Before we begin: I'm really not the best person to provide this writeup, as I have only the most vague understanding of its meaning. However it's a concept I refer to a lot, so I'm noding what I use it to mean.

1. The idea that something is inherently better because it is original, traditional or 'pure'.

2. Judging the value of a thing by its origin, background, previous ownership &c, instead of its intrinsic self-contained properties.


Examples:
  • Owning Kurt Cobain's guitar
  • Eating genuinely foreign food purely because it's 'more real'
  • Prizing an original Fender Stratocaster guitar over others in its price range
  • Liking a book because it was written by your favourite author
  • Watching anime with subtitles rather than dubbed voices

Assuming for a moment that this is a somewhat derogatory expression, it's obviously very easy to justify these kinds of activities in other ways. I take the last four examples from my own life.
My justification for the anime one is that the original voices are under directorial control, leaving the message of the work stronger and less polluted by third parties.


I have a dim recollection that Andy Warhol may have coined this phrase. Or was that the cult of celebrity? Don't quote me on that.

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