my original phrasing was 'shattering', maybe i should have left it that way. but i agree. one of the best essays i've read on the subject: https://www.gwern.ne

my original phrasing was 'shattering', maybe i should have left it that way. but i agree. one of the best essays i've read on the subject: https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Subculture-Society https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Subculture-Society > The otaku & hikikomori recognizes this dilemma and he chooses - to reject normal life! He rejects life in the larger culture for his subculture5. It’s a simple matter of comparative advantage; it’s easier to be a big fish in a small pond than in a large one.6 [...] > As ever more opt out, the larger culture is damaged.7 The culture begins to fragment back into pieces. The disconnect can be profound; an American anime geek has more in common with a Japanese anime geek (who is of a different ethnicity, a different culture, a different religion, a different language…) than he does with an American involved in the evangelical Christian subculture. There is essentially no common ground - our 2 countrymen probably can’t even agree on objective matters like governance or evolution! > With enough of these gaps, where is "American" or "French" culture? Such cultural identities take centuries to coalesce - France did not speak French until the 1900s (as The Discovery of France recounts), and Han China is still digesting & assimilating its many minorities & outlying regions. America, of course, had it easy in starting with a small founder population which could just exterminate the natives.