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Because absolutely no one asked for it: my thoughts about that ad for Mocher.
This is exactly 100% like that fake pashkvil prohibiting the COVID vaccine. People with cultural competence in the community this is supposedly targeted to would not be getting worked up about this.
This is exactly 100% like that fake pashkvil prohibiting the COVID vaccine. People with cultural competence in the community this is supposedly targeted to would not be getting worked up about this.
Why not? Let me count the ways.
1. The charedi world is generating works of extremely high production value, outstanding graphic design. There's money and talent and market there. This ad? It looks like I did it. I don't believe it's really aiming at the high-end charedi market.
1. The charedi world is generating works of extremely high production value, outstanding graphic design. There's money and talent and market there. This ad? It looks like I did it. I don't believe it's really aiming at the high-end charedi market.
2. The word "mocher" (which I would spell "macher") is not a word of approbation in that world. (It means something a little different than it means in the broader Jewish world.) It has a connotation of trying too hard to be important, not being important.
3. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we used to joke about the distinction between machers and tutsichs, and how many pleats they had in their pants and how many beepers they had on their belts. (It was the 90s. Pleats in pants and beepers were things.)
4. Really rich men in that community who are involved in community affairs are askanim. Really rich men are gvirim. There are lots of terms of approbation. A baleboss is a baleboss. Macher is a twenty-two year old who's very busy being important.
5. Which means that I think Mocher magazine is one of two things:
a. an elaborate and successful troll of the Modern Orthodox world, which fell for it and got all riled up about the krum values of a world it doesn't get (we have any krumkeit of own to consider, hmmm?) or
a. an elaborate and successful troll of the Modern Orthodox world, which fell for it and got all riled up about the krum values of a world it doesn't get (we have any krumkeit of own to consider, hmmm?) or
6. b. If it is for real, it is so perfect there must be a literary term for it: Mocher magazine, by trying too hard, not doing it well, aspiring for sounding and looking rich and important but falling short, not quite getting the look and sound right, and *calling itself Mocher*
7. is the apotheosis of macher-ness.
8. Seriously, guys, before you do your next run at getting outraged at something coming out of the charedi world, first find out if it's remotely plausible to anyone with cultural competence in that world. Stop taking sinas chinam trollbait.
9. And sweetie-pies: if you want to get all het up about materialism and values and whatnot, you could probably find someplace closer to home to turn your farbrente mussar.
Oh, that's less fun than getting twitter-enraged about a supposed ad for Mocher magazine? Well, now.
Oh, that's less fun than getting twitter-enraged about a supposed ad for Mocher magazine? Well, now.
