4 ms·

Where I grew up in Switzerland, I'd say the most authentic subcultures were in the secondary cities. A couple of tens of thousands of people in population. Big

by smoe 2y ago

Where I grew up in Switzerland, I'd say the most authentic subcultures were in the secondary cities. A couple of tens of thousands of people in population. Big enough to have minority communities, but still small enough to not get mainstreamed to the same degree as in the "big" cities

camgunz 2y ago
100%. Lately I'm kind of obsessed with cities "in the middle". I don't really know what the definition is exactly, maybe like "you have a pretty big train station" or something, but yeah something where you get all or most of the benefits of a city without the bonkers downsides of "world cities". I think there's a lot to be said about housing costs for sure--probably the main issue but I think it's downstream of a lot of liberal culture that was very OK with building a wall between the and poor people while their housing values skyrocket--but what TFA calls out is also a pretty succinct way to say what I think a lot of people are nibbling at the edges of: there's a single Airbnb/Instagram aesthetic everyone's pursuing and the mechanisms we have for honing whatever we're doing to more perfectly match that aesthetic are so powerful they're blanding things faster than we can create a backlash. When I rented my first apartment in NYC I needed to buy a shower curtain, and I was in a very "don't use Amazon" mode, which meant I was about to discover how little choice you really have when it comes to buying one locally. I got one home I thought I liked, but hanging it up I discovered it had totally trite _words_ on it like "Happiness" and "Sunshine" or whatever. It was so cringe and not my personality even a little, and I cursed God for saddling me with a lot of unpleasant options at that point (throw it away immediately and create waste and go through the whole rigamarole or getting a new one blah blah). But for some reason I suddenly had the thought that this was really enriching my life. It was so totally unlike me it weirdly stretched my experience in a really refreshing way. It was a low-key funny story. It does actually put you kind of in a good mood if you're not actively resenting it while showering. Secondary cities are like that, but for your whole life. It might not be your choice, you might not have access to everything you need to sculpt your life for maximum clout or virality, but it turns out that's an insidious kind of poverty. We're better when things outside our control influence us at least a little. Some examples of this: - local restaurants take pretty bonkers chances with their menus and change them seasonally, so it's possible you just won't like anything at a place all winter, but then the spring menu is amazing - there's a gas station a few blocks away from us which isn't that pleasant on paper (traffic, odors, light pollution, though we don't experience this from where we live) but for some reason it makes me super nostalgic - we used to do a swim class with our oldest every weekend, but there really isn't one here (in English), but the music class we just found is also very fun even though we really wanted a swim class I could go on. Maybe I'm aging, maybe it's becoming a parent, but the thought of moving back to an NYC or even a Chicago feels deeply uninspiring and exhausting. I want the weird decor/playlist choices. I want the people who only run their shop 2 days a week. The constraints big cities labor under have become too intense for them to really be surprising; they have to be so efficient they can't be robust.
- mlsu 2y ago
  This is a recent problem with big cities and it primarily concerns the price of real estate. New York in the 60s was a truly counterculture place because with a little bit of money you could live downtown and afford to do your art. Now if you want to be an artist in New York City, you have 2 options: be a full time artist but completely aligned with wealthy gallery culture (i.e., be appealing to "mainstream") or work in finance and do art on the side. This is why NYC produces no actually interesting culture anymore. Same is true of Berlin, CDMX, etc. such places are maximally interesting within the constraint of "must be wealthy" which necessarily excludes lots of cultural expression. They are also riding on the interestingness that was generated decades ago when the financial situation was different.
  - badc0ffee 2y ago
    Where is the actually interesting culture coming from? I'm in my 40s, and a parent, so I feel like (at least for now) I've lost the ability to tell and the inclination to seek it out anymore anyway. Being a seriously big city, NY must still have "home-grown" art and culture, like its hip-hop scene or the modern equivalent? Kids are still growing up in rent controlled apartments surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other kids, even if starving artists aren't arriving from the outside like they used to.
    - speed_spread 2y ago
      Culture grows at boundaries, in places of uncertainty and chaos. Culture tests the limit of what is acceptable. As we start building permanent structures (such as a family) we naturally start avoiding these zones of turbulence because they are challenging to navigate and we need the energy elsewhere. It's ok.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Where is the actually interesting culture coming from Your kid's bedroom (if your a Gen X parent). Youth culture is now heavily social media or short content based, making it easier to reach out to large audiences while staying at home. You can build and manage an entire community of friends just by using Discord or other similar products, so you can develop a network effect without having to be in-person. Take a look at SoundCloud Rap, TikTok shorts, Gamer Youtube, Podcasts, ASMR, etc. Also, a lot of us younger people had some of our most formative years during the lockdowns, which turbocharged online culture.
boscillator 2y ago
The joke the article references seems to think this too, saying you'll find real subcultures in Albany. For some reason the article thinks Albany is the county, despite the fact it is a city with a population of 100k and a couple blocks of skyscrapers downtown.

