their Long Tall Sally bc John's "woo-oo-oo" is just silly.)
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