Frummies take on many fads over time, and I have wondered why certain fads were never taken. I always figured that the following fads would proliferate the frum community kind of like the omega 3 fanaticism of the orange juice industry.
Pimp Rims: I always expected the frummies to catch onto their ghetto brethren and start installing 24 inch spinning rims to their Honda odysseys and old school Chevy Caprice wagons, but it never happened. Even the off the derech guys turned mortgage consultant and term life insurance buyers never did the whole rim thing. With all the black shiny Maximas and Lexuses with guys who have permanently affixed bluetooths to their ears I would have definitely thought they would have done the cool rim/annoying muffler combination.
Abercrombie: I know some of you may dispute this, but the sad fact is, that the Abercrombie culture never permeated into the frum community, the modern orthodox community, yes, but many of us can argue that they are as much a part of the secular community as the frum community. Preppy styles in general have taken a back seat to black on black and square framed glasses with weird colors and those really pointy shoes and uggs. Fine we’ll give them uggs which many frum girls own more then one pair of, and we complain about a tuition crisis.
Ska: I am waiting for a frum ska band and I am told by most folks that the wait may be forever, I would doubt many frummies even know what ska is, save for several main stream bands which weren’t even real ska which produced hits during my high schools years. Sublime, No Doubt and MightMight Bostones to name a few didn’t come out with quality ska, yet it was radio friendly and considered to be such. I think frum bands will continue to produce reggae and hip hop since that is deemed as cool, but ska is just some underground reggae infusion that no one knows anyway. Wait, when are we going to have some frum death metal, ok, I know I am asking for too much.
Reality TV: Even the Amish had a reality TV show, where are the frummies at? Seriously I would have thought some sort of Chassidic survivor would have been brought on already where a bunch of Chassidim try to survive on an island without cholent, kishke or hatzolah lights on their minivans. Or maybe a show about charedi teenagers given the choice to get married and have kids or go to college and get laid.
Tight menswear: Unless you happen to be one of the arsim in Israel (who are rarely members of the frum community) you probably do not wear tight clothing nor have ever seen some black hat wearing fellow with pants tight enough to see the lines of his tzitzis poking through his pants.
Sex education: Chosson and Kallah classes just don’t count, how would you feel if you only figured out sex was 3 days before you were expected to go through with the thing? I don’t know, something about kids not even knowing that they aren’t supposed to let their rebbeim touch them must have something to do with some sort of sexual disconnection, although that makes no sense when you think about it because how young do you teach kids of sex.
Antioxidants: Frummies are starting to complain on Vos Iz Neias and Yeshiva World News about the unhealthy eating practices of frum Jews. Well I don’t see a proliferation of organic health nut eateries along the main thoroughfares in Brooklyn, but who knows? I have seen some of the frummy companies getting into whole wheat this and natural that, but I have yet to notice the anti-oxidant craze permeating frum households and products.
I know there are a bunch more…
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Here’s a health food store in, not sure if it’s frummy enough though.
Taken from their website:
OMNI Health Food
One of the Largest Natural Health Food Store in Brooklyn
Discounted:
*Vitamins/Supplements
*Herbal supplements/ Teas
*Natural and Organic Groceries
*Aromatherapy
*Homeopathic Remedies
*Organic Kosher Poultry & Meat
*Nutritionist on Premises
Lubab death metal does exist.Basically, a band of yeshiva kids in hiding so they don’t get kicked out.
Another one is Black Shabbis, check:
http://www.myspace.com/blackshabbis
Here is something on Jewish Heavy Metal…don’t know if the band Black Shabbes qualifies, but this is an interesting article!
http://www.jewcy.com/post/hipster_metal_hipster_jews#
Mishnah says marriage at 18 at the latest… so they should start looking at 16ish and sex ED should be what 15ish.
It should go something like this.
1) Do not have sex until married
2) Do not even touch until married
Ok that about covers it. There is an extension course offered for those who are engaged.
Frum girls do have disgustingly expensive clothes. They think a skirt is cheap if it’s $40. One woman told me the teachers at her kids yeshivah told her it’s bad for the kids to tell them you can’t afford something.
Heshy, ska came before reggae.
There’s Metallish, but no one I know counts them. They’re more Jewed-up 80s cheese metal.
There are plenty of metal musicians who are Jewish, like Slash of Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver, Scott Ian of Anthrax, Geddy Lee of Rush (okay, they’re not really metal), and much of Slayer and Biohazard.
In the alternacrap field we have Perry Farrell, who currently goes by Peretz. I’ve heard mixed rumors of him becoming a ba’al teshuva, but most people I’ve asked said that he’s just joined some weirdo sect that uses Kaballah to talk to aliens…
Empire chicken has an organic line now. Does that count? I almost bought it at Trader Joes the other day but I cheaped out at the last minute and bought the regular stuff.
And there’s your kosher antioxidants.
http://tinyurl.com/cww4xu
Who knows maybe it’ll catch on.
Phil, when I read “Lubab Death Metal” I think of Teihu: http://www.myspace.com/teihu
I think the whole health food is most likely a BT/MO thing. FFBs went to yeshiva, knew it sucked, but didn’t know any other option existed (and everyone was used to it after a while). A BT walks into a yeshiva, sees the crap they serve, and realizes he could have made a healthier and cheaper alternative with his microwave.
Doesn’t Lubab death metal go against the whole yechi thing?
Organics have hit the community in Brooklyn…check out Pomegranate, Glatt Mart…lotsa places sell allegedly “organic” foods. It’s a thing in the community just like it’s a thing anywhere else in NY that is not Park Slope (they take it really serious there).
Ghottistyx,
You missed a bunch, Megadeth’s Marty Friedman, Ex yeshiva bochur David Draiman (disturbed), supposedly Ozzy and Alice Cooper just to name a few.
Sf2k1,
Thank sfor the tip on Teihu. I checked them out and think they suck bigtime though.
Hesh,
Schneerson’s hit song was “The Rebbe’s grave”, so I guess that disqualifies them as yechis.
What’s with the nw format, It’s super slow on my PC, feels like I’m using an XT.
Ska!
So true. No one I talk to even knows what ska is. It drives me crazy. :p
Bur for sure, it should definitely be picked up by the Frum community. Just imagine a full-blown skanking pit with black hats and tzitzit flying everywhere. The energy!
“ska is just some underground reggae infusion that no one knows anyway. ”
OK it was mentioned before but this is just WRONG. Please proceed to Remedial History of 20th Century Western Music immediately.
BTW I’m still looking to record a decent reggae singer who can sing in Hebrew, English or both. Its been too long since I released a record and now that I’m not encumbered with full time employment I got plenty of time to produce new tunes.
Lesee:
Rims have never really been a fad outside of the ghetto.
Abercrombie has been the choice of douche bags everywhere, including the frum community.
Your next two are entertainment. Fat chance that a secular entertainment fad would catch onto the mainstream…
Tight menswear can be seen… although, again, it’s only a certain (douchy) subset of the population at large, and the same applies within the frum community. This is not to be confused with fitted, which is popular amongst a much larger proportion of fit/healthy men.
Sex ed is not a ‘new fad,’ and the only thing that keeps it from absolute saturation in America is the religious minority, which the Jewish frum community usually agrees with on matters of ‘morality.’
Antioxidants are apparently nothing more than marketing. From the NY Times last week: almost all studies of antioxidants provided as supplements have found no benefits