Burlesque

Burlesque (pronounced ber-lesk)

(1) An artistic composition, especially literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.

(2) A humorous and provocative (often bawdy) stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits and a scantily clad female chorus; by the late nineteenth century striptease was often the main element (the usual slang was burleycue).

(3) As neo-burlesque, a late twentieth century revival (with rather more artistic gloss) of the strip-tease shows of the 1920s.

(4) An artistic work (especially literary or dramatic), satirizing a subject by caricaturing it.

(5) Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, a play parodying some contemporary dramatic fashion or event.

(6) A production of some kind involving ludicrous or mocking treatment of a solemn subject; an absurdist imitation or caricature.

(7) Of, relating to, or characteristic of a burlesque; of, relating to, or like stage-show burlesque.

(8) To represent or imitate (a person or thing) in a ludicrous way; caricature.

(9) To make ridiculous by mocking representation.

(10) To in some way use a certain type of caricature.

1650–1660: From the French burlesque, from the Italian burlesco (ludicrous and used in the sense of “parodic”), the construct being burl(a) (joke, fun, mockery) + -esco (the adjectival suffix used in English as –esque).  The Italian burla may ultimately be from the Late Latin burra (trifle, nonsense (and literally “flock of wool”) and thus used to suggest something “fluffy” (in the sense of being “lightweight” rather than serious) which was of unknown origin.  Alternatively, some etymologists suggest burla may be from the Spanish burladero (the protective barrier behind which people in the bullring are protected from the bull).  The verb burlesque (make ridiculous by mocking representation) came directly from the noun and was in use by the 1670s.  The spelling burlesk is archaic.  While the derived form unburlesqued means simply “not burlesqued”, preburlesque is a historian's term meaning “prior to the introduction of burlesque performances”.  Burlesque, burlesquer & burlesqueness are nouns, burlesqued & burlesquing are verbs and burlesquely is an adverb; the noun plural is burlesques.

The original mid-sixteenth century meaning was related to stage performances and meant “a piece composed in the burlesque style, a derisive imitation or grotesque parody, a specific development from the slightly earlier adjectival sense of “odd or grotesque”, taken directly from the French burlesque.  The more familiar adjectival meaning (tending to excite laughter by ludicrous contrast between the subject and the manner of treating it) was in use by at least the late 1690s.  As a definition that’s fine but in the hands of playwrights, satirists and such there was obviously much scope, prompting one journalist (a breed which seems first to have been described thus in the 1680s) in 1711 to clarify things in a London periodical:

“The two great branches of ridicule in writing are comedy and burlesque. The first ridicules persons by drawing them in their proper characters; the other, by drawing them quite unlike themselves. Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in accoutrements of heroes, the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people.”

The meaning shifted as what appeared on stage evolved and by the 1880s the typical understanding was something like (1) “travesties on the classics and satires on accepted ideas” and (2) comic opera which tended towards vulgarity.  From this came the still prevalent modern sense of “variety show featuring music, dancing and striptease” although some historians of the industry link this use directly from the mid-nineteenth century tradition of “scantily-clad performers who staged the sketches concluding minstrel shows”.  The implications of that evolution didn’t impress all and by the early twentieth century, in the US, the word “burlesque” had become verbal shorthand for “entertainment designed to titillate, verging on the obscene while avoiding prosecution”.  The term “neo-burlesque” (a revived form of traditional American burlesque performance, involving dance, striptease, dramatic performance etc) emerged in the 1990s, describing the stage shows which sought to re-capture the once respectable spirit of burlesque as it was performed in US clubs before “changing attitudes” saw the performances outlawed or marginalized.  Whether attitudes really much changed among the general population has been debated by historians but the US political system then (as now) operated in a way in which well-funded groups could exert a disproportionate influence on public policy and while this often was used by sectional interests to gain financial advantage, some also decided to impose on others their view of morality; it was in the era of the crackdown on burlesque shows the Motion Picture Production Code (the so-called “Hays Code” which, remarkably, endured, at least on paper, until 1968!) was created as a set of “moral guidelines” with which the Hollywood studios had to conform.  So the “culture wars” are nothing new and in the US, there has always been a tension between puritan religiosity and political freedom, the two forces reflecting the concerns and obsessions of those from the “Old World” of Europe who in the early seventeenth century founded the settlement which ultimate became what came to be known as “America”.

Although often hardly “respectable” theatre, burlesque has a long tradition in performance and almost its techniques will long pre-date recorded history.  The essence of the form was based on an exaggerated “sending up” or a derisive imitation of a literary or musical work and can be anything from a friendly joke to vicious ridicule.  Historically most associated with some form of stage entertainment, burlesque was distinguished from parody in being usually stronger (though not always broader) in tone and style and often lacked the edgy subtlety of satire.   It was the Athenian playwright of Ancient Greece, Aristophanes (circa 446–386 BC), who the late Medieval scribes declared “the father of comedy” and while that was a little misleading, he would occasionally use the device of burlesque in his plays though the satyr plays probably were the first institutionalized form of burlesque.

Empire Burlesque (1985) by Bob Dylan (b 1941).

Early in his long career, Bob Dylan must have noticed the press seemed to be more interested in discussing the stuff about which he didn’t comment that that which he’d taken the time to explain.  Whether or not that’s a factor, Dylan appears never to have explained the meaning behind the title of his 1985 album, Empire Burlesque.  Although some speculated it may have been a metaphor for the nature of “the American Empire” (however defined), there’s nothing substantive to support the speculation and a more grounded theory came from the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) who recounted how Dylan had once told him: “That was the name of a burlesque club I used to go to when I first came to New York, down on Delancey Street.”  Ginsberg thought it “a good title” for an album.

