Today’s Youth Counterculture (and COUNTER Counter Culture)

As GenXer’s, we decided that we as parents were going to be different from our conservative, authoritarian, controlling parents. 

We decided where our parents would be narrow-minded we would be open, where they ignored us we would be supportive, and where they marginalized our feelings of isolation and angst we would be considerate and understanding. 

What we (I) failed to understand is that the feeling of being isolated and misunderstood is PART of being a teenager, and wanting to prevent our children from going through that pain could not subvert their experience of it. 

My oldest is now 23, and I practically lived my life in support of them through their teen years. Today I see them once every 4-6 months even though they live next door with their mom as they work through their delayed process of creating an identity separate from me.

My 3 other young adult children - who I had a more at arm’s length relationship with - choose to live with me and while their lifestyle choices are more unusual to me, their overall relationship is more bonded. 

Teenagers are always going to find an outlet to express their sense that the world is unjust, their lives are unfair and the expectations of the previous generations will be the very thing they defy. 

I thought I would avoid that feeling of separation with my kids because of how different I was from my parents conservatism, my acceptance of the marginalized (having been bullied) and comfort with other cultures and sexual orientation. 

I also thought that there was no style of music, fashion or culture I couldn’t understand or appreciate. 

What actually happened?

4 of our 7 children have gone through or are in the process of identifying as Sexuality Fluid (moving around from Gay to Bisexual to Pansexual to Asexual to…). 

2 of our kids have challenged their gender identity and considered that they were born in the wrong body. 

Sex work is accepted by 6/7 as a legitimate profession and acceptable (mainstream?) lifestyle - although I’m not certain how they’d feel if a sibling chose it (or if their own parents began a Sex Streaming Business 🤣). 

It turns out there are multiple genres of music that have been created that are I can’t stand. (Hardest one for me to realize as a former DJ and “fringe” music connoisseur). 

I’m the early 90’s I had long hair, piercings in in both ears and frequently wore hoop earrings and a bandana to the club. 

(Gerardo - Rico Suuve or Love Is - Alannah Myle’s Guitarist for reference of that look). 

I figured nothing could surprise me - I was wrong. 

I just shook my head many days as my kids went out, just a dozen or so times insisted they change. 

From embarrassingly over exposed, to “zero-shits-given” sweats and a messy bun to going to the mall in full CosPlay with friends who were Furries. 

Below are the curated thoughts of a Reddit thread I came across that I thought reflected what I’ve seen in my kids and their peers regarding this generation’s way of distinguishing itself from their parents as well as those kids who want to further arise are their identity from the monolith of their peers. 

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I feel like there are two kinds of counter culture (I say this as a gen Z):

1. The Broad Counter Culture (mainstream cool identity) to differentiate from/trigger the older generation: Queer people, often with quite detailed microlabels (basically me) advocating for themselves, protesting, and engaging in politics - especially in the wake of recent anti-trans panic. Kinda in tandem with that, these people are expressing themselves more openly about their style or other interests that they probably got bullied for before so they're now just happy to stop hiding who they are when they are in a safe space - furries, for example

1. Counter to the Counter Culture (the fringe kids who rebel against their own peer group): "Anti-woke", alpha male guys that are trying to be offensive just so they can feel edgy and cool. Nobody can tell whether they're serious or just trying to look different from the mainstream that's slowly growing more accepting. Also often connected with the broccoli haircut and hypebeast fashion, trying to wear as much expensive stuff as possible. Vape pens and Prime included

• GenX thinks, "There is no counter culture", because we're looking for something that looks like what the counter culture was 30 years ago with a slightly different aesthetic. The whole point of a youth counterculture is that it's incomprehensible to the olds, and I remember when I was a teen in the 90s/00s people said the same thing because there was nothing they recognized as counterculture because they were looking for an updated version of hippies.

You can tell the counter culture by the ways that adults in the mainstream react to it. The thing that has Millennials/Gen X/Boomers saying "They look stupid", "They will grow out of it and be so embarrassed later", "They're just doing it for attention/because their friends did", which is what older generations said about goths and emo and scene kids, is what is filling that niche today. And that seems to be being a gender fluid bisexual with blue hair at the moment (based on the angry memes I see posted by old people on social media).

• Pink or blue hair, or other crazy colors is normal. Used to be this was the rebellious ones, but today it's super common. Soccer moms have it, grandmas have it, and so on. It's not just the rockers and goths that die their hair crazy.

Further, getting tattoos, also normal. Used to be way less common, and a lot of jobs didn't allow them to show, so it was the rebels that got them, especially lots of them, or prominent ones. That's largely reversed.

Getting unique piercings, normal, too, but used to be less common.

• Kids are very into exploring different gender and sexual identities these days.

