Alter Schwede, schon lange her, dass ich so einen derben Artikel gelesen habe, der so vieles in Worte fasst, was mich gerade bewegt und wie ich mein Leben verstehe. Lest The Brand Underground. Ist verdammt lang, das Ding. Aber es lohnt sich. Hier ein paar Zitate:

One reason an underground brand sounds nonsensical is that countercultures are supposed to oppose the mainstream, and nothing is more mainstream than consumerism. But we no longer live in a world of the Mainstream and the Counterculture. We live in a world of multiple mainstreams and countless counter-, sub- and counter-sub-cultures.

This is the quintessence of the postmodern brand rebel, hopscotching the minefield of creativity and commerce, recognizing the categorization, satirizing it, embracing it and commoditizing it all at once.

If the dance between subculture and mainstream has always been more compromised than it appears and if every iteration of the bohemian idea is steadily more entrepreneurial than the last, then maybe a product-based counterculture is inevitable. Maybe subcultures are always about turning lifestyles into business — or the very similar goal of never having to grow up. Maybe the familiar corporations-against-individuals dynamic (“They manufacture lifestyle; we live lives,” as The Baffler, the alt-opinion journal, declared in 1993) is simply outdated.

Hier ist ein followup-Artikel: Fashion. Branding, Streetwear & Movements