Intriguingly, the satyr play was a kind of coda.  In Greek theatre, the convention was to present four plays in succession: three tragedies (though not necessarily a trilogy) with a satyr play appended as the final piece.  Typically, in a satyr play, a mythical hero (who may have appeared in one or all of the foregoing tragedies) was presented as a ridiculous personage with a chorus of satyrs (creatures half man and half goat (or half horse) with prominent, erect phalluses (it was satyr imagery which in Europe made the goat a symbol of lust and, two millennia on, cynical Berliners would refer to the notoriously philandering Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) as “the he-goat of Berlin”)).  As far as is known, the satyr plays almost always were ribald in speech and action as well as in costume and their purpose has been debated by historians.  While classical Greek tragedy is almost wholly devoid of comedy (in the sense of set-pieces although there’s the occasional sardonic quip or grim observation that would have enticed a laconic guffaw) the satyr play concluding the tetralogy would have worked as a sort of palliative burlesque after the catharsis of three acts of fear, loathing and, not infrequently, death,  Their dramatic function clearly was a form of comic relief but coming immediately after three works of earnest high-seriousness, they must have has the effect of “calming the senses” of the audience after the intense, exalting spiritual experience of the tragedies.  That’s interesting in that it implies it was thought desirable to return the audience to “earthly life” and remind them what they had just experienced was not “reality” and their emotions had just been manipulated by a technique.  It all sounds rather post-modern and in a similar literary vein, the “clowning interludes” in Elizabethan plays can also be seen as a type of burlesque; in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590) the interpolation of the play of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by Bottom and his companions was the bard making fun of the “Interludes” of earlier types.

An expanded vista derailing the Pronomos Vase (red-figure pottery Ancient Greece, circa 400 BC) believed to depict the whole cast and chorus of a satyr play, along with the playwright, the musician Pronomos, and the gods Dionysos and Ariadne.  The scene is thought to capture the figures after a performance which, in modern use, would be thought a “behind the scenes” grab.   The vase was discovered in 1835 in a tomb in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy; it’s now on permanent display in the Museo Nazionale in Naples.

To make things difficult for students, there are linguistic traps in the terminology and despite the similarity in the spelling, there was no connection whatever between satyric drama and satire and some seem convinced there may have been none between it and Greek comedy.  For structuralists, it can be a difficult field to study because over the centuries so many contradictory texts and commentaries emerged and that’s at least partly attributable to the influence of Aristotle (384-322 BC) who looms over the understanding of Greek theatre because his writings came to be so revered by the scholars of the late Medieval period and especially the Renaissance.  As far as in known, the Greeks were the first of the tragedians and it’s through the surviving texts of Aristotle that later understandings were filtered but all of his conclusions were based only on the tragedies and such was his historic and intellectual authority that for centuries his theories came to be misapplied and misused, either by mapping them on to all forms of tragedy or using them as exclusionary, dismissing from the canon those works which couldn’t be made to fit his descriptions.

The Pronomos Vase as displayed in Naples.

Nor was burlesque confined to drama; it was the most common structure used in the mock-heroic poem to ridicule the often overblown works of romance, chivalry and Puritanism.  Dripping often with irony and a confected grave decorum, the classic example is English poet & satirist Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) The Rape of the Lock (1712), cited by some (however unconvincingly) as the spiritual origin of “high camp”.  Also, because the gothic novel often was written in such self-conscious “high style”, the form lent itself naturally to burlesque re-tellings, something exploited to this day in Hollywood which has often made sequels to horror films in comedic from.  The burlesque (in the sense it was a descendent of the Greek satyr play) could also be positioned as something transgressive although it must be wondered if this sometimes was a product more of the commentator’s view than the positionality intended by the author.  This aspect of burlesque is explored in the genre of literary carnival when a technique is borrowed from the Socratic dialogues (in which what appears to be logic is deconstructed and proved to be illogical).  Carnivalesque elements are inherent in burlesque (and can exist in satire, farce, parody and such) and a theory of Russian philosopher & literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) was that in its disruption of authority and implication of possible alternatives, carnival in literature was subversive and the use of burlesque in the form was a concealment (in the sense of avoiding the censor’s pen) of what could be a liberating influence; Bakhtin’s particular target was the “suffocatingly sacred word” in Renaissance culture but his theory has more generally been applied.

The noun amphigory (burlesque nonsense writing or verse) dates from 1809 and was from the eighteenth century French amphigouri of unknown origin but presumed by most etymologists to have been a jocular coining although there may have been some influence from the New Latin amphi-, from the Ancient Greek ἀμφί (amphí) (on both sides) and the Greek γύρος (gýros), derived from the “turning of the meat on a spit” (as a calque of Turkish döner into Greek).  The notion was of “making the whole” (ie “circle on both sides”) but a link with the Greek -agoria (speech) (as in allegory, category) has been suggested as a simpler explanation.  The word “amphigory” found a niche in literary criticism and academic use (recommended for students wishing to impress the professor) to describe a particular flavour of burlesque or parody, especially a verse or other text in which the impression is for a while sustained of something which will make sense but ultimately fails, an oft-cited example being Nephelidia (literally “cloudlets”) by the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) in which the writer parodies his own distinctive style.

In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the wide application of the words often listed as synonymous with burlesque (caricature, parody, travesty etc), citing the not uncommon use of burlesque to describe a “badly conducted trial” or “a perverted institution”, adding the two critical distinctions were (1) burlesque, caricature & parody have, besides their wider uses, each a special province; action or acting is burlesqued, form and features are caricatured and verbal expression is parodied and (2) travesty differs from the others both in having no special providence and, in being more used than they (though all four may be used either way) when the imitation is intended to be or pass for an exact one but fails.  Were Henry Fowler alive to see TikTok and such, he’d realize not many are reading his book.

Pink Purple HD Lip Paint (Burlesque) by MBACosmetics.  Burlesque's ingredients includes: Castor Oil, Jojoba Oil, Beeswax, Carnauba Wax, Fractionated Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Vitamin E, Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Oxides, May contain Yellow #5 Lake, Yellow #6 Lake, Red #7 Lake, Red #40, Red #33, Red #27, Red #30, Orange #5, Hydrogenated Polisobutene and Palmitic Acid.

The difficulty in assigning synonyms to “burlesque” is that things are not only nuanced but historically variable; what would in one time and place have been thought satirical might in other circumstances be called a parody.  The earliest known use in English of the noun parody was by the playwright Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572-circa 1637) who would have understood it as something close to the modern definition: “a literary work in which the form and expression of dignified writing are closely imitated but are made ridiculous by the ludicrously inappropriate subject or methods; a travesty that follows closely the form and expression of the original”.  Parody was from the Latin parodia (parody), from the Ancient Greek parōidia (burlesque song or poem), the construct being para- (beside, parallel to (used in this context in the sense “to mock; mockingly to present”)) + ōidē (song, ode) and from the technical use in theatre came the general meaning “a poor or feeble imitation”, in use by at least the late 1820s.  So, depending on the details, a parody could be a type of burlesque but might also be described as a satire, ridicule, lampoon or farce.  It was Benjamin Jonson who in 1609 debuted his “anti-masque” an innovation which took the form of either (1) a buffoonish and grotesque episode before the main masque or (2) a similarly farcical interlude interpolated during the performance (if performed beforehand, it was dubbed an “ante-masque”. One variant of the anti-masque was a burlesque of the masque itself and in that sense there was a distinct affinity with the Greek satyr play.

