So Here's the Deal with Floggers

The Tedster recently sent me a NYT article about floggers. After writing my very long email response, I figured I should share with the world the TRUE significance of floggers and Cumbio.


Basically, the article makes floggers out to be something WAY more stylish than it really is. We Americans have a Cumbio too - her name is Tila Tequila. She was a former stripper who started posting original rap on MySpace. Somehow (and this I still haven't figured out) her website garnered more hits than any other profile. Along the way, she became a Playboy model, fashion designer and an MTV reality TV star (A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila). The term "MySpace whore" - someone who is practically addicted to posting pictures of themselves on MySpace - is basically a flogger.

Flogger, however, is a little different in that floggers self-identify as such. They have "flogger parties," as the article mentioned, where they dress up and take pictures of each other. No one calls themself a MySpace whore. People do, however, call themselves flogger.

Floggers also have distinct clothing. The article says they dress up brightly, but that's an understatement. They wear very tight skinny jeans in bright red, yellow, orange or green. Do you know Kanye West's glasses, white with lines through the middle? They wear those to those boliches, sometimes white or sometimes in other colors. And they're not copying Kanye. They also wear their hair long and to the side, over the eyes, and it's very often dyed. Any sort of standout accessory - neon shoe laces, hairclips, etc - are all part of the flogger wardrobe. While Cumbio likes cumbia, most floggers prefer electronica, techno and other mainstream clubbing music. What Cumbio said about the androgenity (sp?) of the floggers is definitely true, but floggers are not putos (gays).

Having said all that, the article is very wrong to give the impression that floggers are about empowering youth, giving them a voice like "Hollywood celebrities" or anything like that. The vast majority of teenagers despise the flogger movement. There is only one official flogger in San Vicente. Of course, everyone else has a fotolog and the flogger fashion influences mainstream fashion as well (my friends very often go out in brightly colored clothing that would look absurd in the US), but to identify as a flogger is generally an embarrassment. Someone once told me that he doesn't like the floggers because they just follow what all the other floggers do, that they lack individuality. Most of my friends scoff at the floggers they see at the boliche. If they are wearing flogger-like clothes, others will often accuse them of being the F-word, to which they will hastily shake their head and respond "NO! No soy flogger!" Cumbio's book is a joke - there is a very popular Facebook group called "Yo no puedo creer que Cumbio haya publicado un libro" ("I can't believe that Cumbio has published a book"). "Todos Contra Cumbio," All Against Cumbio, has over 13000 members.

As much as Cumbio and the floggers are disliked in the Argentinean mainstream, it's hard to understate their influence. The colorful shirts, the tight pants, the piercings - it is all now part of Argentinean style. Perhaps floggers should even take credit for Cristina's pink suits.

I hope this adds a new perspective to the Times' article!

Paz y Amor,
La Pirata

Dean Rapelye Says Hey

I just finished writing a letter to the Dean of Admissions and I figured it made an excellent excuse for a blog post - a gushy, sentimental summary of my year so far in Argentina.

Dear Dean Rapelye,

To write specifically what I have been doing for the last year would probably make it seem boring. I went to high school from from August 22 to the beginning of November. I learned a bit about Argentinean history, but in truth, the classes were dull with material I'd already learned. In November, I went on a two week trip to Patagonia, including whale watching, penguin spotting, a visit to Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes (the beginning of Che Guevara's route), Ushuaia (the southernmost city on Earth), and my personal favorite, glacier trekking on Glaciar Perrito Moreno. The trip was organized by Rotary with 59 other exchange students from Europe and North America. I will be travelling with the same group in April to northern Argentina.

When I arrived back in my small town of San Vicente after the trip, school had almost ended and summer was ready to begin. Summer in San Vicente is slow and hot - afternoon siestas are mandatory because it's too hot to do anything else. During the summer, I made some day trips to nearby cities of Santa Fe and Rosario, both three hours away by bus.

School begins again in a week, as do my accordion lessons. In April and May, I will be travelling to northern Argentina and hopefully to Brazil as well, and then in June I come home.

As I mentioned earlier, to simply list the itinerary for the year makes it sound like not much. I know though that I have changed in ways since I first arrived. During high school my mind was always set on a long-term goal and my days were spent trying to achieve that goal - grades, extracurriculars, etc. Here, with only a certain amount of time in this country and no real "end goal," I developed a carpe diem attitude - make every day count. I have become more adventurous, eager to try new things, ready to do whatever is necessary to make my day a memorable one. Three hour bus rides to a nearby city seem like a short trip; I have no problem sending a text message to someone I might have just met last night saying "let's get together sometime."

What I have found to make this year worthwhile in the most significant ways are the many people I have met along the way. On an exchange program in a small town (7000 people) like San Vicente, it's incredibly easy to chat with anyone. People always want to talk to the "yanqui" as we Americans are known here. I have spent time with many interesting people here, sipping mate in the plaza (a shared yerba-based drink), making an asado together (Argentinean barbeque), or chatting in a boliche (Argentinean disco). It is all these people who have made my year incredible. They have shown me new perspectives, Argentinean culture, and in some cases, just a good time. It is those days, the ones spent with friends in San Vicente, that have made my year special.

I try to keep my thoughts away from my return home, but I am extremely glad that I am really just hopping from one journey to the next. I still plan to attend Princeton and I am looking forward to it with even more excitement than before.

Sincerely,
Brandon Davis