This is fascinating and if the analysis is correct (which I think it is) it’s also really exciting because it means the cultural pendulum is swinging from increasing homogenisation to increasing diversification. I think this is going to be really liberating because people’s imagination within a subculture won’t be getting dragged down by the weight of trying to bring everyone along with them. This feels tribal in a good way. People outside of these subcultures (or sub-countercultures) will benefit from what emerges from their ‘streamlining’ too.

I’m noticing that this is happening alongside a reinvigoration of leftwing politics in my part of the world. I don’t know what, if anything, might connect them causally but I can’t help but think that we’re seeing a collective response to the cultural/political/economic dead end we’ve reached and its precarity, fear, loneliness and meaninglessness.