Over at the Hedgehog Review (NB: sadly, they don’t actually review hedgehogs), Steve Lagerfeld assesses the rise of the contrarian crowd—then utterly eviscerates the democratization of outsiderness:
Much of what social critics decry as rampant individualism in contemporary America is really rampant crowd behavior. It is herds of people busily declaring that they are not part of the herd. Whether you’re a Satanist or an alt-right activist, you sign up for a total lifestyle package that includes a limited menu of approved ideas, clothing styles, and other badges you can choose from to express your individuality. What you get in return is an intense sense of belonging and identity—we’re all pariahs here! Americans once derived the satisfactions of association from traditional institutions—family, community, church, state, employers, unions. As the hold of these institutions has weakened, we have parceled out our belonging to ideas, images, and ideologies that allow us to feel part of a larger whole. Our commitment to them may not amount to much more than pasting a bumper sticker on the family SUV. Many people weave together an array of looser group identities, becoming Prius-driving vegan Democrats or hoodie-wearing tech libertarians, elaborating their identities with the clothes they buy, the foods they eat, and other badges of affiliation. A tattoo or perhaps a piercing may top off the ensemble, giving it all an overtly outlaw edge. Others opt for the more intense commitment and rewards of belonging to a contrarian crowd. And in recent years, even many casual affiliations have hardened into something more tribal and adversarial. Partisan loyalty, for example, was once a loose form of membership that most people inherited like the family photo albums. Now it is becoming more like a uniform one puts on to signal an array of commitments and defiant self-declarations.
“Banding together is a healthy human impulse,” Lagerfeld concludes. “Banding together in knots of narcissistic fury is not.”
As with most things of cultural significance or sociological import, however, our own Skooch was there first when he blogged in this very space about the mainstreaming of hipsterdom. And that was in August 2017, before it was cool.
