culture vulture

plural culture vultures · alternative culture-vulture

1. humorousinformalA person with a rapacious, sometimes inauthentic, interest in the arts.First known use early 20th c.

   Be a culture vulture by going to the ballet, opera or a classical concert.

   2004, Susie Whalley, Lisa Jackson, “Get Set for Success”, in Running Made Easy, London: Robson Books, →ISBN, page 41

   5 more examples

   […] —unless of course "culture" is thought to be something decoratively added when all else has been accomplished, the fairy on the Christmas tree: an approach which opens wide the way for culture-vultures and peddlars of arty gentility, upon whom "culture" sits (to misuse an image of T. S. Eliot's) like a silk hat upon a Bradford millionaire.

   1958, The Canadian Historical Review, volume 39, Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 241

   Around 59th and Lexington, where Dry Dock Savings Bank is located, pickings are lush for the purple-pantsuited culture vulture.

   1970 March 9, “The Culture Vulture's Swoop through Dry Dock Country [advertisement]”, in New York, volume 3, number 10, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 13, column 1

   Leaving aside for a moment the problem [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe was touching on with his vivid image of a play 'fresh from the pan', we can see that this is a man of the living theatre who was not interested in a culture-vulture audience.

   1983, Walter Hinck, “Man of the Theatre”, in Elizabeth M[ary] Wilkinson, editor, Goethe Revisited: A Collection of Essays, London: John Calder; New York, N.Y.: Riverrun Press, published 1984, →ISBN, page 158

   [A] failed composer who thinks himself to be [Anton] Webern's successor, and his pretentious wife, a culture vulture.

   2001, Christine [Olga] Kiebuzinska, Intertextual Loops in Modern Drama, Madison; Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, →ISBN

   A through northbound service to Finsbury Park […] was the 'Theatre Express'. It was meant to serve theatre-goers who lived on the main-line stops beyond Finsbury Park – say, Enfield. […] But there weren't enough culture vultures in places like Enfield to justify the service.

   2012, Andrew Martin, “Enter Yerkes”, in Underground Overground: A Passenger’s History of the Tube, London: Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 151–152

2. derogatoryslanghuman sciencesSomeone who engages in cultural appropriation; a cultural appropriator.First known use c. 1990

   However, a different indigenous researcher sees the use of restorative justice circles by nonindigenous people as being more of culture vultures and taking culture applicable to them and ignoring a brutal history of abuse, oppression, and genocide.

   2020, Thomas Reed, “A Critical Review of the Native American Tradition of Circle Practices”, in Robin Throne, editor, Indigenous Research of Land, Self, and Spirit (Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies Book Series), Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Reference, IGI Global, published 2021, →ISBN, page 135

   1 more example

   Similarly, plug-in culture participates in a long history of cultural appropriation related to the construction of the male neoliberal subject. Think about Diplo, EDM producer-DJ and oft-accused "culture vulture," whose modus operandi involves applying Western, Eurocentric, and Americanized EDM styles to samples from global dance music communities.

   2022, Mike D’Errico, “Plug-in Cultures”, in Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Sonic Architectures), page 43