I think every subculture is doomed at some point to bcome cartoonish, reductive and beset with stereotypes. It's the natural order of things, I'm very sure.
Fortunately I realized this at a young enough age that I can actually sort of enjoy the ride when it comes to the fratkid punks and others like them.
I don't own anything, I'm not part of anything, and in this sense I'm free.

As a "themer", I would have a particular problem with this, belonging as I do to a subculture that involves frequenting lame theme nights in pubs and nightclubs. We get dressed up according to the theme, and then wallow in the irony of enjoying ourselves while sneering at the pitifulness of it all.

If any venue were to run a Themer Theme Night, we might get caught in an ironic recursive loop which would almost certainly result in our utter vanishment up our own fundament. It is too horrific to contemplate.

It's something I've become quite inured to. Caricatures and satires and stereotypes of my subculture have been grist for the mill of popular entertainment for over a century now. During the Carter era, (My mid teens), it became practically a national obsession.

But there's an important difference between me and the Ravers and Goths. (I'm not saying the difference is good or bad, just important to examine.)

I did not choose my subculture, I was born to into it. Being a Raver or a Goth is *already* a theme, or a skin. A conscious choice was made, for whatever reason, to join, to become, to add to your life. My choice, for weal or for woe was made for me before I was born. Being a Southerner affects the foods I crave, the music I listened to growing up, how I celebrate holidays, my attitudes towards life, and much more. I could choose, even at this late point in my life, to become a Goth; you cannot become a Southerner.

As a popular movement, the Ravers and Goths will, like the flappers, the beat generation, the hippies, and the punks, be replaced by another in the course of time. Like those, the new movement will be an expression of rebellion and non conformity to the culture of it's time. Most of the current generation will either join these new movements, or go on to other pursuits. Raves and Goths will become part of their personal nostalgic past. In your teens or twenties, it may not seem so, it seems more that this movement will last forever, but history is against you.

Alas, we share that, Ravers and Goths and I. My culture too is dying, as people move away, and as parents fail to to teach their children their heritage. In their race to purge themselves of racism and taint, much that is honorable and noble about my culture is being lost.

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