I disagree that people are less weird and deviant today. I believe they’re less weird offline, because weirdness is easier, safer, and less embarrassing to express online.
I also disagree that online has become less weird. It’s less weird proportionally, because the internet used to consist of mostly weird people, then normal people joined. Big companies are less weird because they used to cater to weird people (those online), now they cater to normal people. But there are still plenty of weird people, websites, and companies.
Culture is still constantly changing, and what is “weird” if not “different”? Ideas that used to be unpopular and niche have become mainstream, ex. 4chan, gmod (Skibidi Toilet), and Twitch streamers. I’m sure ideas that are unpopular and niche today will be mainstream tomorrow. I predict that within the next 10 years, mainstream companies will change their brands again to embrace a new fad; albeit all similarly, but niche groups will also change differently and re-organize.
(And if online becomes less anonymous and more restrictive, people will become weirder under their real ID or in real life.)
Weirdness isn’t really deviance. Punk was deviance, anti-system. Modern internet weirdness is mostly just having weird consumer tastes and sociopolitical opinions.
The total opposite, large movements like punks or hippies weren't really deviance, it was choosing another large group to belong to. It's conveniently cellophane-wrapped rebellion for people who need an identity but can't bear to stand alone and truly think for themselves.
I think it is useful to differentiate between transgressive and "deviance" in the sense it was used in TFA.
Punk was primarily transgressive from my POV (growing up in London as punk exploded there). It concerned itself with rule breaking, norms breaking and generally doing things you weren't supposed to do, all just for the sake of doing those things, and mostly because life fucking sucked.
The way "deviance" is used in TFA seems much more related to people making non-transgressive but neverthless uncommon choices, closer to ideas about statistical distributions ("standard deviation") than the sort of scream of anger that drove punk forward.
I should probably view that even though I don't like much if any real punk for its aesthetics, I think it was and is a really good thing, particularly in terms of its focus on a DIY model which spread beyond just music.
Punk was invented by Malcolm McLaren to sell Vivienne Westwood clothes.
It was a recipe for people that wanted that identity, with both the music and the looks being where the money was made.
This happened at a time when there was no internet, and with no cynical clowns like me to piss in the punch, to claim that punk was just marketing.
This was not the first 'off the shelf' identity for young people to take up, however, punk was the most planned, even though it is all about not conforming to the rules of society. Compare with the 'hipster' trend where there was no mastermind planning it, but more of a convergence of influences.
> This happened at a time when there was no internet, and with no cynical clowns like me to piss in the punch, to claim that punk was just marketing.
Apparently, you weren't there. London in 76/77 was full of people claiming that punk was just marketing.
Mclaren was instrumental in fomenting the UK/London punk scene, but he was not in control of it, and probably not even the mastermind, had there actually been one. Ditto for Westwood.
I also disagree that online has become less weird. It’s less weird proportionally, because the internet used to consist of mostly weird people, then normal people joined. Big companies are less weird because they used to cater to weird people (those online), now they cater to normal people. But there are still plenty of weird people, websites, and companies.
Culture is still constantly changing, and what is “weird” if not “different”? Ideas that used to be unpopular and niche have become mainstream, ex. 4chan, gmod (Skibidi Toilet), and Twitch streamers. I’m sure ideas that are unpopular and niche today will be mainstream tomorrow. I predict that within the next 10 years, mainstream companies will change their brands again to embrace a new fad; albeit all similarly, but niche groups will also change differently and re-organize.
(And if online becomes less anonymous and more restrictive, people will become weirder under their real ID or in real life.)