The article, if you like, is about why nonconformists like hipsters end up looking just alike even as they're trying not to conform. There can be mild variations, but they end up affecting a style that is quite conformist within its subset. A fellow has a mathematical model that seems to show that in any such case, conformity ends up resulting.
I don't know how good the model is, and I don't know what its assumptions are. But nonconformist groups -- defined as groups that reject mainstream society in some significant way -- have a lot more need to be able to identify each other than mainstream people do. If you're part of the mainstream, you can just assume that most people you meet will be on the same page. If you're very much not, it can be a matter of survival, flourishing, or even just comfort to be able to identify the few individuals out there who might broadly agree with you.
The visual cues exist in these subcultures because they're important, in other words. They have real natural selection value. So yeah, hipsters pretty much all look alike; and so do skinheads; and so do people who join the punk rock or metal fronts; and so forth and so on. So do highly orthodox religious dissenters, and not just for religious reasons. It's a matter of survival, and over untold generations humanity has learned it.
3 comments:
I noted that about gay men when I was in college. Stereotypes of them may result from characteristics that they artificially adopt to recognise each other. They do not lisp, BTW. If it was ever true, it hasn't been for decades. they actually pronounce consonants overcarefully, especially esses.
"I don't know how good the model is, and I don't know what its assumptions are"
That is a general problem with Bigthink stories, I believe.
The article reminds me of a Tom Lehrer song: The Folk Song Army.
We are the folk song army
Every one of us cares
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice
Unlike the rest of you squares
There are innocuous folk songs, yeah
But we regard 'em with scorn
The folks who sing 'em have no social conscience
Why, they don't even care if Jimmy Crack Corn
If you feel dissatisfaction
Strum your frustrations away
Some people may prefer action
But give me a folk song any old day
The tune don't have to be clever
And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line
It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English
And it don't even gotta rhyme... excuse me: rhyne!
Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs
Though he may have won all the battles
We had all the good songs!
So join in the folk song army!
Guitars are the weapons we bring
To the fight against poverty, war, and injustice
Ready, aim, sing!
While I didn't initially like the song when it came out in '65, as I was then a member of the Folk Song Army, I am now fond it it- perhaps because I am no longer a member of the FSA. I am amazed how well the song, like many of his songs. can be applied to America 6 decades after the song was written.
The Franco riff reminds me of my changing/evolving views of Franco and the Spanish Civil War. I first informed myself on Spain in high school when I was in charge of writing the part for my side of the debate for my Spanish III class (in lieu of a final exam): After the death of Franco, will Spain become democratic or will it remain a dictatorship? My side was assigned the democracy argument. Later, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia showed me that both sides had their share of evil, in contrast with the narrative I initially learned of the Republicans/Popular Front defending democracy against the Fascists.
In recent years, I concluded that the Nationals/Right had good reasons for rebelling against the Popular Front/Republican government. Government police kidnapped and killed Jose Calvo Sotelo, one of the Right's leaders in Parliament. See The Assassination Of José Calvo Sotelo: Prelude To The Spanish Civil War The culprits were readily not identified, but not arrested. A week later, the revolt commenced. The revolt would have occurred regardless of Calvo Sotelo's murder or not, but his murder caused many to change from neutrals to supporting the revolt. According to some historians, Franco was among the fence-sitters whose mind was changed by Jose Calvo Sotelo's murder.
I also concluded that the triumph of the Nationals/Right was better for Spain than their defeat. Why? In the first months of the revolt, the Republicans/Popular Front killed about 7,000 Roman Catholic clerics ( about 20% of RC clerics in Spain). No good can come from a side that engages of mass killing of clerics. (A cynic would add that as the Republicans/Popular Front progressively lost land to the Nationals/Right, they ran out of clerics to kill as an explanation of why the killing of clerics tapered off.)
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