“Where has all the genuine self-expression gone? Now what used to be authentic subculture is turned into a performance of Aesthetic!” so many posts exclaim, usually concluding that the problem is Capitalism.
I don’t disagree entirely, but. The problem is that y'all are so deathly fucking afraid of things Cringe, Weird, and Uncool that anything unmarketable, subversive, or oddball enough to be “genuine subculture” is gross and unacceptable to you.
People wish to see “genuine self expression” that is not a performance or a commodity.
Very well then. I assume you’re appreciating and celebrating the dress, style and behavior of somewhat shabby, weird outcasts who firmly refuse to make themselves palatable to you?
I think some of you are forgetting what “subculture” means. If it makes everybody around you think you are cool and look nice, that’s missing the point a little bit. That’s just…culture!
When people express themselves in a way that is not a performance to appeal to others…
…it is actually very likely that they will…not appeal to you.
“Why can’t people be unapologetically themselves, in a way that is of course never "cringy” or too weird or too ugly or uncool? Why can’t we have self-expression without performance, in a way that is not boring to me and that doesn’t weird me out?“
Do you see the problem?
There are still robust, thriving subcultures full of unique fashion and artistic expression…
"Ah, but you see, that one is personally unappealing to me!”
That’s the Point, you fools!
I see how people talk about non-binary youths with hair dyed in funny colors. But there is such a young person of indeterminate gender I see sometimes on my college campus with “Trans Liberation Now!” and a bunch of other symbols and slogans hand-painted on their jacket, and they are a million times more “Punk” than anyone with simply piercings and spiky chokers
I was thinking about the incredibly cruel phenomenon of taking photos of strangers without consent and uploading them to websites so others can mock them, in the vein of “People of Walmart” and other such things, and when looking it up, I was disturbed to see how many of them are just 1) a fat person is in public (wow!) or 2) a (perceived) man is being obviously gender non-conforming 
they are just existing. probably at a more advanced level than you.
