Alternative Culture Attrition

There is a reason that has to do with the observation that there are far fewer middle-age people than young people pursuing an alternative lifestyle, and it has nothing to do with maturity.

An alternative person, who still needs a mainstream job to pay mainstream rent, has at least one foot in the mainstream world. Ultimately, it is the only foot that has traction. Any compromises must favor the mainstream, because that is where the material support is. At some point, the social advantages provided by blue hair dry up because it is sitting atop a wrinkling face. It provides no advantage in alternative subculture, and only disadvantages in the mainstream world, and so it eventually grows out.

It is nearly impossible to be an alternative person with critical dependence on the mainstream world, at least any dependency that is not artistic. This means there are only two options for an alternative person: owning one’s own home, either individually or collectively, or being rich and famous as an artist.

For a teen-ager, who has aspirations of being an alternative person, the first question should not be, “what color to dye my hair?” but rather, “What path to home ownership am I on?”

For the overwhelming majority of them, let us say, ninety percent, home ownership is the critical issue of alternative life. No one can be punk without a punk house; one can only be annoying. No one can be goth without a goth house; one can only be tragic.

This cannot be said strongly enough: there is no alternative lifestyle concept which does not address, at its center, where the housing comes from.