So in literary use, synonyms for burlesque must be applied on a case-by-case basis, caricature, parody and travesty all used variously to refer to the written or preformed forms imitating serious works or subjects, the purpose being to achieve a humorous or satiric purpose.  In this context, burlesque achieves its effects through a mockery of both high and low through association with their opposites: burlesques of high and low life can thus be though a kind of specific application of irony.  Caricature, usually associated with visual arts or with visual effects in literary works, implies exaggeration of characteristic details, analogous with the technique of the political cartoonist.  Parody achieves humor through application of the manner or technique (typically well-known poets, authors, artists and such), often to an unaccustomed (and, ideally, wholly incongruous) subject while a travesty can be a grotesque form of burlesque, the latter also nuanced because travesties can be intentional or just bad products.  All of these forms can be the work of absurdists, that genre ranging from the subtle to the blatant and they may also be spoofs.  Spoof was a neologism coined in 1884 by the English comedian Arthur Roberts (1852–1933) as the name of a card game which involved deception, trickery and nonsense.  From this the word came to be used of any sort of hoaxing game but it became most popular when used of literary works and staged performances which is some way parodied someone or something but the point about the use of “spoof” is should describe a “gentle” rather than a “biting” satire, elements of the burlesque thus often present in spoofs.

South Park's take on Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025).  Somewhere in probably every South Park episode, there are switches between parody, satire, ridicule, lampoon and farce with elements of the burlesque often in each.

A distinction certainly is drawn between political burlesque and political satire.  Political burlesque is a particular application of the satirical which relies on parody and exaggeration (often absurdist) to mock political figures, events, concepts or institutions and the purpose can range from the merely comic to the subversive, the two poles not being mutually exclusive.  In the burlesque, a politician’s traits, patterns of speech or behaviour (scandals are best) are explored and sometimes exaggerated to the point they become obviously ridiculous or absurd, the best practitioners of the art using the amplification to take things to a logical (if improbable) conclusion and while it can be done almost affectionately, the usual purpose is to draw attention to flaws such as incompetence, corruption, indifference to others, hypocrisy or ideological fanaticism.  Essentially a political cartoon writ large, it’s a popular device because in masking the message in humor, there’s usually some protection from a defamation writ, witness the relationship between the animation South Park and Donald Trump.  The tradition is old and evidence is at least hinted in graffiti unearthed in Ancient Rome but material from in recent centuries is extant and techniques of the English artists William Hogarth (1697–1764) and James Gillray (1756-1815) remain in use to this day, illustrating the way political burlesque is best understood as a sub-set of political satire, separate but (often) equal as it were, the differences in tone, method, and degree of exaggeration a matter of tactics rather than strategy.

As an umbrella term, “political satire” has a wide vista in that it can be subtle, dry, ironic & biting, deployed with wit & understatement but it can also switch to (some would say “descend to”) the burlesque in becoming loud, exaggerated and even grotesque in fusing elements of slapstick and farce.  While burlesque amplifies absurdity, venality or whatever is being critiqued, satire need only “point it out” and some very effective satires have done nothing more than quote politicians verbatim, their words “hoisting them with their own petard” if the mixed metaphor will be forgiven.  So, all political burlesque is political satire, but not all political satire is burlesque.  The companion term in politics is vaudevillian and that describes a politician for whom “all the world’s a stage” and politics thus a form of theatre.  Their performances can (sometimes unintentionally) sometimes seem to at least verge on the burlesque but usually it’s about attracting attention and a classic exponent was Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who was said to have been influenced by Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).  During the 1980 presidential campaign, a reporter asked Mr Reagan: “How can an actor run for President?”, receiving the prompt reply: “How can a president not be an actor?”  Some have of course been more adapt than others at “flicking the switch to vaudeville” and Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) whose vocabulary was rich (if not always refined) used to use what he called his “dead cat strategy” which referred to introducing a shocking or controversial issue to divert unwanted attention from other, more embarrassing or damaging news.  It was most graphically expressed as “tossing a dead cat on the table”.

Lindsay Lohan in burlesque mode in I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Neglected upon its release, IKWKM has since acquired a cult following and is a fixture in late-night screenings.

As popular entertainment, burlesque performance enjoyed a revival which began in the 1990s and in the twenty-first century it’s now an entrenched niche as well a minor industry in publishing.  By the 1960s, what was called burlesque had become rather tatty and the common understanding of the term was something not greatly different from a strip club with a slightly better class of drunk in the audience, the women there to disrobe in the hope of encouraging the sale of expensive alcoholic.  What in the 1990s was dubbed the “neo-burlesque” was not a reprise of how things used to be done but a construct which might be thought a more “women-centric” interpretation of the discipline and while there will be factions of feminism which won’t take that notion too seriously and dismiss as “false consciousness” the idea of women publicly taking off their clothes as a form of “empowerment”, the latter day performers seem to treat it as exactly that.  Despite the criticism of some, burlesque seem now to verge on the respectable and, internationally, there are various burlesque festivals and a Burlesque Hall of Fame (the grand opening, perhaps predictably, in Las Vegas).

Burlesque and the Art of the Teese /Fetish and the Art of the Teese (2006) by Dita Von Teese (stage name of Heather Renée Sweet, b 1972).  Perhaps surprisingly, despite the phrase “the art of the teese” being at least potentially a piece of “ambush marketing” piggy-backing on the success of the acclaimed (48 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list) book The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz (b 1952), Mr Trump didn’t sue Ms von Teese.  Maybe he’s a burlesque fan-boy.

In the modern era, no figure is more associated with the neo-burlesque than Dita von Teese and her janus-configured book Burlesque and the Art of the Teese / Fetish and the Art of the Teese is similar to Mr Trump’s magnum opus in being a hybrid: part memoir, part instruction manual.  This significance of publishing the burlesque and fetish components as separate sections was presumably to make the point that while there’s obvious cross-fertilization between the two disciplines and for some the former may be a stepping stone to the latter, there is a clear distinction, one a piece of performance art, the other a deliberate statement of deviance; decisively one must step from one into the separate world of the other.  Ms von Teese’s book documents the “dos & don’ts” of each “calling” and. as she explains, the point about the neo-burlesque was it was less a revival than a re-defining, the thematic emphasis on style and glamour rather than sleaze, more aligned with the image (if not exactly the reality) of the Berlin cabarets of the 1920 than the seedy Soho strip joints which once so tarnished the brand.

Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.  Ultracrepidarian is a noun & verb and ultracrepidarianism is a noun; the noun plural is ultracrepidarians.  For humorous purposes, forms such as ultracrepidarist, ultracrepidarianish, ultracrepidarianize & ultracrepidarianesque have been coined; all are non-standard.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining; the odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling.  Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC)), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of sandals and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the errant straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

The related terms are "Nobel disease" & "Nobel syndrome" which are used to describe some of the opinions offered by Nobel laureates on subjects beyond their specialization.  In some cases this is "demand" rather than "supply" driven because, once a prize winner is added to a media outlet's "list of those who comment on X", if they turn out to give answers which generate audience numbers, controversy or clicks, they become "talent" and may be asked questions about matters of which they know little.  This happens because some laureates in the three "hard" prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine) operate in esoteric corners of their discipline; asking a particle physicist something about plasma physics on the basis of their having won the physics prize may not elicit useful information.  Of course those who have won the economics gong or one of what are now the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) prizes (peace & literature) may be assumed to have helpful opinions on everything.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), Oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas.

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the NGA (National Gallery of Australia), a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff) over the last two decades odd, that estimate may now be conservative although the suggestion in 2016 the value may have inflated to as much as US$350 million was though to be "on the high side".  Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas spread across the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened; he died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibres, and broken wooden sticks on canvas.

Although the general public remained uninterested (except in the price tags) or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced lots of stuff which can sell for millions.  US historian of art, curator & author Helen A Harrison (b 1943; director (1990-2024) of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of the Abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in East Hampton, New York) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), Enamel over gesso on paper.

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space'.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), Oil and enamel on canvas.

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), Enamel and metallic paint on canvas. 

There have been famous responses to  “That’s not art, anyone could do that” but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything” by which she meant the wouldn't necessarily come up with anything of which the critical establishment (a kind of freemasonry of the art business) would approve (ie could put a price tag on).

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

In 2010, Ms Harrison released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.  Of course, many who thought their own eye for art quite well-trained didn't agree with Ms Guggenheim.  In 1945, just after the war, Duff Cooper (1890–1954), then serving as Britain's ambassador to France, came across Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) leaving an exhibition of paintings by English children aged 5-10 and in his diary noted the great cubist saying he "had been much impressed".  "No wonder" added the ambassador, "the pictures are just as good as his".

Dresses & drips: Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene (1872-1951) & Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting; pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt best illustrates the value of his trained eye.  Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.  There have been interesting discussions about when last it could be said Western art had a "centre".

Blue Poles, upside down.

Although the suggestion might offend the trained and discerning eyes of art critics, it’s doubtful that for ultracrepidarians the experience of viewing Blue Poles would much be different were it to be hung upside down.  Fortunately, the world does have a goodly stock of art critics who can explain that while Pollock did more than once say his works should be interpreted “subjectively”, their intended orientation is a part of the whole and an inversion would change the visual dynamics and gravitational illusions upon which the abstraction effects depend would be changed.  It would still be a painting but, in a sense, not the one the artist painted.  Because the drip technique involved “flinging and poring paint” onto a canvas spread across a studio’s floor, there was not exactly a randomness in where the paint landed but physics did mean gravity exerted some pull (in flight and on the ground), lending layers and rivulets what must be a specific downward orientation.  Thus, were the work to be hung inverted, what was in the creative process a downward flow would be seen as “flowing uphill” as it were.  The compositional elements which lent the work its name were course the quasi-vertical “poles” placed at slight angles and its these which are the superstructure which “anchor” the rest of the drips and, being intrinsically “directional”, they too have a “right way up”.  There is in the assessment of art the “eye of the beholder” but although it may be something they leave unstated, most critics will be of the “some eyes are more equal than others” school.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference.

So although ultracrepidarians may not “get it” (even after digesting the critics’ explanations) and wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not it was hung correctly, that’s because they’re philistines.  In the world of abstract art however, even the critics can be fooled: in 2022, it was revealed a work in Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 series had for 77 years been hanging upside down.  First in exhibited in 1945 in New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), the piece was created with multi-colored adhesive paper tape and, in an incorrect orientation, it has since 1980 hung in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection.  The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition and the conclusion was the error may have been caused by something as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”  Mondrian was one of the more significant theorists of abstract art and its withdrawal from nature and natural subjects.  “Denaturalization” he proclaimed to be a milestone in human progress, adding: “The power of neo-plastic painting lies in having shown the necessity of this denaturalization in painterly terms... to denaturalize is to abstract... to abstract is to deepen.”  Now even ultracrepidarians can understand.

Eye of the beholder: Portrait of Lindsay Lohan in the style of Claude Monet (1840–1926) at craiyon.com and available at US$26 on an organic cotton T-shirt made in a factory powered by renewable energy.

Whether the arguments about what deserves to be called “art” began among prehistoric “artists” and their critics in caves long ago isn’t known but it’s certainly a dispute with a long history.  In the sense it’s a subjective judgment the matter was doubtless often resolved by a potential buyer declining to purchase but during the twentieth century it became a contested topic and there were celebrated exhibits and squabbles which for decades played out before, in the post modern age, the final answer appeared to be something was art if variously (1) the creator said it was or (2) an art critic said it was or (3) it was in an art gallery or (4) the price tag was sufficiently impressive.

So what constitutes “art” is a construct of time, place & context which evolves, shaped by historical, cultural, social, economic, political & personal influences, factors which in recent years have had to be cognizant of the rise of cultural equivalency, the recognition that Western concepts such as the distinction between “high” (or “fine”) art and “folk” (or “popular”) art can’t be applied to work from other traditions where cultural objects are not classified by a graduated hierarchy.  In other words, everybody’s definition is equally valid.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer gatekeepers because the curators in institutions such as museums, galleries & academies all discriminate and thus play a significant role in deciding what gets exhibited, studied & promoted, even though few would now dare to suggest what is art and what is not: that would be cultural imperialism.

Eye of the prompt 1.0: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one using an interpretation which overlaid "curated drips" over "flung paint".  This could be rendered using Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box but would demand some talent.

