graphic by claire evans
If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the past few years, you’re most likely aware of fast fashion, and if you’ve been anywhere near TikTok in the past few years, you’re most likely also aware of the neverending microtrend cycle. Although the ethics of overconsumption have been prodded and picked apart, a recent video had me interested in another aspect of this microtrend crisis: the commercialization and commodity fetishism of subcultures.
The video itself was not unusual — a conventionally attractive girl unboxing a $200 package from AliExpress, a Chinese-based retail store popular for insanely low prices, with the words “grunge haul” displayed over her head in pink block letters. But it’s an interesting combination — a website popular for knock-offs and unethical labor practices compared to a subculture that has always expressed anti-capitalist and anti-conformist notions. That said, the commodification of subcultures has long been prevalent in industrial and postindustrial societies.
The rise of mass media in the 1920s led to new patterns of consumption, resulting in shifting dynamics between businesses and consumers that differed from previous decades. The media’s heavy influence on society was apparent through the success of television and radio advertising — and with the introduction of credit, a consumerist mindset had taken hold over America. Corporations were now more easily able to appropriate components of subcultures— cultures in which the values and beliefs differ heavily from mainstream society. Once a subculture’s popularity passes a certain threshold, companies become aware of aspects that have the potential for profit. Many of the practices and beliefs of these subcultures deviate from the resistance to traditional societal norms. In the 1998 cultural critique “The Conquest of Cool,” Thomas Frank states that “commercial fantasies of rebellion, liberation, and outright ‘revolution’ against the stultifying demands of mass society are commonplace almost to the point of invisibility in advertising, movies, and television programming.” As facets of the subculture become readily marketable and are prevalent in the mainstream, notions of resistance are eroded into something milder as the original messages become palatable for a general audience.
A well-known example of this phenomenon was the 1990s breakthrough of grunge. Due to the rapid success of bands such as Nirvana, media focus shifted to alternative scenes such as grunge, a subculture that emerged from Seattle in the late 1980s. The distortion-filled sludge rock genre that took influence from punk rock and heavy metal differed in its element of authenticity. The “I-don’t-care” attitude of the movement was a rebellion in itself, diverging from the elaborate theatrics and masculinity of its predecessors. Over-the-top costumes were replaced with worn-out jeans and thrifted band tees, the consumerism and showy glamor of ‘80s rock entirely discarded. The subculture’s apathetic view also materialized in a rejection of gender norms through the deep male vulnerability in the song lyrics, the lack of sexual themes and the disregarding of gendered clothing. In her essay “Body Piercing: Gender Nihilism in the 90s,” Karen Aubrey states that in grunge, “standards of conventional sexual attractiveness, which encourage emphasis of gender designating body parts, are thereby not just ignored, but defied.” But by 1992, the movement had shifted. Nirvana’s virtually overnight success had come with invisible strings attached. After “Nevermind” reached number one on the Billboard charts, everyone wanted a taste of grunge — including corporations. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam graced the covers of major magazines, Marc Jacobs released a grunge collection composed of expensive dresses and artfully draped silk flannels and Vogue did a “Grunge & Glory” spread. In a 2004 commentary, journalist Eric Olsen states that the popularity of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” established “the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general.” The market quickly took control over what had claimed to rebel against it, and grunge had become the manufactured image that was the antithesis of everything it stood for.
Other alternative groups faced similar problems. In 1992, magazines such as Seventeen and Newsweek featured riot grrrls, an underground feminist music genre that found itself pushed into the spotlight after the popularization of grunge. Initially, many members of the riot grrrl movement were open to the attention, believing it would allow them to express feminist ideas to other girls. However, they later felt as if they had been misinterpreted, their messages morphed into a fad and trend. Corin Tucker, guitarist and vocalist of riot grrrl band Sleater-Kinney stated, “I think it was deliberate that we were made to look like we were just ridiculous girls parading around in our underwear. They refused to do serious interviews with us, they misprinted what we had to say, they would take our articles, and our fanzines, and our essays and take them out of context. We wrote a lot about sexual abuse and sexual abuse for teenagers and young women. I think those are really important concepts that the media never addressed.” Members of the movement believed that their radical political messages had been co-opted by “girl power” music groups, substituting meaningful messages for consumeristic feminism that moved efforts away from the liberation of women.
Although the messages were purposely misinterpreted, it didn’t stop brands from selling the idea of grunge. The thrifted hand-me-down fashion style prevalent among members of the movement became $35 flannels from JCPenney. The watering down of anti-conformist notions into easily digestible pills demolished the foundations of grunge, leaving behind a way of dressing and a loosely defined music genre. Corporations co-opt and sell their apolitical, idealized package of grunge — the message discarded for whatever can produce the highest profit. Kurt Cobain is dehumanized into a symbol, becoming a martyr for a movement that had been mutilated into an unrecognizable caricature. Even modern-day revivals on Tumblr, and more recently, Tiktok, continue to be apolitical. Massive clothing hauls establish grunge as a fashion-based microtrend that contributes to overconsumption and clothing waste. The depoliticization of counter-culture movements, of art and music, reduces the value of disruptive messages into vessels for profit. Just as consumerism turned riot grrrl’s female liberation movement into catchy slogans while ignoring real systemic issues, the reduction of anti-establishment movements to their aesthetic value ignores discussions of important topics in favor of enforcing the status quo.
“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs / and he likes to sing along / and he likes to shoot his gun/ but he knows not what it means,” from “ Bloom,” Nirvana.