That's where the counter-culture has gone. We're expecting it to look like a visible music and fashion "movement" when it's really a "getting to know ourselves" movement.

As a teen in the 2010's I could see gender fluidity gaining traction. It seemed like an idealized future where your gender doesn't define you as a person. I hope we get there someday soon.

"Gender bending" was counterculture in the 80's and 90's too, just wrapped in grunge or pop veneer. Boy George, Marilyn Manson, and David Bowie all come to mind.

• Identity politics. A need to be able to determine what micro-group you fit into.

Emo culture (The modern emo has become more intertwined with hip-hop with artist like Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, Lil Peep and the pop-punk scene)

Pro-sex work movement

Childfree movement, Anti-Natalism

Veganism's continued growth

THE SUBVERSIVE CULTURES:

Men like Harry Styles wearing dresses/feminine clothes

Minor Resurgence in satanism and the satanic panic

Pro-Trump

Testing the water's with sexual liberation continues to be a generational trend, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat etc heavily testing societies ideas of what is acceptable sexual expression. Lil Nas X in particular was a cultural first

Hip-hop's rager/punk phase along with the sudden boom in drill rap

Atheism

Anti-LGTBQ and antisemitism

The Alt-Right, and redpill/incel culture.

Radical Left Wing Anarchy, alot of young folk adopting marxist leninsm/communism as an aesthetic, artists like Jpegmafia makeing major strides with that demographic and figures like Hassan Piker being one of the most radically far left figures in American politic in decades.

Islam as an aesthetic Islam is trendier now than it was closer to post-911

• Had to scroll all the way down here to read this! Different flavor of Satanism as a "sexual" aesthetic, partially due to artists like Doja Cat & Lil Nas X instead of Marilyn Manson and heavy metal aesthetics. There are Satanic after school clubs popping up, scares conservatively religious people of all denominations. Some teens I know think of it as an artistic expression, but their parents are freaked out by it. No idea if this is niche because it seems like mainstream from my POV when it's part of the music industry's influence.
• I think the real COUNTER-counter-culture is neo-conservatism and the new alt-right. Especially if they like Andrew Tate, watch Daily Wire, and listen to the white boy Southern MAGA rappers. 

There are a surprising number of teenage males who are adopting this as a strong backlash to the left who are anti- LGBTQ+ and anti- 4th wave feminism being pushed and accepted into mainstream, even when they're not Christian or religious and they think their generation of female counterparts all look and dress like sluts and are "too liberal" etc. Pretty broad base as far as what their hobbies and interests are. The ones I'm around at work are all gamers who still play sports. "Alpha male" speak, some of them are young shut-in incel-types, but plenty of them are also just macho white boys and ethnic minorities who are saying NO to the extremes of neo-liberals and acting like they want to go the "trad" way.

• COUNTER-Counter-Culture: "Alpha male" Andrew Tate stuff. Being belligerently conservative. I thought I could be accepting of anything and  would find it really hard to think of a culture that would shock and disgust me, but as they say, life finds a way. I feel bad for the women out there who are going to end up on the receiving end of it.
• I was “Angsty/Angry Grunge”. Still am a bit today.

I think this generation of emos is being a right-wing extremist. I have a teen neighbor who says slurs (even in the hard r n word) on a daily basis simply because he thinks it makes him sound cool. We're not Americans we're Southeast Asian, but he's saying it to purposely annoy people.

Being Grunge made me think I was cool and mature thinking about nihilism and stuff. I feel like he's right on the same phase as I was back then.

They make "dark" jokes. Bully LGBT people. Calling themselves "proud" racists despite them not knowing the full implications of how that kind of mindset can lead. It's their form of rebellion against this current society who force them rules they don't wanna follow.

• I’m a 15 year old girl, so maybe I can offer some insight…

COUNTER-Counter-Culture for girls includes vaping and sending nudes to people on SnapChat. Literally people think it’s the most rebellious thing ever (it’s not, cmon guys) but as for fashion unacceptable to their peers, ladies like to show as much skin and possible. A lot of these kinds of rebellious teens want to embrace hood culture too (ex. Listening to gangster rap, weed, basically a repeat of the 90s)

Street wear is a huge thing too. Oversized clothes, Nike socks, crop tops, slides (shoes), sweatpants, etc. are extremely popular. And STANLEYS insulated mugs, DEAR LORD are a massive cultural thing right now. 

so yeah. If you’re a parent of a teen right now, have lots of fun bc you got your work cut out for you 👍

(*My note - abbreviations, lack of capitalization, punctuation and shorthand slang and emojis are part of the youth culture that GenX and Y often need to decipher). 