by smoe 2y ago

camgunz 2y ago

100%. Lately I'm kind of obsessed with cities "in the middle". I don't really know what the definition is exactly, maybe like "you have a pretty big train station" or something, but yeah something where you get all or most of the benefits of a city without the bonkers downsides of "world cities". I think there's a lot to be said about housing costs for sure--probably the main issue but I think it's downstream of a lot of liberal culture that was very OK with building a wall between the and poor people while their housing values skyrocket--but what TFA calls out is also a pretty succinct way to say what I think a lot of people are nibbling at the edges of: there's a single Airbnb/Instagram aesthetic everyone's pursuing and the mechanisms we have for honing whatever we're doing to more perfectly match that aesthetic are so powerful they're blanding things faster than we can create a backlash. When I rented my first apartment in NYC I needed to buy a shower curtain, and I was in a very "don't use Amazon" mode, which meant I was about to discover how little choice you really have when it comes to buying one locally. I got one home I thought I liked, but hanging it up I discovered it had totally trite _words_ on it like "Happiness" and "Sunshine" or whatever. It was so cringe and not my personality even a little, and I cursed God for saddling me with a lot of unpleasant options at that point (throw it away immediately and create waste and go through the whole rigamarole or getting a new one blah blah). But for some reason I suddenly had the thought that this was really enriching my life. It was so totally unlike me it weirdly stretched my experience in a really refreshing way. It was a low-key funny story. It does actually put you kind of in a good mood if you're not actively resenting it while showering. Secondary cities are like that, but for your whole life. It might not be your choice, you might not have access to everything you need to sculpt your life for maximum clout or virality, but it turns out that's an insidious kind of poverty. We're better when things outside our control influence us at least a little. Some examples of this: - local restaurants take pretty bonkers chances with their menus and change them seasonally, so it's possible you just won't like anything at a place all winter, but then the spring menu is amazing - there's a gas station a few blocks away from us which isn't that pleasant on paper (traffic, odors, light pollution, though we don't experience this from where we live) but for some reason it makes me super nostalgic - we used to do a swim class with our oldest every weekend, but there really isn't one here (in English), but the music class we just found is also very fun even though we really wanted a swim class I could go on. Maybe I'm aging, maybe it's becoming a parent, but the thought of moving back to an NYC or even a Chicago feels deeply uninspiring and exhausting. I want the weird decor/playlist choices. I want the people who only run their shop 2 days a week. The constraints big cities labor under have become too intense for them to really be surprising; they have to be so efficient they can't be robust.

mlsu 2y ago
This is a recent problem with big cities and it primarily concerns the price of real estate. New York in the 60s was a truly counterculture place because with a little bit of money you could live downtown and afford to do your art. Now if you want to be an artist in New York City, you have 2 options: be a full time artist but completely aligned with wealthy gallery culture (i.e., be appealing to "mainstream") or work in finance and do art on the side. This is why NYC produces no actually interesting culture anymore. Same is true of Berlin, CDMX, etc. such places are maximally interesting within the constraint of "must be wealthy" which necessarily excludes lots of cultural expression. They are also riding on the interestingness that was generated decades ago when the financial situation was different.
- badc0ffee 2y ago
  Where is the actually interesting culture coming from? I'm in my 40s, and a parent, so I feel like (at least for now) I've lost the ability to tell and the inclination to seek it out anymore anyway. Being a seriously big city, NY must still have "home-grown" art and culture, like its hip-hop scene or the modern equivalent? Kids are still growing up in rent controlled apartments surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other kids, even if starving artists aren't arriving from the outside like they used to.
  - speed_spread 2y ago
    Culture grows at boundaries, in places of uncertainty and chaos. Culture tests the limit of what is acceptable. As we start building permanent structures (such as a family) we naturally start avoiding these zones of turbulence because they are challenging to navigate and we need the energy elsewhere. It's ok.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Where is the actually interesting culture coming from Your kid's bedroom (if your a Gen X parent). Youth culture is now heavily social media or short content based, making it easier to reach out to large audiences while staying at home. You can build and manage an entire community of friends just by using Discord or other similar products, so you can develop a network effect without having to be in-person. Take a look at SoundCloud Rap, TikTok shorts, Gamer Youtube, Podcasts, ASMR, etc. Also, a lot of us younger people had some of our most formative years during the lockdowns, which turbocharged online culture.

boscillator 2y ago

The joke the article references seems to think this too, saying you'll find real subcultures in Albany. For some reason the article thinks Albany is the county, despite the fact it is a city with a population of 100k and a couple blocks of skyscrapers downtown.