#or the subculture types (goth butches... punk butches... and so on)

[laufire]

can’t find it rn but there was this post about how butches seem to find the hair clip thing irresistible and like. putting aside I have no idea where I fall in the butch/femme dichotomy for a moment. I had to laugh because the past month or so I see women with their hair on everywhere, far more than usual and. I do find it strangely hot xDD

#iirc it also mentioned femmes have the same thing with plain shirts and i admittedly don't care for that #*plain white shirts i think it was? #anyway #plain clothes don't get me going xD. there's a reason the woman i've found hottest in recent time is ruth connell as rowena macleod #when it comes to butches it's always the stylish/dapper ones that make me blue screen #or the subculture types (goth butches... punk butches... and so on) #talking to the void #me me me

[patriciavetinari]

I believe what happened to subculture is the same as happened to a lot of aspect of our life: some version of gentrification, some version of capitalism.

By nature subculture is at least in part counterculture. In the 50s being 'a preppy girl' was not a subculture, it was mass culture actively encouraged and advertised to young women. As well as few other 'acceptable' types of being.

Subculture I find was the opposition of that, a challenge of cultural norms, and it was also definitely not mass catered to. There were no chain stores or huge malls selling goth or punk clothes, you found that shit on your own. Maybe some small local shops dedicated to the subculture could emerge and exist, but there was no Hot Topic, you could not get a studded choker in target or something like that.

And this is what happened, especially recently, especially with fast fashion. Subculture became an outfit for a day of the week. Chokers and torn jeans and studded pleather jackets are mass produced plastic crap, in one season, out the next.

Not only clothing - a clear visual signal and a loud visual challenge to the norms of contemporary society, something quite literally ruining the expected picture. Same with decor, now you don't have to custom order a coffin shaped bed, google will find you several stores at different price ranges. Ikea might make it for the next halloween.

Not only have those things became accepted and widely available, they are still fairly expensive, just like vegan coffee shops under gentrification. Punks and goths are no longer teens making do with thrift store finds or just wearing and mending what they can, goths and punks are influencers with fashion nova wardrobe and kate von d eyeliner.

Counterculture got gentrified. It is properly available once again only to thin rich people. They stopped being relatable or interesting. Every goth girl on instagram looks the same, they are contoured and winged and baked and curated and styled. They look plastic like barbies. A rich thin white woman with a buzzcut and jean jacket is considered butch and punk. And they listen to heavy stuff like imagine dragons.

Tomboys are thin white women wearing thousands of dollars worth of sports gear and instagramming their hikes every other day. Fangirls are thin white women wearing thousands of dollars worth of fan t-shirts, cat ears, streaming with the wall full of funko pops in the background. Hippies are traveling from one expensive asian wellness resort to another, founding cult after cult, selling you yoga pants and crystal infused air in a bag.

All of this is mass produced, expensive crap that is so so so so boring. None of this is for poor people anymore, it's been taken away. Access to interesting self-expression is being obstructed just like access to housing, community spaces, clothing, food, fun. Concept of personal brand is gentrifying our entire existence, our entire way of being.

While promoting none of the values that made subculture what it was: sense of community, discovering self, understanding ones own divergency from the norm in every possible sense, queerness in every possible sense. Yes there are goths and punks and hippies out there but the community but there is no subculture, no community, there are just items arranged on people as a style.