Aughts downtown culture pursued self-destruction to keep transgression alive after liberal acceptability.

Evidence

Kids offered a template for rebellion: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll could still scandalize polite society when given a predatory edge. While the 1990s embraced psychedelics as tools for therapeutic self-discovery, New Yorkers turned to heroin and PCP for blunt self-destruction. Artists Dash Snow and Dan Colen epitomized this ethos with their “hamster nests,” performance pieces where they got high on a cocktail of pharmaceuticals and shredded newspapers in a hotel room until the space resembled a rodent’s habitat. Women in the scene shed the pastoral feminism of Lilith Fair, opting to party as hard as the boys. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs became an icon with her wild, drunken stage antics, while electroclash rapper Peaches turned unfiltered id into an anthem with “Fuck the Pain Away.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 61

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the hamster-nest as the endpoint of the sellout economy — when transgression became a venue-installed performance, the only scandal left was genuine self-harm.