In the twentieth century, it seemed to depend on artistic intent, something which transcended a traditional measure such as aesthetic value but as the graphic art in advertising and that with a political purpose such as agitprop became bigger, brighter and more intrusive, such forms also came to be regarded as art or at least worth of being studied or exhibited on the same basis, in the same spaces as oil on canvas portraits & landscapes.  Once though, an unfamiliar object in such places could shock as French painter & sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) managed in 1917 when he submitted a porcelain urinal as his piece for an exhibition in New York, his rationale being “…everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice.”  Even then it wasn’t a wholly original approach but the art establishment has never quite recovered and from that urinal to Dadaism, to soup cans to unmade beds, it became accepted that “anything goes” and people should be left to make of it what they will.  Probably the last remaining reliable guide to what really is "art" remains the price tag.

Eye of the prompt 1.1: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one closer to Pollock’s “action painting” technique.

His drip period wholly non-representational, Pollock didn’t produce recognizable portraiture so applying the technique for this purpose demands guesswork.  As AI illustrates, it can be done but, in blending two incompatible modes, whether it looks much like what Pollock would have produced had he accepted a “paint Lindsay Lohan” commission, is wholly speculative.  What is more likely is that even if some sort of hybrid, a portrait by Pollock would have been an abstraction altogether more chaotic and owing little to the structure on which such works usually depend in that there probably would have been no central focal point, fewer hints of symmetry and a use of shading producing a face not lineal in its composition.  That’s what his sense of “continuous motion” dictated: no single form becoming privileged over the rest.  So, this too is not for the literalists schooled in the tradition of photo-realism but as a work it’s also an example of how most armed with Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box could with "drip & fling" produce this but not necessarily would produce this, chaos on canvas needing talent too.

1948 Cisitalia 202 GT (left; 1947-1952) and 1962 Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974; right), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Urinals tend not to be admired for their aesthetic qualities but there are those who find beauty in stuff as diverse as math equations and battleships.  Certain cars have long been objects which can exert an emotional pull on those with a feeling for such things and if the lines are sufficiently pleasing, many flaws in execution or engineering can be forgivgen.  New York’s MOMA in 1972 acknowledged such creations can be treated as works of art when they added a 1948 Cisitalia 202 GT finished in “Cisitalia Red” (MoMA object number 409.1972) to their collection, the press release noting it was “…the first time that an art museum in the U.S. put a car into its collection.”  Others appeared from time-to-time and while the 1953 Willys-Overland Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck (MoMA object number 261.2002) perhaps is not conventionally beautiful, its brutish functionalism has a certain simplicity of form and in the exhibition notes MoMA clarified somewhat by describing it as a “rolling sculpture”, presumably in the spirit of a urinal being a “static sculpture”, both to be admired as pieces of design perfectly suited to their intended purpose, something of an art in itself.  Of the 1962 Jaguar E-Type (sometimes informally as XKE or XK-E in the US) open two seater (OTS, better known as a roadster and acquired as MoMA object number 113.996), there was no need to explain because it’s one of the most seductive shapes ever rendered in metal.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) attended the 1961 Geneva International Motor Show (now defunct but, on much the same basis as manufacturers east of Suez buying brand-names such as MG, Jaguar and such, the name has been purchased for use by an event in staged in Qatar) when the E-Type made its stunning debut and part of folklore is he called it “the most beautiful car in the world”.  Whether those words ever passed his lips isn’t certain because the sources vary slightly in detail and il Commendatore apparently never confirmed or denied the sentiment but it’s easy to believe and to this day many agree just looking at the thing can be a visceral experience.  The MoMA car is finished in "Opalescent Dark Blue" with a grey interior and blue soft-top (there are those who would prefer it in BRG (British Racing Green) over tan leather) and although as a piece of design it's not flawless, anyone who can't see the beauty in a Series 1 E-Type OTS is truly an ultracrepidarian.   

Tenebrous

Tenebrous (pronounced ten-uh-bruhs)

Dark; gloomy; obscure.

1375-1425: From the late Middle English tenebrose (full of darkness, gloomy), from the Anglo-Norman tenebrous (the earlier spelling was tenebrus), from the eleventh century Old French tenebros (dark, gloomy) (which endures in modern French as ténébreux), from the Latin tenebrōsus (dark), from tenebrae (darkness, shadows).  The Latin forms may have been dissimilated from the earlier temebrai, from the primitive Indo-European root temsro- (dark), an adjective from temos- (darkness).  The adjective tenebrous indicates a high degree of darkness but not an absolute absence of light, the comparative is thus more tenebrous and the superlative most tenebrous.  Tenebrous is now a literary word valued by poets because of the relative novelty of the rhyming and is used also figuratively (as early as the 1670s it was deployed to suggest someone was “morally or mentally dark”.  Tenebrous, tenebricose & tenebrific are adjectives, tenebrity, tenebrousness & tenebrosity are nouns and tenebrously is an adverb; the noun plural is tenebrosities.  The alternative spelling is tenebrious and except in literary use, the verb tenebrize is now obsolete.

Salomè con testa del Battista (Salome with the Head of John the Baptist, circa 1608), oil on canvas by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio; 1571–1610), National Gallery, London.

Tenebrosity (darkness, gloom, obscurity) was from the early fifteenth century, tenebrious (pertaining to darkness, of a dark nature) dates from the 1590s, tenebrity (quality of being dark) was in use by at least 1792 while tenebrific (producing darkness), dating from the late 1760s, was implied in the earlier tenebrificating, recorded in 1743.  In 1818, it was reported in a London publication there was a theory darkness was not simply the absence of light, but that certain heavenly bodies (called Tenebrific Stars), emitted rays of positive darkness, which produced what commonly was called “night”.  This is how science evolves, theories existing to compete as explanations for this and that until disproved.  The early fifteenth century Tenebrer (bearer of darkness) was an epithet of Satan.  One variant which didn’t endure was recorded in the mid-seventeenth century was tenebrion (one that will not be seen by day, a lurker, a night-thief (also a “night-spirit” and “hobgoblin”)).  In Christianity, the Tenebrae is a religious service celebrated by the Western Church on the evening before or early morning of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, involving the gradual extinguishing of candles while a series of readings and psalms are chanted or recited.  In fine art, the related tenebrism describes a style of painting using very pronounced chiaroscuro, with darkness a dominating feature of the image and a tenebrist is an artist applying the method.  Works in the genre are said to be tenebristic and in the late nineteenth century those painting in this manner (described usually as “in the style of Caravaggio” were called the tenebrosi; by 1959 the preferred term among art historians was tenebrism.

