scenes and subcultures
Teen Subcultures Are Fading. Pity the Poor Kids.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/mireille-silcoffnytimes.comBefore there is a subculture, there is a scene. A scene is a small group of creators who invent an exciting New Thing
David Chapman • Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
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
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
Before, you’d be a goth and watch goth movies and listen to goth music and dress in all black. Now you just dress like that and it doesn’t matter who you are. The fashion isn’t the byproduct of the subculture: the fashion is the subculture.
Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick • Lol Fashion's Giving Me an Existential Crisis 😅
Several theories have been proposed, some less plausible than others. The dullness of long, dark winters is a common suggestion. The melodic nature of the language is another. It has also been pointed out that Sweden has the highest concentration of choirs in the world — eight percent of the population are active singers. Then there is the fact
... See moreHenrik Karlsson • Scene creation engines and apprenticeships
You are always internalizing the culture around you. Even when you wish you didn’t. So you better surround yourself with something you want inside—curate a culture.
Henrik Karlsson • First We Shape Our Social Graph; Then It Shapes Us
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