@schrodingers_cat@rage.love it feels like most counterculture people I've been around are well aware of the performative nature of clothing and aesthetics.

Your essay reminds me a lot of a writing I read a decade back on why everybody hated hipsters-- The idea of a group of folks that understands cultural capital and flashes it whenever possible, chameleoning between subcultures to the disgust of everyone. I think you might enjoy reading it.

I think you raise a good point around the margins of counter culture groups like merch-crazed metal fans or Instagram goths, but it feels a bit like you've missed, what to me, is the point of aesthetic rebellion.

It is entirely performative. There are very few people who can get a sense of me after knowing me for a few weeks. How could I possibly hope to communicate myself in a single outfit? It's an impossible task. Instead, I focus on signaling the kinds of people I want to feel like they belong by me.

As is, though, your essay feels a little shallow to me on a couple of points- body modifications and gender nonconformance.

Namely, if performative aesthetics are shallow, how could they matter enough for someone to beat someone else up for wearing a dress? Anything so consequential must be powerful. Aesthetics matter.

A lot of the push behind punks looking so different is the necessity of a different pace or approach to life. Facial tattoos, clothing that needs to be custom made/modified, hair that needs friends to dye. In my experience, a lot of counterculture social bonding exists in the establishment of aesthetic rituals. Sure, someone could pay a lot of money online and order half the stuff, but that's camouflage, not culture.

There exists a space when some aesthetic choices (facial tattoos come to mind) come at enough social cost outside of a subculture that it's disingenuous to write off all subcultures as shallow. I think there's more to this than you're really getting into, and as a result, your essay left a bit of a bland taste in my mouth. Not foul, just... Bland?

I dunno, it's fine, but fashion exists within the context of a culture, and it feels a bit like your writing didn't quite hit on that as interestingly as it might have.