Culture is fiction in the way that life is fiction. 150 apes could not sit together casually in a stadium, but 150 adults can easily convene in one place and enjoy the interaction. Humanity is able to reach this level of coexistence because humans have subconsciously agreed to buy into a false sense of reality that strays away from the natural order of things. Our ability to create and believe in fiction is the reason we are able to construct monuments, send men to the moon and worship in ornate buildings on a specific day of the week. What we see is all constructed by the human mind, yet it is our reality, our real life. Culture is created in the same way: we create customs and idolize inanimate objects as being sacred or profane because we are searching for a level of meaning that is not handed to us by mere existence. We are forced to create. Culture in Athens, Georgia is often defined by the school: Kirby Smart in a red polo, an inbred bulldog that is paraded onto a football field every so often, the gentle clanging of two Tito’s handles in a freshman’s backpack. There is so much more to Athens than how the culture is defined on the surface. Oftentimes, the truth about an area is found in the hidden countercultures that require a level of anonymity to be unique. An increasingly popular counterculture in the area is skate culture. Specifically, the world that skate brand Pulp Swim has created
GOOD VIBES, BAD OMENS
Founded by a rag-tag group of friends with a shared passion for skating and music, the Pulp Swim crew has amassed a growing following in recent years. The crew acts as a landing place for displaced skaters who are new to Athens, offering an alternative way of living for college students who are tired of the same bars and frat houses. With live music events every weekend at the iconic Pulp Swim house, college students have been able to experience a new vibration that has begun to settle over Athens. The crew has sparked something of a free love movement, creating a place for people to show up as themselves without fear of judgment. The social pecking order that is perpetuated by society does not exist in the world of Pulp Swim; there are only people, vibes and nothing more.
According to the U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of universities, The University of Georgia is revered as the 15th best public university in the nation. This success has naturally led to a culture that can seem dissociative at times as everyone is constantly climbing the ladder of success to create a name for themselves. In pursuit of creating an identity, it is easy to forget that the core of living a life is to simply exist. Pulp Swim takes these anxieties, puts them in an industrial grade shredder, lights the shredder on fire, and then does a kickflip directly over said shredder. All of this is to say that this counterculture works in opposition to the narratives that are pushed on today’s college students. There is no such thing as being a failure in the world of Pulp Swim because being alive is a big win in itself.