• Question for you- I’ve noticed a fashion trend over the last year or two in teens but I can’t find a name for it (I’ve been calling it “Sloth chick” - basically plain grey sweatpants, white athletic socks, baggy, oversized hoodies or sweaters, but usually over a small crop-top, or with the mid-rift exposed, and sometimes with”deliberate” messy hair. It looks like they fell out of bed, but they didn’t, I know these are curated looks.
• YES!!! I So Gen Z people call it “street wear” - basically girls wear their hair deliberately in messy buns bc guys find it attractive. Long nails, fake eyelashes…the whole thing. And Nike socks, sweatpants that accent the butt, oversized clothes of all types and short shirts are extremely extremely popular now for people my age. Gen Z has this weird thing where they want to bring back every phase from past gens so they have tried imitating Y2K (and I can’t blame them, the fashion is pretty cool) and it’s widely known Y2K is messy hair and baggy clothes like cargo pants and hoodies.
• I guess the closest thing would be the tiny house-ers/car campers. I know that's been around for a while but the idea of escaping the 9-5 jobs and enjoying freedom through these methods is really popular right now. It's not like a musical thing, just more of a movement. And it's not just teenagers, it's all age brackets. But I am 18, I'm doing my best to avoid 9-5s or working for any big company. I'd rather just not work for anyone else.
• Having and showing "too much" emotion, especially as a guy, can count as rebellion to the larger youth culture. There was an expectation from adults to be open to sharing feelings that's intentionally challenged, a norm that's been broken... thus, rebellion.
• Gen Z: Gender, sexuality, and self-diagnosed mental illness.
• Gen Alpha: 4B movement and Alpha males, gender divide.

4B (or "Four No's") is a feministmovement which is purported to have originated in South Korea in 2019.[1][2] Its proponents renounce dating men, marriage, sex and having children.

No to kids, yes to animals

• Being anything besides a cis straight white male
• Supporting movements and ideologies with feelings instead of even trying a bit of rationality and foresight.

Diagnosing themselves and their friends with mental illnesses. That's what I've seen amongst my teenage cousins and their friends anyway. 

There's no unique counter-culture music or look or literature, but there's a lot of "I have a new diagnostic label every week." Drives parents and teachers nuts, and gives them an excuse not to do schoolwork.

• Either hyper vigilance in policing use of language or refusal to do so/participate. The latter is very rebellious as it could lead to cancellation.

LGBTQ+is kinda the new emo/goth tbh. Except they dye their hair bright colors instead of black

Being queer, trans, autistic, and loving anime. And being REALLY into identity politics.

• Yeah I’m seeing a lot of kids obsessing over pinpointing their identity labels, like are they a demiboy or genderfluid? Asexual or demisexual? And wanting to make very sure everybody knows they aren’t a boring straight cisgender person.
• Trans militancy.  Almost forty years ago I was dating an art student. I met a few of her friends and I remember an offhand remark that's stuck with me ever since. "They're all gay now, it's really fashionable.". Even as an idiot 18 year old I remember thinking I'm pretty sure that's not how being gay works. I suspect a lot of teens who loudly identify as such and such fall into the same category as the fashionably gay  students I knew way back then. The bandwagon jumpers will move on to the next big thing and the "real" ones will get on with their lives and being trans will become no more controversial than being gay.
• Yeah I’m going to go with creating new and strange gender identities and terrorising older generations into conforming to their brand new language. Kids have always come up with slang to confuse older people, but now it comes with a tinge of moral superiority and indignation.
• Guys who say they’re girls and cut off their penis. 

You’ve got to admire the commitment; in my day, I only had to get an earring to disappoint my parents!

• Conservatism is the new punk. Woke is the new evangelicalism.

Wokeism: Denial of objective reality, overwhelming focus on progressivism, denial of individual contribution to one's fate in life

I blame parents for giving their kids too much of a normal childhood. They don’t have any real problems to focus on so they just make them up. I’m in awe at the amount of ludicrous problems they can creatively conjure.

No you’re not <insert something ridiculous here > you’re just confused and going through puberty. It’s normal. Everybody who has gone through puberty has gone through exactly the same feelings throughout history. You’re not special, just deal with it.

• Identity politics to the extreme.  There seems to be a significant segment who is engaged in a fierce competition about who can be the most liberal and tolerant.

Another segment seems to compete about who can have the most severe self-diagnosed mental health issues, autism, learning disabilities, or syndrome.

Yet another group is hell-bent on arguing with the former groups, to the point that it gets both ridiculous and scary.

• There is a whole thing about “aesthetic”. Where teens join a subculture around an aesthetic, for example “dark academia” or “cottagecore” and then all their clothes and how they decorate their room fits that look. But mostly they aren’t connected to specific music, though there might be some hobbies associated with it. it’s more a reflection of the visual nature of the internet and how they’re exposed to so much visual content so young.