Chasin’ The Hypebeast
Janky Drop #1In July 2023, GLyFFMaN appeared outside of an Urban Outfitters store in Brighton’s Churchill Square Shopping Centre with x25 limited edition Tees. After waiting several minutes for security staff to dissipate, GLyFFMaN switched on a wireless PA system and quickly drew a crowd of people, before announcing the launch of the new streetwear brand Janky Drops.Presented as a speculative collaboration with Urban Outfitters, GLyFFMaN confessed: “They don’t even know it yet!”. This was part of GLyFFMaN’s dual address to the crowd as part spoken-word piece Chasin’ The Hypebeast, and part brand promotion. The drop was underscored with an intentionally distorted audio loop, evoking a kind of subversive rawness. Everything was designed to demand attention.The whole drop lasted no longer than four minutes before security shut it down. All x25 Tees were gone.
The void can be filled with the fantastic
The project explores the culture of product drops, with a particular focus on the psychology that underpins consumptive behaviour. It draws inspiration from brands like Supreme, Nike, Adidas, Balenciaga, and Urban Outfitters (the no.1 Gen Z affinity brand).
As a society entangled in a web of consumerism and hype, we are perpetually chasing the next big thing. Always roused and poised for a new drop. Get it now before it’s gone forever. Brands play with our desire like a toy thing, winding us up into a frenzy with limited edition merch. Once the I just have to have that mindset is triggered, there’s no rationalising with ourselves.
This whole thing’s spinning maaaaan.
Chasin’ The HYPEBEAST.
Adjust the focus.
Focus in. Focusing.
Hocus Pocus.
Can’t get the locus in the frame.
Riding the wave.
Thinking they’ll make fame in the frame.
Chaos magic reigns supreme in these channels.
Broken screen dreams.
Doom scrolls and screams beneath the sheen fiend.
Focus on,
as I doom scroll on.
As I doom scroll on.
Getting sucked into an Insta Hole … again.
The bad loop.
Neg spiral head. BAM.
Don’t get caught with the hook in your head kids.
Dead kids. No joke.
Got caught in a choke hold below the screen fold.
Subterranean design.
Gives you the bad fruit loop.
Machine rhythm with no joy. Just division.
Leaves my head spinning and the others winning.
Fake likes and fame spikes.
We’re chasin’ the wrong spikes.
In fact, we’re all in a contract.
Machine with no heart. A hollow shell.
Hell-bent on time spent in this chamber.
A ride we can’t get off, so we fall off.
But here’s the thing.
Here’s the thing.
See past that.
See past that veneer.
That mask. That filter. That thing.
What’s your handle?
@what? @who? @stop underscore that.
Click. Tap. Scroll past that.
No more chasin’ that.
The hypebeast.
The hypebeast. Inside.
The heart sighs.
This is an organic matter.
What matters most?
But hey. Yo.
Heard that new track?
It just adds to that!
That endless feast.
Chasing the next big thing. Until you’re nothing.
Silly thing, bad thing, wrong thing, past it, past that, can’t even hold down a contract.
Cause your mind is whack.
Whacked out, smacked out, mind snapped, brain zapped.
Brain zap. So they give you the Prozac.
You get the meds to ease the pre-lapse.
Numb the beat. To keep chasing the beast.
You’re feedin’ it.
Too numbed out to see that.
Keep your mind on track to buy that.
Play in 3 to own that.
No souls left to know that. This road we’re on is oblivi-on.
But we gotta own that. We rock that.
The beast knows that.
Chasin’ the hypebeast is a terminal contract.
Term in its contract.
Contact with the beast is imminent.
You’re not gonna burn out, just turn out in your best fit.
Unfit for work so get signed off.
Now you’re fell off.
No place to stand out. Just stand out.
Rest up. Stressed up. Beast in me is frenzied.
ROOOAAAAARRR.
To the floor … that’s falling through.
No time to feel this blue.
So grab the plastic and don’t be drastic.
The void can be filled with the fantastic.
Haptics. The feedback.
Like a drug to bring the mind back.
Purrrrchase. Beast in my basket.
The chase is over. It ends here … for a second.
No wait, what’s that? A new drop.
I just have to have that.
Chasin’ The Hypebeast, Grant Cieciura.