Illustrating the adjectival: Lindsay Lohan tenebrous (left), more tenebrous (centre) and most tenebrous (right), from Pop Magazine photo-shoot, Fall/Winter 2007.

The MOGAI

MOGAI stands for “Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex” and is something of an omnibus term, acting as an umbrella term for sexual orientations, gender identities and intersex traits not considered “mainstream” although the very notion of “mainstream” is now a morass of cross-cutting claims, some factions demanding inclusion, others insisting on their separateness.  Whatever has been the track of MOGAI since its emergence in 2015, the original intent seems to have been one of “inclusiveness” and in that sense it’s both a logical extension of the LGBTQ+ concept and a recognition that so many categories could be identified the “extended model” (ie LGBTQQIAAOP and such) was becoming unmanageable.  Even “LGBTQ+” was in a sense counter-productive because in relegating certain letters (and thereby individuals or groups) to the “+”, there was an act of marginalization which, in the modern construct could be deemed a microaggression.  What advocates emphasize is that MOGAI exists for marginalized identities and it’s also as a kind of clearing house for novel or less recognized gender labels.  

DSM-5-TR (Text revision (2022) of DSM-5 (2013)).

In the narrow technical sense, MOGAI is a classification system but its focus on non-binary and other gender identities that are not cisgender seems to have acted to encourage the growth in the creation of categories and while some have “filled a gap”, there’s also clearly been linguistic adventurism in the same way some have been beyond imaginative in the coining of long German compound nouns and others have describe phobia despite there being no evidence of the particular fear ever having been defined as a clinical condition or even reported, a phenomenon the marvellously comprehensive Phobiapedia cheerfully acknowledges.  Whereas the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) exists to codify mental health conditions including phobias, MOGAI is just one of many list of gender identities but one which commands interest simply on the basis of numbers: it has spawned literally hundreds of entries and while some are “variations on a theme”, the breadth is striking.

The DSM contains two obviously tenebricose conditions, Social Anxiety Disorder and Seasonal Affective Disorder (a mood disorder characterized by recurrent depressive episodes that occur at particular times of the year, usually in winter), tenebrous used of the former figuratively, of the latter literally.  In a decision which may have been an agenda item on one of the editorial committee's meeting, it was decided the acronym “SAD” would be applied to Seasonal Affective Disorder (presumably on the basis it described the sadness associated with dark, wintery conditions); Social Anxiety Disorder typically is abbreviated as SoAD and the differentiation makes sense because while sadness can be associated with SoAD, it's the prime dynamic of SAD.  Multiple uses of acronyms is of course common but within the one publication it could confuse for the editors made a wise choice.  First described in 1984, SAD was included in the revision to the third edition (DSM-III-R (1987)) as a “seasonal pattern”, a modifier applied to recurrent forms of mood disorders, rather than as an independent entity.  In the DSM-IV (1994), its status as a standalone condition was changed, no longer classified as a unique mood disorder but instead a specifier (called “with seasonal pattern”) for the “recurrent major depressive disorder that occurs at a specific time of the year and fully remits otherwise”.  In the DSM-5 (2013), although there were detail changes in terminology, the disorder was again identified as a type of depression (Major Depressive Disorder with Seasonal Pattern).  The symptoms of SAD often overlap with the behaviors & mood changes noted in clinical depression, the novelty being the condition manifesting usually during the fall (autumn) & winter when temperatures and lower and the hours of sunlight fewer, the symptoms tending to diminish with the onset of spring.

A gathering of high tech, robotic lawnmowers: Four Stihl iMows of the apocalypse.

Suggested collective nouns for lawnmowers have included “graze”, “scythe”, “lawn” & “swathe” but the most evocative was the (presumably Australian) “startyafuquer” (pronounced stahrt-yuh-fuhk-ah).  Most “high tech” lawnmowers are controlled using a cell phone app but some include the feature of a user being able to create their own voice-activation command set so “startyafuquer” could be recorded as the “start command”, the obvious companion phrase being “stopyafuquer”.

While notably less common, there are those who experience SAD during the summer and in either case it’s seen more frequently in women; SAD appears to be possible at any age but is most typically suffered in the age range 18-30.  In the US, the dynamic of the condition is illustrated by the diagnosis of SAD ranging from 1.4% of the population in sunny Florida to 9.9% in often gloomy Alaska and, after some initial scepticism, the condition was accepted as legitimate by most of the profession although there has been some contradictory research.  Although in a sense SAD has for centuries been documented in the works of poets and artists, it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that structured research began and it has been linked to a biochemical imbalance in the brain prompted by exposure to reduced hours of daylight and a reduction in sunlight.  It’s thought that as the seasons go by, some experience a shift in their internal “biological clock” (circadian rhythm) which induces the mechanism to become asynchronous with their daily schedule.  Predictably, SAD appears more prevalent among those living far from the equator where the conditions in winter are exaggerated.  Seemingly paradoxically, clinicians treating SAD do in some cases recommend “outdoor activities” on the basis (1) of “confronting the problem” as is sometimes done for fears (heights, spiders etc) and (2) its frequent effectiveness in countering depression.  One popular activity suggested is gardening and while many have reported it as therapeutic, those suffering from Sponeopapaaughprosebeeanthropopcacareophobia (the phobia describing the “fear of high tech lawn mowers”) would need to be cautious in their choice and handling of equipment.   

Gender lists are however not “peer reviewed” in the traditional sense (controversial as that model of academic publishing has become) so in a sense all the categorization systems are of equal validity with users free to determine which works best for them.  That’s democratic and how a classic marketplace of ideas operates but does mean it’s a field in which most are left to make of it what they will.  It would be interesting to compare a “comprehensive list” curated by academics in the now well-populated discipline of “gender studies” with the hundreds of entries which the MOGAI community hosts.  In the most recent edition of the DSM (DSM-5-TR, 2022), while there are five sub-types of specific phobias: (1) animals, (2) the natural environment, (3) blood, injections, medical procedures and such, (4) situational types (airplanes, elevators, enclosed spaces etc) and (5) other types, officially, terms like nomophobia, coulrophobia, globophobia, arachibutyrophobia etc) are no longer accepted clinical terms used in psychiatry and instances are grouped to be diagnosed as “Specific Phobia, other type”.  Remarkably, given the frequency of use of xxx-phobia in general use, only two explicitly are mentioned in the DSM and they are not unrelated: Agoraphobia (an extreme or irrational fear of entering open or crowded places or leaving one's home) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SoAD or Social anxiety).

