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Thank you SOOO much for touching on the misconception that scene is “political”!! I think it comes from people who mean well but it’s so untrue it makes me laugh. I guess you could argue that some male scenesters were sometimes politically subversive when they challenged traditional gender roles with their fashion but there really was little to no meaningful political movement at all. |
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I think this is a really great post. If you want more things to research I think you should look into, and then write about, how scene culture vastly changed in the early to mid 2010s (that was when I was a "scene kid" à la MDE lol) and how scene culture began to decay before it (in my opinion) pretty much died in the mid 2010s. I think it's cool that kids these days are into it, but I agree, a lot of their beliefs are ahistorical at best and dangerous at worst. It's concerning how the resurgence of "scene kids" has coincided with eating disorders and body checking, if anything I find it kind of embarrassing how many of these kids think that enjoying 2000s fashion = preaching 2000s values. I like how you mentioned that scenesters were largely viewed as posers. For kids to want to recreate this culture, but not even understand WHY it was it's own culture (because other alternative cultures hated them and thought they were fucking annoying posers) in the first place, is definitely... something. I guess it's morbidly ironic. They want to be scene, but there IS no scene, so in their own fucked up way they've recreated the shitty performative dynamics of it all, making it about who is the most specialist popular princess with the most hideous Shein outfit on. I've always found it funny how they call themselves "scene queens" even though they have absolutely nothing to show for it, and that term was always highkey an insult. It's like, I would never proclaim myself as a "poser" so why the fuck would I call myself a scene king... but whatever. 20k followers on tiktok does not a scene queen make, in my opinion. A lot of these kids don't have the ability to network themselves into actual notoriety because they're fucking rude! They want to judge other people for not being "authentic" (skinny, white, etc) but they themselves do nothing but redefine what the scene actually was, and redefine who scenesters were as a whole. So odd. Just do your own thing for fuck's sake!! |
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First of all, I just want to say that this was genuinely one of the most interesting posts I've read here in a while. You can really tell how much research, personal experience, and passion went into writing this. It honestly felt less like a rant and more like a proper analysis of how subcultures evolve when they move from smaller communities into mainstream spaces One thing I really liked about your post is that you didn't just romanticize the past. A lot of people talk about old internet communities like MySpace as if they were some perfect golden era, but the reality is that those spaces also had a lot of toxic things happening. Nostalgia can make people forget the bad parts. I think it's important to appreciate the creativity, friendships, and self-expression that came from those communities while still acknowledging the problems they had The point about scene being more than just an aesthetic really stood out to me. I think this happens with almost every subculture once it becomes popular. Something that originally came from a specific community gets reduced into a Pinterest board, a fashion checklist, or a "personality type." The same thing has happened with goth, punk, metal, and many other scenes. People see the visual language but sometimes miss the history and the people behind it
I also really liked your point about labels being complicated. It's funny because subcultures often form as a rejection of fitting into boxes, and then eventually people create new boxes inside those communities. Humans really love categorizing everything, even things that were created to escape categorization The part about gatekeeping was especially interesting because I think there is a difference between protecting a culture and using it as an excuse to make people feel unwelcome. Wanting people to understand the music, history, and community behind something is completely different from demanding that someone has the "correct" hair, body type, clothes, or background
Also, I really respect that you included your own experiences. It's easy to discuss communities from a distance, but your examples show how these ideas actually affect real interactions between people. The story about the person who started a kandi trade and the story about the person who rejected you are such a good example of the contrast between what these spaces can be and what they sometimes become Anyway, thank you for writing this! I really enjoyed reading it. It was a fascinating look at not only scene culture, but also how the internet changes communities over time. I'd love to read your future post about the "Rawring 20s" revival too, because that sounds like another really interesting topic <33 |
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Well said. It seems like most modern scene kids or anyone of an alternative subculture don't care about learning the history of the subculture they are in. It's honestly so annoying to because they genuinely belive what they are saying about the subculture is true. When they can't even tell you the history of there own subculture |
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and the curly hair thing! i think it's so ridiculous when people claim that you can't be scene without pin-straight hair not just because it's an obvious disguise for bigotry but ALSO because OG scene queens did curly styles too!!
if you go back and look at photos of audrey kitching and lanarae for example they did multiple photoshoots/looks where their hair was curled/crimped so acting like there's no room within the style for hair texture really just shows how uneducated some people are...
by Lex Laceration; ; Report