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related -- this is an interesting read on sub-cultures and how (in the author's opinion) they are co-opted over time: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopa

related -- this is an interesting read on sub-cultures and how (in the author's opinion) they are co-opted over time: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths excerpt: Subcultures were the main creative cultural force from roughly 1975 to 2000, when they stopped working. Why? One reason—among several—is that as soon as subcultures start getting really interesting, they get invaded by muggles, who ruin them. Subcultures have a predictable lifecycle, in which popularity causes death.

deleted 8y ago
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girvo 8y ago
Which is why the (really) underground post-rock “scene” in Brisbane is still going; no one knows it exists except the bands and about 100 people who go to the gigs! There’s even a distinctive sound to it.
kaycebasques 8y ago
That was a wild read. Thanks for sharing.
a-dub 8y ago
It's an interesting piece, but it seems like sorts of things people would say when we actually had subcultures. I often wrack my brain trying to think, what changed... Was it the Internet sucking a lot of the money out of the music industry? Was it the aging out of GenX? Was it the long term structural effects of the GFC, with the shrinking of the middle class and the subsequent capital booms that QE created? Was it a change in perspective in a generation coming up with a lot of economic and global turmoil happening? (no time for culture, time to get to work, economic security is fragile) Was it the growth of online dating platforms and social media? (Was all of this just an incredibly complex system of mating calls?) Was it the death of place? Did these cultures lose their luster when anyone could just read all about them online, consume them, and move on? Or perhaps a sort of centralization and homogenization of culture as a result of trends happening in the digital world (where everybody is reading the same things, thinking the same things, doing the same things, in any city)? Was it the growth of burning man? A sort of Wal-Mart of subculture. Was it rising real estate prices and the gentrification of cities globally? (Was this new global interest in urban living driven by the Internet in some way?) Was it the fetishizing of Internet business? (Why do pop stars have Internet startups now, anyhow?) ...but yes, it is super interesting. American cities these days seem to be full steam ahead away from the weird and into the terrifyingly boring, and they have long been fertile grounds for the germination and growth of subcultures. Does it really just all come down to $?
- andyidsinga 8y ago
  IMHO - I think the one thing wrong about that piece is that subcultures are dead. I think they're still around, its just the ones I was in tune with are gone (maybe to be reborn without me). Looked at a different way, the author is writing a cautionary prediction to anyone who is involved in a sub-culture > be careful who you admit, else death becomes it.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >I often wrack my brain trying to think, what changed... A subculture can only exist if there's a barrier to entry. Commodification, globalisation and social liberalism eroded those barriers. In their day, hippies and punks paid a real social price for their subcultural identity - they outraged society and were marginalised for it. If you wanted to be a mod in the 60s, you needed money and cultural capital to get the right clothes, the right records, the right scooter. The Wigan Casino and the Twisted Wheel formed a nucleus for the Northern Soul subculture, because they were the only place you could hear rare soul records. Carnaby Street and the King's Road formed the nucleus for the mod scene, because they were the only place you could buy tonic suits and winkle picker shoes. Streaming has democratised access to new and obscure music. Retailers like H&M have democratised access to the latest fashions. Social media has democratised access to cultural capital. A new trend can spread globally within a matter of weeks, diluting any possibility of it spawning a subculture. There's very little that a teenager could wear or listen to that is genuinely shocking. Without a barrier to entry, there is no subculture, just culture. There are two thriving youth subcultures, they just don't fit our idea of what a youth subculture is supposed to look like - the social justice movement and the alt-right. There's a social cost to holding extreme political views, which prevents these subcultures from being absorbed into the cultural mainstream. Your parents probably won't disown you if you dye your hair purple, get a neck tattoo or listen to Merzbow. They might well disown you if you start saying that all white men are complicit in rape culture or that Hitler had a point.
  - a-dub 8y ago
    subcultures or supercultures as everything is subsumed into some kind of subphysical hellscape of abject banality where group think and mob mentality rule the day centering on the most immaterial of arguments and supercharged by misapplied statistics for engineering consumptive behavior. cool.

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girvo 8y ago

Which is why the (really) underground post-rock “scene” in Brisbane is still going; no one knows it exists except the bands and about 100 people who go to the gigs! There’s even a distinctive sound to it.

kaycebasques 8y ago

That was a wild read. Thanks for sharing.

a-dub 8y ago

It's an interesting piece, but it seems like sorts of things people would say when we actually had subcultures. I often wrack my brain trying to think, what changed... Was it the Internet sucking a lot of the money out of the music industry? Was it the aging out of GenX? Was it the long term structural effects of the GFC, with the shrinking of the middle class and the subsequent capital booms that QE created? Was it a change in perspective in a generation coming up with a lot of economic and global turmoil happening? (no time for culture, time to get to work, economic security is fragile) Was it the growth of online dating platforms and social media? (Was all of this just an incredibly complex system of mating calls?) Was it the death of place? Did these cultures lose their luster when anyone could just read all about them online, consume them, and move on? Or perhaps a sort of centralization and homogenization of culture as a result of trends happening in the digital world (where everybody is reading the same things, thinking the same things, doing the same things, in any city)? Was it the growth of burning man? A sort of Wal-Mart of subculture. Was it rising real estate prices and the gentrification of cities globally? (Was this new global interest in urban living driven by the Internet in some way?) Was it the fetishizing of Internet business? (Why do pop stars have Internet startups now, anyhow?) ...but yes, it is super interesting. American cities these days seem to be full steam ahead away from the weird and into the terrifyingly boring, and they have long been fertile grounds for the germination and growth of subcultures. Does it really just all come down to $?

andyidsinga 8y ago
IMHO - I think the one thing wrong about that piece is that subcultures are dead. I think they're still around, its just the ones I was in tune with are gone (maybe to be reborn without me). Looked at a different way, the author is writing a cautionary prediction to anyone who is involved in a sub-culture > be careful who you admit, else death becomes it.
jdietrich 8y ago
>I often wrack my brain trying to think, what changed... A subculture can only exist if there's a barrier to entry. Commodification, globalisation and social liberalism eroded those barriers. In their day, hippies and punks paid a real social price for their subcultural identity - they outraged society and were marginalised for it. If you wanted to be a mod in the 60s, you needed money and cultural capital to get the right clothes, the right records, the right scooter. The Wigan Casino and the Twisted Wheel formed a nucleus for the Northern Soul subculture, because they were the only place you could hear rare soul records. Carnaby Street and the King's Road formed the nucleus for the mod scene, because they were the only place you could buy tonic suits and winkle picker shoes. Streaming has democratised access to new and obscure music. Retailers like H&M have democratised access to the latest fashions. Social media has democratised access to cultural capital. A new trend can spread globally within a matter of weeks, diluting any possibility of it spawning a subculture. There's very little that a teenager could wear or listen to that is genuinely shocking. Without a barrier to entry, there is no subculture, just culture. There are two thriving youth subcultures, they just don't fit our idea of what a youth subculture is supposed to look like - the social justice movement and the alt-right. There's a social cost to holding extreme political views, which prevents these subcultures from being absorbed into the cultural mainstream. Your parents probably won't disown you if you dye your hair purple, get a neck tattoo or listen to Merzbow. They might well disown you if you start saying that all white men are complicit in rape culture or that Hitler had a point.
- a-dub 8y ago
  subcultures or supercultures as everything is subsumed into some kind of subphysical hellscape of abject banality where group think and mob mentality rule the day centering on the most immaterial of arguments and supercharged by misapplied statistics for engineering consumptive behavior. cool.