The Counter-Counterculture: The backlash against liberal ideals that weaponizes “cool” against inclusivity and progressivism

“Streetwear became almost like a rich man’s fetish.”

The canon has become a crutch for those bored with the present.

Every enduring cultural movement—hip-hop, rock, punk, streetwear—began as an insular, tightly knit community of like-minded peers. These groups were driven by dissatisfaction with the mainstream and a deep desire to create something new. Historically, these subcultures existed in real-world spaces—clubs, skate parks, dive bars, DIY venues—where

One early experiment in bridging that gap was Praxis, a libertarian start-up that aspired to build “an autonomous, high-tech nation” on an island in the Mediterranean. Founded by Dryden Brown, a twentysomething college dropout and former hedge-fund employee with a taste for Balenciaga, Praxis raised $19.2 million from crypto investors and

By 2024, Yiannopoulos had reinvented himself yet again—this time as the founder of a talent management and consulting company for the canceled:

In the twenty-first century, there have been fewer cultural inventors, and where they exist, they seldom wield as much influence on the broader culture. This is not the “death” of culture in toto; the culture industry, luxury sector, and online creators are producing more content than ever. But the most radical forms of cultural invention have

And this long-term project to rebrand conservatism as cool and transgressive succeeded precisely because we removed cultural invention as a potential countervailing force.

Why has cultural invention decelerated in an era of endless cultural production? Some critics argue that trends now move too quickly to cohere into lasting movements, what music critic Simon Reynolds described as a “paradoxical combination of speed and standstill.”