scenes and subcultures
One reason—among several—is that as soon as subcultures start getting really interesting, they get invaded by muggles, who ruin them. Subcultures have a predictable lifecycle, in which popularity causes death. Eventually—around 2000—everyone understood this, and gave up hoping some subculture could somehow escape this dynamic.
David Chapman • Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
Subcultures were the main creative cultural force from roughly 1975 to 2000, when they stopped working. Why?
David Chapman • Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
USB Club
usb.club
It makes sense that norms are shifting in this direction as Gen Z’s influence spreads. Raised on social media, with access to once illicit bad-taste touchstones like Rocky Horror just a click away, they’ve largely replaced IRL subcultures with a constellation of aesthetics—cottagecore, dark academia, Y2K—to be performed, then discarded or demoted... See more
judy berman • Welcome to the Era of Unapologetic Bad Taste
What is a scene? It is a group of people who are producing work in public but aimed at each other. The metal bands in Karlshamn, where Schuster grew up, were a scene. They performed on stage — but the audience was mainly their friends who played in other bands. If they were anything like the other local scenes I’ve seen, they challenged and sup
... See moreHenrik Karlsson • Scene creation engines and apprenticeships
Part of the inherent strangeness of belonging to any sub-culture is that you behave in ways that start to feel totally normal to you, but, understandably, seem utterly bizarre to anyone on the outside.The quirks of our obsessions aren't always glamorous. And yet these moments can still absolutely be worthy of celebration. After all, they're part of... See more
Paul Venuto • feed updates
There’s power in signaling insider knowledge to outsiders, so naturally we see the memetic propagation of idiomatic lore artifacts beyond the bounds of where they actually convey meaning. But as time goes on, their density and alienation from more universal lexicons makes it hard for even the ‘in-group’ to keep track of this internal meaning. It’s... See more
Libby Marrs • How to Read the Internet
Before there is a subculture, there is a scene. A scene is a small group of creators who invent an exciting New Thing