This chapter treats the meaning of manele as part of a broader social phenomenon deeply rooted in post-totalitarian "decompression." The individual search for social re-positioning and "authenticity" in the loosely regulated but compulsively market-oriented space of manele is characterized by a "primitive accumulation of desire" that fuels a large variety of social practices and expectations. According to the author, it is this "manelized" society itself that engenders the mushrooming of manele, and not the other way around as canonically stated by most of the Romanian public elites.