Media, lifestyles, culture, architecture, everything is soulless and corporatozed beyond absurdity. Everything needs to be cookie cutter generic bullshit or else it’s not “AeStHeTiC” And it’s infuriating, life really is alienating under crapitalism.
That’s not a new thing at all. There was always “the norm”, and the rest, who were usually seen as outcasts, rebels, or just straight up unworthy. But as long as the culture has existed, so did the counterculture. All throughout history some people presented as alternative. And one of the main reasons, if not the reason, was because they felt alienated within the mainstream system, and this was a way to connect with people outside of it.
Take music - cool cats, beatniks, rockers, hippies, metalheads, rappers, ravers. All of those were initially obscure underground movements that went against the grain. And as the mainstream industry caught up and commodified them, new alternatives kept popping up to counteract that and distance themselves from normies. And this process applies to every societal structure that people are pressured to participate in.
