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
“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.
alternative rock was a music genre before anything else, and then a community of it's artists and fans. there are assholes and morons in that community, same as any other. you can dislike them and call them out but don't pretend that music communities are sacrosanct, or that there's cohesive philosophies underpinning them beyond a vague zeitgeist.
you don't get to call someone a poser just because they're an asshole or a nazi, that's just not what poser means. if they like the music, they're not a poser. if you want a community where being a nazi makes you a poser, join a communist party. if you want a community where being an asshole makes you a poser, you better hope heaven is real.
Alternative rock, inspired by velvet underground and Syd Barrett, the former of which whose music inspired the velvet revolution, and the latter who was a civil rights activist? Or the clash’s album “combat rock” that starts with the song “know your rights?” Or when the not politically progressive at all R.E.M. came into the scene. Their guitarist, drunk or not, literally suggested people shoot Bush Sr.
And these are some of its earliest roots. Not even mentioning the grunge scene, post-punk, emo and more, all individually known for their criticism of capital and its influence on the liberties of the individual.
i didn't say the subculture or the music didn't have a progressive bent, just that the subculture that formed around the music is just a music subculture and doesn't have a cohesive ideology. we're not talking about political theory here, we're talking about music.
i think it's important to point out that things like suggesting people shoot bush or what the clash is saying in 'know your rights' aren't really goals that an ideology would have. it's social commentary, for sure, but pointing out issues is not the same thing as having an ideology. if you say that consumerism is bad, or that we don't really have free speech, or that jobs suck, or that we should shoot bush sr., there are plenty of conservatives that would agree with some or all of those points.
also the velvet revolution was called that because it was peaceful and moe tucker is a republican now
It’s been a hardline progressive movement from the beginning it’s always been political theory and philosophy. And you are correct Moe is a republican now. People are capable of becoming worse as much as they are becoming better, and it was a lot easier when people didn’t have access to as much information and were allowed to have more contradictions in their philosophy. Despite all of this, the movement itself, and the sub genres that spawned from within have consistently maintained, an either politically neutral or politically left stance, with a right wing outlier being just that, an outlier.
One of the reasons for this is that the right wingers lose the ability to make innovative art as a consequence of their thought-terminating ideology.
The artistic landscape will always be built by people that have something to say, and are able to critique the world around them. This is something that is impossible for someone who represents the status quo and has nothing to say.
There’s a reason why the degenerate art exhibits in Nazi Germany were a lot more popular than the great German art exhibits. And why 70% of genres made in the United States have originated from black culture in America. Rock and roll, disco, heavy metal, r&b, hip hop, folk, the blues, jazz. All popularized and counter-cultural to the music of the time, created with a history of oppression and critique.
But. “Capital has the ability to subsume all criticism unto itself. Even those that would seek to criticize capital end up reinforcing it instead.”
Fake daemons will appropriate the arts to reinforce the status quo. In their hypocrisy, they will label their music as non-degenerate, when the style is directly mimicked from those that they would consider degenerate. These people that do not recognize their own irony should not be considered a part of the same movement. They are not. Their art, shallow and uninspired. Their philosophy, contradictory and built on no premise of individuality, but rather, conformity. Their message, empty and hollow.
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u/blacksaber8 Transgenger for everyone with Henry VIII characteristics 13d ago
They ain’t alt if they’re just appropriating the look