Here's an idea.
This year's hottest fashion item is a CSS style sheet.
[THEME MUSIC]
So we're pretty sure you've seen websites.
They're made with all sorts of things,
like HTML, PHP, Ruby, some Rails, a Native American tribe,
and if my memory serves me correctly,
it's all served from that box on Moss's desk.
It's wireless.
There are a lot of things that contribute
to how a website looks.
But one of the most common and powerful ways of suiting up
your sites is called CSS.
Cascading Style Sheets do a lot of the heavy lifting
when it comes to making websites pretty.
And also ugly, I guess, if we're going to be specific.
It's that expressive user interface-generating
layer that sits on top of that cold hard code interior.
There's a "Matrix" reference in here somewhere.
I'm just having a really hard time figuring-- ah.
We gotta move on.
Oh, come on!
This makes CSS sort of like the clothes that a website wears.
Or maybe the way a website looks, CSS or not,
is clothes, but that an eye-catching style sheet,
that's something different.
That is fashion.
Because that's the difference between clothing and fashion.
Clothing is functional.
It covers your junk 'n stuff.
That, by the way, is the anatomically correct
terminology.
But fashion is used to purposefully express
something which is not explicitly stated otherwise,
keeping in mind that even if you choose to express nothing,
you are still expressing your expression of nothing.
Basically, you can't escape.
[SCREAMING]
Sorry.
So while sweatpants and a hoodie might
be clothing that expresses very little,
a teal tuxedo is fashion that expresses your love of coffee
and your need to party.
Oppa Gangnam style.
This is the classic form-and-function dichotomy.
Fashion in the form that gives some glitz and some meaning
to the functional aspects of your threads-- and maybe
everything else.
Coco Chanel said that fashion doesn't exist in dresses only.
Fashion is in the sky, in the streets.
Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live,
and what is happening.
We tend to equate fashion wholly with haute couture
and weird, unwearable runway clothes.
But fashion is also your mom's bad wallpaper, a 1997 Honda
Civic, and that weird sideways window
they have on a bunch of houses in Vermont.
Fashion is also the reason that we
built the Silk Road, developed Doric columns
and Bullfinchian architecture.
It's the reason for the existence
of the world's first global corporation--
and your crazy, blinky style sheet.
Oh.
Oh, that is bright.
Ugh.
We also might think that fashion's stakes are higher
in relationship to clothing because, you know,
showing everyone in public your junk
'n stuff is worse than having a silly-looking website.
But the stakes for your web presence
are pretty high, aren't they?
Especially depending on your profession.
I mean, there's a reason that Fortune 500 company websites
don't look like the Myspace of a 16-year-old girl.
I mean, you will never see cursor trails on fidelity.com.
But this leads us to ask, how much can code really express?
It's just semicolons and brackets and stuff, right?
Now, this isn't the "is code art?" argument, because it is.
End of story.
It's more a consideration of how an idea that we usually
connect with dance, instruments, and clothing, things which
are immediate and active, can be applied to a computer
language, something which needs to be rendered, compiled,
and displayed.
Well, if you've seen "Indie Game: The Movie"--
which if you haven't, please do.
Link in the description-- you saw
one of the creators of "Super Meat Boy" say this.
A video game is the most effective way
I can express myself.
That's not normally how you hear people talk about code.
That's usually how you hear people
talk about the clothes they wear, the pictures they take,
or the songs that they like.
A lot of it, I'm sure, has to do with how far we've
come in display in computing technology.
I'm sure that it is near-impossible to be
expressive using a punch card computer.
The fact that we compare CSS with dynamic protocols
like PHP, HTML5, or JavaScript means
that we can have it move, make it respond-- two things which
are key to expression.
It means that instead of the friendly layer
over the unfriendly technology, everything
comes together and becomes one cohesive, expressive,
coded Gesamtkunstwerk.
Which actually brings us right back to fashion.
In the same way you might not be able to talk
about the way a person dresses without talking about who they
are, because one informs the other, in both directions,
you can't really talk about websites,
or any other computer program for that matter,
without talking about its UI, its fashion.
German sociologist Georg Simmel said
that is almost a sign of the increased power of fashion
that it has overstepped the bounds of its original domain,
which comprised only externals of dress,
and has acquired an increasing influence over tastes,
theoretical convictions, and even the moral foundations
of life in their changing forms.
This is only getting more true as mobile phones turn
from ugly bricks to sleeks slabs,
as computers turn from refrigerators to tablets,
and as the internet turns from war games to-- well,
we're not quite at hacking the Gibson yet.
But maybe someday soon.
What do you guys think?
Can user interface design be a fashion statement?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you don't have your sunglasses handy, I'm sorry.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Comments, comments, comments, oh!
Let's see what you guys had to say about Justin Bieber.
To Nayukuo, that's a really easy answer.
We will probably just shut down everything.
CARTONofSUKI says that crowd psychology
has a lot to do with bringing people
into the fold of fandoms.
Which I think is probably part of it,
but then there's also got to be this other thing that
brings them in.
And I'm-- I think we're really curious about what that thing
is.
MaryandLydia point out the they disagree
that there is some sort of It or Oomph
or Zazz about a work of art that will bring people in,
in that they are actually-- popularity
is an effect of good marketing or renown.
Which is a very valid argument.
cartoondreamer brutally reduces our thesis of our last video
to "people like things." which is true,
but there are only a few things that have
this intense effect on people.
And so I think that we're really curious about what
it is about these things that people like,
and that it's even more than just liking something.
Robert Stoll says that there is nothing
truly impressive about Justin Bieber,
and I have a feeling that a lot of people will agree with him.
To stjonal, I'm glad that someone got this joke.
To anybody who hasn't seen the "Mona Lisa,"
if you do go see it, you will not be seeing it by yourself,
and it most certainly will not be quiet.
To Ky0breck-- and anyone else, for that matter--
who wants to remix Idea Channel, we would be flattered.
Please, go crazy.
SollingDown made a really good point
that Motherboard actually agreed with,
that the cult of personality that we talked with
was largely positive, and that it can also be really negative.
So maybe another episode for another day.
MrNagagon makes a really interesting point
about how history has treated beautiful works of art,
and I think this is really cool to think about.
Because we have yet to see what Justin Bieber will contribute
to history, what history will say about Justin Bieber.
Which I think is, you know, maybe
on the level of the Sistine Chapel 600 year
from now, maybe not.
To Raven46Poland, the answer is yes, I do.
Which means that you maybe can all look forward to November,
when I have a silly mustache.
And also, you should know that I'm
going to shave for Halloween.
So in the comments section of the next video, maybe no bears.
Prepare yourself.
[THEME MUSIC]