Talk:Poseur

Green Day
Should we specifically list Green Day as equivalent to "poseur" for the punk rock genre?Arlesd (talk) 06:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Redo In Metal section?
The "In Metal section is terrible. Myself having no Wikipedia account, I am not the man to do it, but I'll outline my points. 1.) It makes no mention of how Nu-Metal, Metalcore, and Glam Metal bands have been rejected as poser bands. 2.) the two bands mentioned are in themselves considered posers by the Metal Scene.  Guns n' Roses is far more Hard Rock than metal, and Metallica are a well known example of selling out. 3.) Axl Rose's comment has nothing to do with the attitude of metalheads towards posers.  It's merely him reflecting on how non-dangerous they were compared to rappers. 4.) From where, Metal & posers has always been an issue of commercial appeal.  Bands with broad appeal are usually branded posers.


 * Metallica is a prominent metal band. I am aware there have been fan concerns about the band {re:influence of Bob Rock, the Black Album, purportedly "selling out"), but they are still a prominent metal band. Axl Rose made a comment about being a poseur, and since it was in writing, your humble scribe duly took note and included in the poseur article.Your point about glam metal bands being seen as poseurs is good. Will add this in.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 19:03, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Why is there even a section about metal music at all? The term poseur did NOT originate in metal music, punk music, or any of the other types of music and music scenes listed at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.59.61.207 (talk) 05:01, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a metal section because several scholars and commentators have made pertinent comments about being perceived as authentic in metaldom.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 18:59, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Removed Authenticity & Social Response bits
Personally I thought that those two passages smacked of elitism. See excerpts as follows:

Most subculters today have evolved from their original status because of poseurs changing it with their impure virtues.

Even though poseurs try so vertain philosopery hard to adopt the chy, they almost always fail to keep their tracks covered and a true follower can see past their imperfections with remarkable ease.

Not only is the spelling atrocious, but the author is trying to make it sound like she or he is a "true" whatever & that only people born into that particular culture can be true goth/punk/whatevers. I removed it because it is purely personal opinion & cannot be proven to be true. We're not entering in people's personal opinions here- want to rant about how you're the only "true" ______ & that everyone else is a poseur? Go write a blog somewhere. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 17:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)Tokyogirl79

"Standing In Front of Poseur" refers to a long closed clothing store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.71.116.245.163 (talk) 00:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * On this basis, I have remvd Standing in front of Poseur from article. If it is just about standing in front of a record store, the song has no pertinence to this article.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move
Move Parsecboy (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC) "Poseur" is currently protected from creation. The term applies to more than just music—it applies to the subculture in full (whatever subculture that may be). — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. There's no other article using name poseur so disambiguation is unnecessary. Poseur appears blocked because it was misued in the past, long before this article was created. Station1 (talk) 04:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support the plain title. It should be noted that an article was deleted through AfD at the target name previously (and before the abuse that got the title salted), but this one is in much better condition. Dekimasu よ! 03:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Unscholarly Curtis Jackson reference
Just wondering why there's an entire paragraph in this just 21 paragraph article entirely devoted to why 50 Cent is not a poseur. Personal opinions on the subject aside, discussing why a lone individual is not a poseur has no place in an article defining the term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.195.221.33 (talk) 21:46, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * You are right - Can you put the cite to the end of the section and rephrase the introduction to make it more neutral? --Jesus Presley (talk) 14:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed Axl Rose from metal section
As the frontman of a former hard rock band, the man has no place commenting on heavy metal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.12.132 (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The Goth subsection
I'm reasonably certain the grammar in the Goth subsection is rather substandard - there seem to be a lot of partial sentences ending in a full stop, for example. As I'm not a native speaker, I'm reluctant to make any changes, though. Perhaps somebody else could check, please ?

Additionally, the section seems to focus entirely on the situation in the US - as for Europe, the Goth subculture was definitely nowhere near disintegrating in the early 2000s. --89.15.143.162 (talk) 15:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Title
I suggest that the title should somehow reflect the specialized focus of the article. "Poseur" has been in the OED for almost 100 years, its use in English documented since the 1880s. To suggest that it is primarily a punk/heavy metal/goth/etc. subculture term is a bit like suggesting that "strike" is primarily a baseball term.--Sshyster (talk) 15:44, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I concur and suggest that the article should also include content on how the word Poseur is (and was) a common term in the Skater community as well. Jetterman (talk) 15:34, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The article's subject & content is too narrow to support it's length and glossy pictures. More philosophy or less quotes, please. The article does have a lot of information that could probably find a different title or home. It feels like I opened a catalog entry of a windshield wiper part (the word "poseur") listing every car that can fit it (skating, metal, punk, rich kids, not rich kids, etc.). With full color pictures. Why? If it really belongs here, I think the opening section of the article should focus on tying all of the other sections together into some philosophy of poseur vs genuine, exclusivity, and who decides, etc. It currently feels like a long list of usage quotes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.218.196.130 (talk) 07:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * quick to slag the article. why don't you do a better version?? Even the humble article I put together took weeks of online research!OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 00:06, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Spending 'weeks' researching doesn't mean the article isn't crap. It means you spent weeks producing crap.  Crap that smacks of original research and is, as Shyster and others point out, too narrow and specialized and too dismissive of the word's long history in the English language.  24.16.164.84 (talk) 16:21, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Once again, it's easy to criticize, but hard to do research to improve the article. The article is filled with references, in response to the Original Research allegation. I could not find information about the use of the word "poseur" in the 19th centuries. Maybe you can, and that will be good for the article.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

