What does alternative fashion and subcultures mean to you?

submitted by medium_tomato from (self.AlternativeFashion)

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Trajan 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

If something is really interesting, and particularly low-effort, you can't easily keep it to a small group. It's like any hobby or interest. Once it becomes noticed, whether you like it or not, it's pretty much game over for the die-hards. The fashion will be coopted, altered, and the sense of identity it used to have will be ruined. The lifestyle associated with the identity will be discarded, as all the larger group wants is to identify with the lifestyle either without living it or by living it in a sanitised way. Take hunting. You can go out actually hunt, or you can pay somebody to provide you a tamed animal that will be a nice easy shot taken from a comfortable and sheltered chair.

Here's a related article: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

[–]medium_tomato[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I have read this before and absolutely love this essay! It explains so much of what happened or is happening with my favorite subcultures/hobbies/fashions. Look at how gothic influence is everywhere these days. High fashion brands that never used the aesthetic have been making some very goth shoes and pieces. Same goes with kawaii things now. On one hand it's kind of cool when your favorite stuff is suddenly everywhere and you don't need to search so hard for it. But on the other hand, it makes you wonder what happens when it goes out of trend. Something that is pretty timeless just got a timestamp placed on it.

For example Harajuku fashion styles have been around since decades ago. Then from the early 2000s they became a niche group in the west. Right now they are all the rage but suddenly something that was timeless because of how out of place it was everywhere became the 2010s fad. So if you got into it in 2000s and will still be in it way into the late 2020s you will now be labeled as stuck on 2010s.