An Open Letter To Ian Connor

Dear Ian,

We need to have a talk, king to "king".

First, I must admit I did not know who you were until yesterday when a picture of your client surfaced wearing a jacket that emulated an American Nightmare album cover. While Wes' jacket was inspired by a Jim Goldberg photo book, given your age and understanding, I'm going to assume your inspiration was not the same. Second, I must admit that I am a bit of a neophyte to the fashion world. Last year at a club in New York, a drunken Alexander Wang bumped into me. I did not know who he was, so I shot him a glare to let him know he had invaded my space. The doe-eyed designer quickly scuttled off and I returned to speaking with my friend. Starstruck, she told me, "James, that was Alexander Wang!" All I could respond with was "who the fuck is Alexander Wang?" You see, Ian, I am not a fashionista. That is not my world. It is yours. My world is hardcore and punk. It is where I come from and who I am. The problem I have is that you have made a name for yourself in that world claiming to represent mine.

I took the time to learn about you today. You've become quite the celebrity from the work you've done with your client. I learned you once showed up to a meeting with him in beat up Sketchers. The press loved you for that. Vogue said you had a "cool-kid sense of personal style" for it. You revealed to Viper Mag that you found serial killers 'amusing and interesting'. No doubt a claim intended to induce shock in your interviewer and audience. You have quite the resume, I must admit. Making your rise in the A$AP Mob until you were contacted by Virgil Abloh (who I'm sure took a shine to your infantile understanding of the subculture) and of course now, where you are hailed as your client's muse. Quite the journey for a kid who was run out of the Atlanta scene after he stole a box of shirts from the hometown hero band and bragged about it.

Now to the matter of why I am writing to you today. I think we need to establish some particulars on the identity you have crafted for yourself. You have boldly claimed to be the "King of the Youth". You (and your former employer for that matter) have made a living out of cheaply representing themselves denizens of the subculture. I believe the more appropriate term I have heard is "culture vulture". You claim to represent an initiated knowledge of the subculture and apply it to your cutting edge visual arts degrees. The result is not wild innovation or visionary constructions. The results are cheap derivations of the original content trotted out to an audience too stupid to know the real deal. That is the one thing you and I see eye-to-eye on, Ian. We both know your audience is the lowest common denominator. That your ideas are thrown into an ocean of fools. We both know that your near zero knowledge of the subculture wouldn't get you past the status of a mark fan in my world, but to your client's sister-in-law? I'm sure you sound like a young Andy Warhol. A trail-blazing Bohemian who grinded it out and made it. Deep down, you must be laughing at your client. Here he is, the self-proclaimed greatest musical artist of all time, deferring to you for style decisions, you, once self-proclaimed Warhound fan.

Moreover, I see you rubbing elbows with some of my friends still in the subculture. Friends who have made it to their own stratosphere of success. Their association with you is not what I take exception to. It is your choice to associate with them. You do it because it is easy. It is easy to hang out with those of us who made it. You maintain your status with the ever-ogling eyes of the paparazzi while upping your fraudulent cultural capital among your peers. The subculture isn't a way of life for you. It's people, not your friends. For you, it is an accessory to a brand. Props to the grand production of fiction that has become your persona. I don't think you ever knew what it really meant to be a part of this. I can't believe someone who did would abandon it so readily. It is easier to believe you were a tourist all along.

This isn't about liking certain bands since day one. It isn't about going to every show ever or having the rarest band shirts or even the best taste in music. It's about the willingness to stick it out in the trenches with your friends because that's all you have in those trenches. You don't understand that being in the subculture is hard work. In a lot of ways it kind of sucks. By choosing to be a part of this you undergo hardships financially, socially, mentally, and emotionally. We lose a lot from being involved in this. We gain a lot from being in it too. We know what we're doing in those trenches are ahead of everyone else, on our terms, and for each other. Being a part of this means making our own families, our own styles and brands borne from our identity and locale. You don't know anything about that. You never will. All you do is look down at the rest of us while you cherrypick what you determine "cool", shine it up and serve it on a platter for people who could never understand the place and people you took it from.

The fact is, you don't know what cool is. I know that me and you can walk into a record store in Japan and I will pick the right records and shirts because I made it my business to know what is good and what isn't. You will blindly swoop in and buy up this rack of shirts and this box of records. You'll go back to your studio and match up that vintage Discharge shirt you paid triple for to your client's wife's dress. That doesn't make you the king of anything. It doesn't make you an authority on the subculture. It means you're no better than one of the thousand automatons graduating from FIDM every year. The difference between you and them is that you saw Harm's Way live once.

I'm sorry that our introduction had to be like this. However, I can't say we would have ever talked in person. If we did, it would have been brief. What would we have to talk about? Would we debate if Eric Casanova did it better than JJ? Would I ask if you knew my friend from Philly? Would you reminisce with me about a certain live band's performance?  I don't believe you would.

You seem to have done well in the fashion world and I really wish I could congratulate you for it. There is nothing more beautiful to me than seeing a fellow hardcore kid or punk make it big in the world. However, I can't say 'congratulations' to you. You're not a hardcore kid making it. You're just another person. The only reason I am writing to you today is because you are just another person stealing from the world that me and so many of my friends have chosen to make their reality. I need you to know you're false because everything you're doing makes this cheaper for the rest of us. It makes it as manufactured and plastic as your client's in-laws.

"This is my world so get the fuck out and try that shit with someone else" - No Warning "My World"

Sincerely,
James Khubiar
King of Subculture