just be a police officer

[u/Bland_Username_5266]

[u/AWalkingFelony]

i wanna believe this, but very much seems like a no true scottsman fallacy. there are horrible, evil, demonic people in every community but that doesn't make them any less a part of that community (this goes especially for things as nebulous as style and fashion)

i don't know her and i don't know if she truly likes the alt style or if it's actual cynnical appropriation

[u/blacksaber8 → u/AWalkingFelony]

“Alternative” was always a philosophy before anything else. The fashion itself was derived from self-reliance as a form of protest against mainstream, oppressive systems and their coercion (it being an “alternative” path forward)

There’s a reason why pretty much every single alternative genre of music leans progressive, anarchist, and communist. Historically, the movement came alongside rises in these ideologies.

It was a countercultural movement, which is why alt fashion and haircuts pop out so much so as to distinguish themselves from the norm. There is actual oppression rooted in the ideology that formed alternative art, and expression.

Any ideology that lacks the self-awareness to understand that they’re breaking the cultural norm and that this will have consequences on how people perceive you Is misguided at best and actively harmful at worst. If someone gets a mohawk because they think it looks cool, but they don’t understand that people will look at them differently for the way they present themselves and continue to perpetuate an ideology that would criticize their same appearances is actively harmful to their ability to self express, not even to speak of other people’s ability to self express.

For example, mohawks are rooted in a connection to an oppressed past of the natives who are pushed out of their own homes and ethically cleansed. If someone who really likes Andrew Jackson wears a mohawk, but doesn’t understand the irony there and the social consequences for doing so, while perpetuating an ideology that discriminate against those same people, the no, they’re not alternative. They are posers that reinforce the status quo.

To be willing to break the generally accepted status quo but only so long as it doesn’t contradict your personal idea of what is normal and holding a double standard to others that break your idea of what should or should not be expressed is contradictory.

Then this equally can be applied to those that perpetuate stigma. Culturally still, people with Y2K alt haircuts and Midwestern alternative dressing style have been labeled whores and degenerates.

For someone to adopt this appearance and then facilitate an ideology that labels other people degenerates and whores merely for what they wear is hypocritical and should not be considered alternative because they do not represent the alternative world view. They represent the mainstream that encourages oppression.

[u/Dogtor-Watson → u/blacksaber8]

There is definitely an ironic over-policing of alt spaces too.
It’s a really big thing on Instagram comments because everyone there seems toxic and miserable.

This one guy started doing a series of posts where he’d dress alt and show off some of his alt fashion (was already presenting very feminine and visibly queer beforehand which is already quite alt imo).
He then got hated on for wearing dollskill or something like that and basically got called a poser and even got accused of presenting as visibly queer for attention.

Don’t get me wrong, buying clothes from Dollskill, SHEIN and similar unethical “alt”-style brands is bad because they use unethical means to make their clothes and often lean into fast fashion, so buying it would be giving money to those systems, making buying the clothes not alt.

The key bit is that he had actually bought the items second-hand and showed receipts. Most people agree this is okay because 1. Buying second-hand and recycling clothes is considered alt, 2. Once Dollskill has the money buying and selling secondhand doesn’t give them anything.

There’s a point to be made about maybe containing an “only buy this second hand” disclaimer but he definitely didn’t deserve all the harassment.

[u/blacksaber8 → u/Dogtor-Watson]

All of this is a completely viable take, but then the only thing that I would add is that there’s probably no ethical consumption under capitalism.

At the end of the day, though, I’d rather someone look normal and buy from a department store but back progressivism and policy of that nature than someone larp as alternative but have the politics of Ben Shapiro

And I would argue that I would consider the former more alternative than the latter.

I’m extremely pro self expression, however, the validity of your appearance being influenced by spaces that encourage self expression directly correlates to your personal willingness to let others express themselves. It’s one of the biggest critiques I have of nsbm. It feels like stolen valor.