Tiktok "aesthetics" is killing subculture

while i wouldn't blame the diluting of subcultures all on just capitalism and marketing (i'd say it's more kids being dumb and not having a personality as well as language not being as objective as i'd like), good god do i agree with you so much. if i ever see "goth/punk is just about the fashion" one more time, i'm going to...do something idk what.

goth in particular, i think the subculture has a particular outlook on the macabre and its relation to life that i really admire, so it makes me mad when people boil it all down to "being left-wing, being a witch (???), and wearing all black".

this extends beyond just punk and goth, every time i see "- aesthetic" and (god forbid) "-core", a sense of unbridled rage consumes me. i hate children on the internet so goddamn much.

Most people who do these sorts of things are uneducated. Some are small children and others are adults who did no research besides what they saw on tiktok 3 years ago. Stuff like this could be stopped if people did their research.

Nowadays being left-wing in mainstream society is not unlike being a witch in the 17th century, at least to some people (they know who they are). So that checks out. Besides, aesthetics are easy, praxis is hard. It can require sacrifices, and that's anathema to a lot of people today. They deserve it all, they want it now and won't have the tiniest inconvenience. Sounds familiar?

it is kinda sad to see things like that simplified so much, that's how subcultures tend to die

tiktok, clip thinking and the imposition of a short content format have generally normalized superficiality, profanity instead of deep knowledge of the topic and understanding of the essence of things

So true. This also makes it a lot harder for actual people in these subcultures to connect because sites like TikTok make them "mainstream" while diluting them so a lot of the people you meet in real life dress that way but have no actual connection to the subculture other than looks. 

honestly, this may be why its so hard for me to find good discussions and a good community to uplift each other on the internet these days... I feel like this current trend of finding an aesthetic or subculture to latch onto without really understanding the research makes it feel like finding a vague sense of community that looks unique from everyone else rather then finding people to engage and share ideas with. i guess thats just a modern internet problem in general, content is so short and fleeting the most people can do in that time is judge or pick fights or say something looks pretty before moving on.

I think a lot of the "death" of subculture is how many people in the subcultures enjoy harrassing women, children, people of color ect. With the amount of times I've seen a dozen grown men harrass someone with patches on their jacket when they didnt even call it a Punk Vest is astounding. I've never seen mass harrassment in -core communities.

I wish subcultures werent dying too but lets not put the whole of the blame on kids on tiktok

Yet another reason on my endless list on why I hate the stupid modern world. Those stupid fucking uneducated posers need to be smacked in the head with a heavy ass textbook filled with information about the subculture they claim to be a part of. >:(

Sometimes gatekeeping seens right.

The fashion industry ruined the names of subcultures long before the internet with their "taking interesting parts here and there" to profit off them (I'm a fashion lover, but I can still admit this).

Nowadays with the internet I feel like it's more that obscure subcultures has been brought to the mainstream eye and people start wanting to be a part of it because pinterest throws them a picture of it or whatever, in contrast to how it was before, when you had to have a more genuine interest in a subculture to even get to know about it. It sucks...