The Age of the Double Sell-Out

The ‘90s version of not selling out meant refusing to play certain spaces or not letting your song be in a beer commercial. The ‘20s version of selling out means making things in limited quantities to play against mass culture. Though different, the responses come from a similar place. They’re both sensing a culture where, to quote Claire L. Evans ... See more

Clearly the cultural pressure to achieve a unique self is old, strong, and not unique to hipsters, so why did the authenticity drive spin out of control after CE 2000? One possible reason is that the hundreds of studies on authenticity in tourism and subcultures have also been read and in many cases sponsored by business thinkers who directly influ... See more

The ethics against commercial art set strong boundaries for "alternative" culture, which arguably allowed it to flourish as a separate entity. As that culture began to hit the mainstream in the early 1990s, the taboo against selling out spread into broader youth culture. As Chuck Klosterman writes in The Nineties, “The concept of ‘selling out’ — an... See more