Meditation for August 31st, 2016
Kids Don’t Know How To Subculture Anymore
From the Harlem Renaissance, to the Beats, to Rock and Rollers, to the Hippies, to the Punks, to the New Wavers and Metal Heads, subcultures have sit at the fringe of mainstream culture with criticism and cynicism. The youth have turned their back on their parents’ ideas and culture to form their own identities and finally rewriting the way we write, create art and make music.
The kids have no idea how to do that anymore. Most kids are listening to music that is in no way different than their parents. Kids are being driven to punk rock shows and even attending rock and roll camps where they learn how to rock like mom and dad used to. The kids don’t have anything to turn to when the world starts to seem unbearable.
Parents aren’t scared of what their kids are up to anymore.
Kids are okay with what the fashion industry and music cabal is pushing. There is no refusal to participate in the sickening capitalism of the Kardashians, Kanye West or Jack White of the band U2. It is accepted. It isn’t even done ironically like how the whole disease started.
The kids seem just slightly uncomfortable with the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency, but seem to have no way to combat the realism but with memes and regurgitating what is already been shared. There is no violence, no destroying the status quo, nor does there seem to be any dangerous music and fashion that will shake the squares scared.
Writers, musicians and artists used to do jail time for censorship.
The few that do seem to want some kind of weird subculture either move to Portland, Oregon or they turn to the nineteen eighties for comfort. Really boring bands that are widely accepted like Black Flag, Dead Kennedy’s, Bad Brains, The Clash and God Hates Computers grace young people t-shirts everywhere. The punks are the exact same and are more concern on doing punk perfect than being punk at all.
Now it’s okay to be into metal and punk! Why, when I was a kid the metal heads were all racist nazis if they weren’t fat D & D nerds! Now long hair bullet belt having metal heads are doing hair for a living and eating vegan food.
It’s like we are stuck in a spiral. It’s almost like the man has figured out how to keep the kids sedated on Facebook and 80s TV show inspired movies. Dads are listening to hip hop with racy lyrics. Moms are blasting Minor Threat as they drop their kids off at school. Your parents might be more extreme than you are!
It’s not dangerous. Maybe the shock has worn off so nothing could possibly scare the mundane squares that want things to be calm. Maybe after Marylin Manson nothing will make a right wing Reagan lover shake in his boots.
Now we’re raising the biggest bunch of traditionalist, conservative, moral jerk wads ever. They didn’t see any option but to be the establishment. Just watch, when the millennial become old enough, we will see the return of a unified Grand Ole Party and moral soundness along with family values.
There will be no subculture to fight against it.
We have become too cynical and lethargic to stand up to anything anymore. We pick at the details while the big picture becomes darker and darker. The reaction to the ones who have to live in the fringes is to push them farther and farther away with “freedom of speech” bullshit and a “love it or leave it” mentality, while the ones who would have ordinarily grabbed the flag of a subculture to stand up for their rights is busy saying that Beyonce’s video is radical enough, Bernie Sanders is radical enough, Kim Kardashian’s fashion empire is the new feminism and RuPaul drag race is proof that gays are accepted and free now.
I don’t really care about you kids changing anything, but what I would like to see is something new and dangerous and actually creative to come out and scare me. I want to be scared of kids. I want the kids to look like the world is going to shit than looking like my grandparents generation by getting ready to destroy a global eco system for a dollar.
Don’t do the punk and the metal thing and stop placating mainstream artists toying with activism for your subculture, do your own thing because what has happened before has all been beautiful.
Maybe we are the Roman Empire fading away into the dark ages and knowledge is not only lost but isn’t even being looked for anymore, for we have the whole world wide web in our pockets, but we are too stupid and lazy to look.