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Is there anything sadder than a Kneecap fan? Privileged kids in tricolour balaclavas leaping around like demented wombats. Bourgeois radicals donning IRA fancy dress in a desperate bid to annoy daddy. And the music! Perhaps those Provo tea cosies are designed to block out the tuneless warbling of this theatre-kid trio who larp as dangerous hoodlums.
The amazing lameness of Kneecap’s fanbase is summed up in new photos of Greta Thunberg at their Belfast gig on Thursday. She cuts a lonely, tragic figure in the swell of faux-punks. She’s wearing not only the tricolour balaclava but also that holiest garment of the smug set: the keffiyeh. All she needed was a Pride flag over her shoulders to perfect the trifecta of virtuous garb.
Thunberg embodies the Fisher-Price radicalism of the modern middle class. She is almost weighed down by her own virtue, no doubt struggling in the muggy heat under that woollen mask and Gaza pashmina
Thunberg embodies the Fisher-Price radicalism of the modern middle class. She is almost weighed down by her own virtue, no doubt struggling in the muggy heat under that woollen mask and Gaza pashmina. Still, what’s a little physical discomfort so long as you get to advertise your righteousness?Greta and Kneecap might seem worlds apart, she is the daughter of an opera singer, they are the trackie-wearing tearaways of rap who chant ‘Get your Brits out’ for the titillation of Trinity kids and the English middle class. But in truth they’re a match made in heaven. Both do smug chic. Both hate Israel. And both pose as fearless speakers of truth to power and yet are fawned over by virtually the entire cultural establishment. How curious.
