Subculture Vulture

If you’re on this website, you probably participate in a few subcultures – the reading or writing communities, some fandoms, and a Jewish group or two. We all have these small microcosms, enabled by the internet, that hugely enhance our lives while also becoming major time sucks. We are, by and large, dabblers in the art of the subculture. Comedian Moshe Kasher, on the other hand, is a specialist. In his memoir Subculture Vulture, he details how six different subculture have affected his life and breaks down some of the reasons why he chose to participate in them. If personal anecdotal experience were allowed to stand in for rigorous sociological research, he could be a scholar of the subculture and Subculture Vulture his dissertation.

This was my second foray into audio books, and the audio file opened right up to the author introducing himself as the narrator. I loved this! While I have never watched a single one of his comedy shows, I now know that Moshe Kasher has a uniquely fun and soothing reading voice. I highly recommend listening during stressful commutes or annoying household chores.

The six subcultures detailed are: alcoholics anonymous (hereafter referred to as AA), 1990’s rave culture, Child of Deaf Adult (CODA), the Burning Man festival, Hassidic Judaism, and stand up comedy. With each section, Kasher gives a brief history and overview of the subculture in question, details his involvement, and sums up how this has affected him as well as what it might mean for society at large. When it comes to AA, which I have a weird familiarity with for a person that’s never even gotten drunk yet alone addicted, I could have used less detail. When it came to learning about the deaf community as seen through the eyes of a child of two deaf parents, I could not get enough! You’re experience will likely vary based on what you bring to the table.

For two of the subcultures mentioned, deaf culture and Hassidic Judaism, I felt that Kasher was not really a participant. The chapters on the deaf community read like a love letter to his deaf mother, but it would have been more interesting for me had he delved more into his own personal experiences as a CODA. For heavens sake, it even has its own acronym! Surely it has it’s own subculture? And for the Judaism chapter, Kasher never really willingly participated in ultra-orthodox or Hassidic Judaism. He looked on as his father did. He even details exactly how he was excluded as an outsider (the anecdote about the family photo was particularly egregious). It was very clear to me that he was viewed as an outsider by every single one of those Hassidic relatives, and I think it was clear to him too.

Kasher has a lively writing style, and his analysis of each subculture is nuanced. He may not be able to explain why he can stay sober without AA anymore, or if this has anything to do with the fact that he went through his cycles of addiction and sobriety as a teenager (too bad he joined and left AA before the ‘never had a legal drink’ meetings started), but he was very capable of explaining why AA culture can alienate a lot of people – including anyone who isn’t Christian. Not knowing much about rave culture or Burning Man, I found the strengths in those sections to be Kasher’s ability to analyze why these movements took off but also how they self imploded or morphed into entirely different entities. The peak behind the scenes into stand up comedy will probably be the most controversial. I’m sure quite a few people will have strong feelings about his musings on the pros and cons of policing comedy and how social media has morphed this particular style of performance art.

I have no idea if Subculture Vulture would have been nearly half as compelling had I read it on paper. Kasher is an animated and engaging audio narrator. It’s possible I’d love the physical book too – but you can only read something for the first time once – and I am glad I chose the audio book. I’m also grateful that my library had it available for me – because library patron is most definitely one of my top subcultures.

Find It: Amazon | Bookshop