The MOGAI community's lists of gender types are an invaluable resource but can be challenging for those suffering Albumistaphobia (the phobia describing the “fear of lists”).

Still, even if many of MOGAI’s entries might not survive an academic cull, there would be gender theorists or activists who might acknowledge the entire set because a syndrome need not be widespread to be defined as such: a single case can establish the diagnosis.  Word nerds too must have been impressed by the diversity and intricacy (if not always the grammar and spelling) because MOGAI definitions can also be mapped onto specific systems or sets of labels, such as the Celestial Gender System (based on celestial bodies) or the Restaurant System (based on restaurants and eateries).  What that has meant is that as well as serious contributions, the MOGAI community has seen the creation of new labels of dubious practical validity which, like some alleged phobias, clearly exist just because their creation was possible and fun.  Those schooled in labelling theory might also be interested because, once created and vested with the “validity” of appearing in a “gender list” on the internet, a label can gain some gravitational pull and convince readers they’ve just discovered their “true gender” identity or identities.  As patients can create the diagnosis, so the diagnosis can create the patient.

Xenogender

A xenogender identity is one in which a person's gender is connected to an aesthetic or sensory experience.  It is non-binary and applies concepts beyond traditional male, female or androgynous categories to describe a gender that cannot be contained by traditional human understandings of gender.  Xenogender claims to be all-encompassing and is this positioned as an umbrella term for identities related to abstract sources like animals, plants, concepts and imaginary or inanimate objects; the linkages need not in any way be literal or concrete and can be simply a device people use to best articulate how their gender “feels” (or “appears” for those who view themselves from beyond their own physical body) to them.  Some xenogenders are used by the neurodivergent community but the essence of xenogenderism is they cannot be exclusive and thus cannot be used in an exclusionary way.

Hallowgender

Hallowgender (or Halloweengender) is an aesthetigender in which one's gender is tied closely to “the silly part of Halloween and the Halloween aesthetic” (ie it focuses on the fun rather than the dark and scary).  The first known use of hallowgender was by Tumblr user asukazepplinsoryu in 2014.

Flags of the Hallowgender.

Left to right: (1) The original hallowgender flag, designed by an anonymous user; (2) the first alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user ask-pride-color-schemes; (3) the second alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx, (4) the third alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx and (5) the fourth alternate hallowgender flag designed by FANDOM user WriterThatArts.  In the ecosystem of gender-diversity, flags have become a thing; the gay liberation movement's Rainbow flags are the best-known but there are banners for many non-cisgender sub-sets and other divergencies including the still much-marginalized Objectum community.  

TFS: The Tenebrous Gender System

A fork of the MOGAI community, the TGS (Tenebrous Gender System) was said to have been created by Tumblr user Hallowgender who on 12 September 2020 published a codified version; under TGS, all sub-types are in some way and to some degree connected to “darkness and gloominess”.  All are related also to other things or concepts and that some of those might stand in stark contradiction to darkness and gloominess was noted without further comment.  In a sign of the times, TGS, with seven categories, is said to be “one of the smallest gender systems” and that reflects the recent proliferation from something which for millennia usually was represented as a binary.  Each TGS category has a flag:

Tenebrariarumian: A gender that is dark, enveloping, and colorful.  It is gloomy, calming and cold.  Exemplar: Billie Eilish (b 2001).

Tenebrasian: A gender that is dark, separating, and sullen.  It is gloomy, tumultuous and warm.  Exemplar: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986).

Tenebellariumian: A gender that is flamboyant, dark, cool, and wintry. It is gloomy, calming, and freezing as well but may tend also to fluidity and can be similar to Burlesgender.  Exemplar: Kim Kardashian (b 1980).

Tenebrationisian: A gender that is masculine, toasty, calming, and similar to the sea at night.  It is gloomy, calming, and connected to anchors, boats, and summer.  Exemplar: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, b 1989).

Tenebricosumian: A gender that is cautious, wintry, dark and comforting.  It is small, fluid, and flux.  Exemplar: Bernie Sanders (b 1941).

Tenebricumian: A gender that is icy, soft, watery and comforting. It is large, fluid, and flux.  Exemplar: Sydney Sweeney (b 1997).

Tenebrosumian: A gender that is icy, soft, electric and powerful.  It is large, fluid and flux as well.  It can be connected to lights in a city at night, blankets and snowy afternoons.  Exemplar: Jessica Simpson (b 1980).

Aesthetigender

Aesthetigender was said to have been coined in 2014 by Tumblr user curiosityismysin and the original description read: “a gender experience that is derived from, or the embodiment of, an aesthetic”; from that came the mission creep which saw the term evolve from a “standalone gender” to being an entire sub-category of MOGAI genders to the point where it is one of the largest.  The nature of the beast is such that within the rubric of aesthetigender it’s an irrelevance to try to determine where one ends and another begins and the extent of proliferation anyway made overlap inevitable.  As might be imagined, a category in which the imperative is “a gender which in some ways relates to an aesthetic” is so broad that probably all MOGAI genders could be made to fit under the umbrella, including terms that aren't obviously “aesthetically linked” because just as “everything is text”, in a sense, “everything has an aesthetic”.  That has to be right because the root of aesthetigender ultimately can be traced back to a rejection of gender as a binary and the nonbinary activist movement really began as something aesthetic before a conceptual framework was built.  The MOGAI community now lists over 600 known aesthetigenders and while some (like many entries in the phobia lists) are variants, jocular coinings or exercises in novelty, such is the breadth, there must be something for just about everyone; some illustrative examples are:

Abandoe: a gender similar to that of an abandoned house; could be dead, genderless or of themes being empty and intimidating.

Adorbian: a xenic alignment to cuteness or cute things.

Aesthetigxrl: a girl or woman who is also aesthetifluid.  Your aesthetigenders act as an overlay, affecting pronouns and desired presentation.  If the aesthetic is heavily aligned with a different gender, your gender might be obscured until the aestheticgender changes. Comes under the genderfluid umbrella. (Gxrl can be substituted with your main gender (bxy, boy, girl, xen, enby ect).

Ancientus: a gender that feels like it is becoming ancient and unused, regardless of whether it is or is not.

Animecoric: a gender related to animecore.

