Look at Me! No, Over Here

Indie exhibitionism has truly jumped the ocean with the advent of online party photo/lifestyle journo Look At Me, Moscow's budding Cobrasnake. The idea is you, well-connected hipster photographer, go to exclusive underground parties and snap photos of people wearing everything they owned in 1989. The problem is, the pool of kids that go for that shit is small, so you're often scraping bottom.

Sieg Hi, Look at Me!

Case in point: last Saturday, as I was walking out of the bathroom of Solyanka, in the throes of a brew attack, they jammed a camera under my nose. As I mentioned before, I'm too old to understand New Rave, but fly enough to understand I'm not part in it. For one, I'm not neon. I was honored, comma, drunk.


My sun was eclipsed by Karl Lagerfield, or the kid who got up that morning with designs to be Karl Lagerfield. The last time we saw him, he was Michael Jackson. At any rate, eminently photographable for Look at Me on any weekend, and hogged all the camera attention.


The other problem is that its a difficult argument that Look At me is pointing its lens on the underground. They're at Krizis Zhanra, at Propaganda, at the places where friksi like Karl and me go 'cuz we can't get in anywhere else. Solyanka's marginally cooler, though. They charge a 300-ruble cover that weeds out most of the bleating cheapskate expats fleeing cheesy techno.

Watch out! The gun has an owl.

Can we coin a word? Ripsters, the Russian hipsters. Indiscriminately, yet warm-heartedly ripping off everything hipster. All it needs is a little bit of judiciousness. Take the owl with a gun, leave the ridiculous posturing.

He's hot, he's well-dressed, but the camera doesn't capture that he's 4'5''. I know, it's confusing. Hot Midge!

Solyanka, 11/6 Solyanka Ul., Metro: Kitai Gorod, www.s-11.ru

Photos: Lookatme.ru