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All that's being "ruined" is people's ability to pretend that building identity through access to exclusive cultural groups and hard-to-get consumer items repre
by dkarl 2y ago
All that's being "ruined" is people's ability to pretend that building identity through access to exclusive cultural groups and hard-to-get consumer items represents some kind rarified social achievement. Commodifying it punctures their illusion of specialness and makes it clear that they don't value their culture in itself, they value how it sets them apart from putatively lesser people. If capitalism ruins that for them, then good.
- rightbyte 2y agoYou might want to have some sort of simple effort filter for your subculture. Fashion is a simple one.
- dkarl 2y agoThen you have a subculture defined by fashion, which might be fun for the people in it, but it's not something anyone else has any stake in preserving. Nothing of value is lost if it disappears.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoCultures have identified themselves with visual cues since, well, probably before people were humans.
- pier25 2y agoI'm not really arguing about whether something is ruined or not. I do agree humans are generally obssessed with identity. In many cases this behavior is enabled via brands and fashion but it also happens with cultural and social constructs (eg: religion, ideologies, etc).
- harimau777 2y agoPerhaps it's precisely that "illusion of specialness" that gives people the sense of agency to fight capitalism (or whatever other ill you want to put in its place). In that case, capitalism ruining people's ability to "ruin" that would be a big deal.