The dictionary is meant to be descriptive not prescriptive; tells how a word is used and rarely comments on its legitimacy. Human language is ever changing and I’m sure future historians or etymologists will appreciate knowing what doomscrolling, rizz, and sus means,,, even if your grandparents might be better off never hearing them to begin with. I’m already off topic but the point is words change with the world and trying to force people to conform to language instead of the other way around would be double-un-good. 

Admitting this, now prepare: old man yells at clouds. 

If the words doomscrolling, rizz, and sus registered to you as words and not radioactive sludge that sloughed off parts of your amygdala, then you likely have seen the strong (and trendy) resurgence of Alt fashion. Alt finds its roots largely in music subcultures of the last century: punk, goth, kei, more contemporary grunge, emo, scene, and many more. More I’m sure than I know even exists. An important thing to remember is that these movements, musical and social, have their regional origins. The music and the ideas spread, but largely the seeds of each were planted locally at house shows, and basement venues, through zines and graffiti. If you didn’t like the music you heard on the radio it was where you went to seek out alternative music options.

Thus “Alternative” Music.

These origins also meant that the music, culture, and ideals were immutably combined. UK punks existed in response to the country’s monarchy, emos in the underside of D.C. the heart of American politics. But where do we go from here? Each counter-culture flourished and faded, continued to live on but largely lived in its own sphere of time and location. What could change and break the cycle? 

“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” -Tyler Durden, Fight Club

The 1990s, a decade of American boredom. Fight Club, Office space, Falling Down, Being John Malkovich, all a genre of movie that might be hard to describe. Ennui? Cubical Movies? Whatever the name, the 1990s was ripe with movies without the same cozy, ever present, call to adventure. No, importantly these movies have nearly no call to adventure at all. Instead they are kicked off by the exact opposite, comfortable, boring lives driving people to the point of going crazy. It’s this post-cold-war-pre-GWOT era that I measure set the stage for Seattle based grunge to explode onto the scene. Fueled by millennial angst and having MTV and the likes fanning the flame grunge bands skyrocketed high above the local scene into global stardom. Suddenly alternative music could be profitable.

It could be exploited.

This is already going in so many directions so I won’t muddy it further with defining waves of emo music, nor am I brave enough to poke that bear even to the likely audience of 2-3 readers. But it’s important to know, emo came from D.C. hardcore but has been reborn in several different movements, what we care about now is so called “””third wave””” emo or 2000s pop punk. 

Unlike any alternative scene before, the 2000s pop punk can’t really be tied to any one place, except perhaps executive suites of record labels ready to jump on the gravy train. You traded local musicians for stadium sellers, free basement shows for warped tour tickets. And with that you began to disconnect the music from the culture. You could download your favorite songs off ITunes for $0.99 a pop but couldn’t name one band from your hometown.

Trends have a habit of coming back. A semi rule of thumb is the “20 year cycle”. If you’re like me your parents might have poked fun at your joggers in 2015 saying they were the same pants MC Hammer was wearing in 1995. Like an echo each reverberation is a little dimmed, my plain tan joggers were a little step below the shiny gold ones but a call back nonetheless.

So basically, there was a music and fashion trend, that was widely popular, targeted at  a younger population not entirely happy with their lot in life, AND at a ripe age to come back in style? Sounds like the perfect stage for a resurgence. This comeback seems to have an even bigger separation of fashion, music, and culture. 

When We Were Young Festival, “Goth GF”, these days alt is sold to you straight from Temu. Close your eyes and buy buy buy. The Alt title sells, ahem,,, ‘online subscriptions’,,, clothes from Urban Outfitters and, yes, Temu. But what it doesn’t sell much anymore is ideology. Goth, Emo, and Alt are used basically interchangeably with no nuance because to so many they mean little more than wearing a black shirt,,, maybe some eyeliner and box hair dye. 

By not even claiming a movement you absolve yourself of any ideals expected. Titling yourself as Alt is an admission of the complete separation from culture into costume.