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The Subculture Boom Is a Distress Signal
Online subcultures are growing. This reflects an exhausted society trying to navigate our complex world. Is it dangerous?
In my work as a digital anthropologist I spend a lot of time in online communities. I’m looking for signals in the noise that may point to shifts in broader culture and society. Mostly for brands, sometimes for public policy issues. What I’ve come to note over the past year is a significant growth in online subcultures and how they’re playing a role in broader culture in the real world. My main theory is around one word; exhaustion.
Western culture primarily and increasingly other cultures in Asia and Africa, Latin America, are being driven by productivity performance. We’re all having to run multiple identities, selves, on multiple life stages at once; work, home, family, friends, online groups. All while being told we must improve ourselves first and foremost. And if we aren’t, then we must be failing.
I think much of this comes from this Protestant work ethic idea that has just run off madly in culture in all directions. It’s all a bit loopy and in a hyper-connected world where this ideology has seeped in, we are finding ourselves fractured. First let’s look at why this is all happening, some of these subcultures and what…