This article really is like a catalogue of windscreen wipers as mentioned above. It has no coherent overarching theme. It really could - and probably should - de dismembere at the parts placed in articlles of the subcultures where they belong. Marchino61 (talk) 00:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Heavy Metal section - no Black Metal?
The entire genre of Black Metal was pretty much founded on the anti-poseur stance on Death metal, with many so desperate to assert they were not poseurs they participated in church burnings. I think any metalhead would agree that this should really be at least mentioned for the section to be comprehensive. 118.209.51.254 (talk) 13:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Poseur or poser?
Should "poser" be mentioned as a valid variation of "poseur", rather than dismissed as a misspelling? According to Wiktionary, poser is a synonym for poseur, although different pronunciations are given for each term. No pronunciation is given in this article; do English-speaking people actually pronounce "poseur" as though it's a French word? (The term as I know it from 1980s U. S. culture, is pronounced like the English word "poser".) B7T (talk) 21:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with this, never have i ever heard "poser" pronounced as "poseur" when referring to people pretending to be from a subculture they are not. obviously individual experience may not be enough to override this, but just because the Oxford Dictionary doesnt define "poser" as being equivalent to "poseur", it is not that much of a jump in logic to include "posing as a member of a group they don't truly belong to" as a variant definition 70.51.156.205 (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it should be mentioned, I have never heard poseur be used, it is poser. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.150.237.56 (talk) 23:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Just want to add that Poser is used in the same way as a loanword in German, not Poseur.--Jesus Presley (talk) 14:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

agreed a reference to "poser" as a misspelling needs to be made, i have never seen poser spelt as "poseur" but i do understand if this was the original spelling used long ago 66.189.173.57 (talk) 04:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I can assure you that it has been pronounced as "poseur" a lot more recently than that. Among people I knew in the 1980s it was always pronounced "po-SEUR" a la francais. Marchino61 (talk) 00:44, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I rewrote the intro
I think the current one is a bit rambling, so I shortened it and included the etymology and definitions:

Poseur is a pejorative term which describes a person who copies the dress, speech, and mannerisms of a subculture without understanding the values or philosophy of the group they are mimicking. A poseur habitually pretends to be something they are not (an insincere person), or tries to impress others by behaving in an affected way (a pretentious person). While the term is most associated with the 1970s- and 1980s-era punk and hardcore subculture, English use originates in the late 19th century. The English term is a loanword from French, where it refers to people who 'affect an attitude or pose.' One could say 'poseur' is merely the English word 'poser' in French garb and thus could itself be considered an affectation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.88.144 (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Clean up references, bare & dead links
There are many 404 dead links, also badly formatted cites & references. I already cleaned up some of them. Can you all help and re-link the dead bits? In most cases, it should be enough to replace the use of Google cache with archived pages on archive.org. --Jesus Presley (talk) 14:34, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Just finished the clean-up. Two of the citations could not be retrieved, so I also removed these related passages:


 * 1) University of Texas professor Neil Nehring argues that some performers "who in their time we thought of as schlocky pop poseurs" are now seen as interesting and worthy of study."
 * 2) An on-line reviewer argues that in Norman Mailer's 1956 essay The White Negro, which "lauded a 'white hipster elite' for talking, listening, and playing like black people," Mailer "comes off like a poseur attempting to articulate this minority mimicking a minority, these white kids’ existential attempt to deal with the 'psychic havoc' of the atomic age through jazz and dope."
 * If s/o can find the old sources, feel free to re-insert the passages. IMHO they were rather random search results anyway. --Jesus Presley (talk) 14:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Random search results...that is my research strategy!! How did you guess??OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Just pored over the entire internet and these quotes seem to have evaporated. Can't find them. No big loss!OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Redirect of "Oogle" to this page
Wondering why "Oogle" redirects here. It is not a synonym and there's no discussion of it here. Perhaps it would be better to redirect to Gutter punk? Jonathan Williams (talk) 14:35, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Anyone with a computer and Internet access can haphazardly create Redirects. There may not be a logical reason for some 3 AM Redirect creations! :) OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 02:43, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

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Military poser: term "poser" used in article
The Sun newspaper article about alleged military posers in Canada, individuals who wear army medals and uniforms, but who are not,and have never been members of the armed forces, was deleted by an editor on the grounds the article didn't use the term "poseur". The article, by Danielle Dube, entitled "Ottawa cops praised for charging alleged 'fake' soldier" (SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2014), contains the text: "Ian White, spokesman for Stolen Valour Canada, says it's been a tough fight to get local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with cases involving alleged military posers but says that their group's hard work is paying off." (bolding added). The article uses the alternate spelling "poser". OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 21:57, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Les Poseuses
G. Seurat's painting Les Poseuses illustrates poseur/poseuse in its original (and main) French-language meaning of "artist's model" and is therefore out of place so close to the head of this article – the chief meaning of the word in English being that of "someone who pretends to be something they are not or to possess qualities they do not have", which exists in French too, but in that language is only an extended (and, by and large, pejorative) meaning. I would suggest, therefore, that this image, if it is to be retained at all, should figure less prominently in the present article. Any thoughts? -- Picapica (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

"Edgelord" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Edgelord and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 30 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ♥ Th78blue (talk) ♥ 02:14, 30 May 2022 (UTC)