Antiancientius: a gender that feels like it is coming back from being ancient and unused to being new and used

Arcage: a gender that feels locked up in a coffin or mausoleum, it’s desolate and unused but can be revisited and used for a small amount of time.  It can also be related to coffins, cemeteries and Halloween.

Autumnusian: a slightly neutral gender related to autumn (fall), fallen leaves, oak trees, the smell of maples, rain, and/or the sun.

Bellusgender: a gender relating to anything beautiful to the user’s eye (can be flowers, pets etc).

Burlesgender: A gender that is ineffable, extremely hard to label, but is flamboyantly and fabulously androgynous.  It was first coined as Ziggystardustgender but changed due to this referencing a fictional character.

Camogender: a gender that’s hard to see on the outside, almost invisible, but very deep and full of meaning on the inside. Can be thick or thin but is always not what it appears to be.

Cosmiccoric: a gender that feels like you’re a cosmic entity, one with the universe, especially when meditating.

Crystalforestgender: a gender associated with both crystals and forests or that is easily described by both forests and crystals.

Demi-Smoke: a transcendental, spiritual gender roughly drifting to other genders that are unable to be foreseen or understood, shrouded in darkness within your inner visual.  Elevating through mystery and caused by a lack of inner interpretation and one’s dark emotional states.

Derkazgender: where you feel like parts of your gender are hidden or concealed in darkness.

Djender: a gender that is harsh and jagged.

Elegender: a gender up to interpretation by individuals, but in essence is an ethereal gender that is unable to be understood by either the individual or others; a gender that cannot be explained; a dainty, elegant, or delicate gender.

Estetikgender: when your gender is influenced by your current aesthetic.

Fatugender: a useless gender.

Fractigender: a gender identity characterized by different genders occurring with different intensities, and yet still connected (either through expression, interpretation, or being experienced simultaneously).  This identity is based on the Latin fractus (broken), perfect passive participle of frangō (break, fragment), the idea being a pattern that repeats on smaller and smaller scales, and different locations.

Genderabyssalis: a gender that is dark, deep, and abyssal.  It may be connected to darkness, dimness, and cold nights.  It can be masculine or neuter-aligned, but need not be.

Genderamburo: a gender that feels slightly scorched or burnt.

Genderardere: a gender that feels like it has been burnt/scorched, but still remains.

Genderatrum: a gender shrouded into darkness. It feels gloomy and unwelcoming, isolating itself from other genders.

Gendercalefecere: a gender that feels like it warms, and then quickly cools again.

Gendercimiterium: a gender related to graveyards.  It feels buried underneath other genders, and trapped forever more.

Genderclock: a xenogender related with time and clocks.

Gendergothica: a gender that feels Gothic or related to Gothic architecture or literature.

Gendermortes: A gender that fades into death.

Gendermortuss: A gender that feels dead or is barely clinging to life.

Gendernoir: A gender related to the noir aesthetic.

Genderplush: A gender related to teddy bears.

Gendertextus: a gender that is woven into other genders.

Icegender: A cold gender that's disconnected from emotion

Lolitagender: A gender related to Lolita fashion.

Magikavine: A gender related to the color purple, dark circus aesthetics, and magic.

Mermaidcoric: A gender related to mermaidcore.

Multioculaec: a gender related to having or wanting multiple eyes (Based off Wingphinaec).

Naufragiumgender: a gender simply abandoned.  It is similar to a shipwreck in that it just plainly disappears for a while, later to be rediscovered by advancing into the depths of gender.

Necrogender: a gender that used to exist but is now 'dead' or nonexistent.

Nightshadegender: when your gender feels ominous and dangerous if wrongly handled.

Noirgender: an aesthetic gender based on being goth.

Noxnidorian: A gender that’s related to the night and specifically the smell of the night.

Nymphetic: genders relating to the nymphet/doelette/coquette/faunlet aesthetic & fashion, without k!nk attatched

Ophthalmogender: a gender described by your own eye and its characteristics at some point.

Opscugender: a dark, murky gender, hard to describe or see.

Pastelgothcoric: a gender related to pastel gothcore, or just pastel goth in general!

Petrichic: a xenic-alignment with rain, storms, and water.

Pictogender: a gender that can only be described through imagery. A pictogender individual might only be able to describe their gender with icons, symbols, emojis, color gradients, or some other visual.

Pinkcoric: A gender related to pinkcore.

Punque: a gender characterized by the punk aesthetic, fashion, culture, music and attitude.  Can be used as a descriptor or as a noun.

Puppetic: A xenogender related to puppets/marionettes.

Sadcoric: A gender related to sadcore

Sapphiregender: A gender that is aesthetically related to sapphires, a gender that is feminine, non-binary, and vaguely fluid.

Savmysterius: a masculine xenogender that feels shrouded in fog and is hard to define. It’s slightly fluid, golden and ancient, and draws influence from many sources, including: crystals & forests, stars & death, old gods & demons, angels and the fae.

Sexygender: a gender that is very, very sexy

Shampooium: a dermagender that feels sudsy like shampoo, and makes other genders feel healthy as well.

Shipwreckian: a gender somehow connected to shipwrecks, the deep sea, shades of blue and warm ocean waters.

Sliwarmasix: a slightly warm gender, it hovers slightly above other genders and never flares up.

Somnigender: a gender identity related to, dependent upon, or inexorably connected to a feeling of sleepiness or tiredness. Alternately, it can refer to a gender that is difficult or impossible to perceive or identify due to feelings of sleepiness or tiredness.  Not a narcolepsy/insomnia-based neurogender, just general sleepiness.

Squishyic: a xenogender related to squishies.

Starboy: A gender related to boasting, cyberpunk, and crime.

Tenebric: a gender that feels cold and dark; it smells of moss and nature.

Traumacoric: A gender related to traumacore.

Urbisgender: a gender built like a city, composed of many, many parts that all function to help one another; full of many small parts and things to discover.

Vampcoric: a coric gender related to vampirecore.

Wanderlust Gender: a labyrinthine, eerie gender that’s impossible to navigate or map, but which causes no anxiety.  This gender is fun to explore even if it’s easy to get lost in.

Windowgender: a gender feeling like the space between the glass and the screen of the window thus either a free-flowing gender or for those who feel their genders are transparent!

Wingphinaec: a gender related to wings or having wings!

Witchcoric: a xenogender related to witchcore.

Xenoirgender: A gender based in emo, scene and other offshoots of goth.

Zombiecoric: a masculine, feminine or neutral gender based around zombiecore; feels decayed & dark, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.