Authenticity judgments are shifting from origin to method of production

Evidence

Within contemporary pop culture, conventions change so frequently over time that their origin points are unclear. Pizza may be from Italy but rose to prominence in the United States. Our standards are shifting toward authenticity by content: the principle that the best things are those made by the original methods (i.e., “It ain’t where you’re from; it’s where you’re at”). Blue jeans may be an “American” garment, but Japanese textile mills have better preserved earlier American production techniques, such as natural indigo-dyed, slubby fabric woven on narrow looms. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 274

Categorization

• SEED: Japanese mills preserving American jean-making method is a strong counterintuitive example of ‘authenticity by content’ beating ‘by origin.’
• XREF: connects to: Globalized production erodes the territorial basis of authenticity claims — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 274; The imprecision of ‘authenticity’ conceals class hierarchies in aspirational labor — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 357; Calculated authenticity as promotion emerged in early twentieth-century America — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 319 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Realism debates shift from content fidelity to formal concepts of totality. #corroborates (0.70) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 744