Rock and Roll Samurai

“Despite the whirlwind of trends, Details retains a unifying philosophical viewpoint — the archetypical American male is a rebel consumer . . . ‘These guys are not only musicians, or even rock stars,’ the magazine affirmed, ‘but modern men, emblems of a new masculinity.’ These ‘rock and roll samurai live outside the law, but are bound by their own moral codes.’ The words used to describe this new man were exciting and fresh: explosive, individualist, all for one, self-styled, rebellious, existential, heroic, and — most appealing of all — noncomformist. (These attributes are presented as virtues in themselves. Absent is any sense that the magazine’s self-styled, rebellious, existential hero should do or strive for anything beyond consuming.) Furthermore, Details was offering to show me how to buy the appropriate gear so I could become just as individualistic” [Frank and Weiland, editors, Commodify Your Dissent, (New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), p. 67.]