This past summer, I became semi obsessed with Micheal Winterbottom’s 2002 English odyssey 24 Hour Party People. The film follows the peaks and valleys of music in Manchester as told through the eyes of prominent figure of the era, Tony Wilson. It covers a lot of ground, spanning from the burgeoning punk rock movement to the popularity of raves in the 1980s. Party People is ugly to its core. It’s shot poorly. The dialogue is at points incomprehensible. Women are almost non-existent for much of the film’s runtime. Steeve Coogan is an asshole, and yet I adored every last second of it. A lot of this unpleasantness is a creative choice, but my primary admiration of it comes from its acknowledgement that at one point or another, there was a scene worth memorializing. I don’t think we can say that in 2024.
First of all, what do I mean when I say scene? There are a number of definitions, with the Cambridge English Dictionary being the most straightforward: “a particular area of activity and all the people or things connected with it” (Cambridge English Dictionary). Scenes are specific. It’s where like minded individuals meet to create and mobilize. The punk scene as I mentioned previously is a stand out example. All these snot nosed kids in New York and England coming together to spit on homogeneous culture. The grunge scene in 80s to 90s Seattle had similar sensibilities. Beatniks terrorized San Francisco with their slam poetry and barrets. Hipsters became a class all on their own first in Brooklyn and later in Portland. My preferred definition of the word comes from Merriam-Webster: “sphere of activity’ (Merriam-Webster, 2024) . I think the phrase highlights that these areas, some of which having more noble intentions than others, were nonetheless living and breathing. There was an energy and lifeblood that fostered community and art. Would we have gotten Nevermind or heck even Girls if not for the culture that supported them? Above all else, there was the hope that one could move out of their crappy podunk town in search of their people. I bring all this up because I’m genuinely wondering if there are any scenes left, in the U.S. at least.
The most obvious answer to this question is yes, but they’ve migrated to the internet. I bristle against this. Sure, the dark academia tag on Tiktok sports a whopping 552.8k posts, and coquette seems to be an identity in its own right, but these are aesthetics, not scenes. Going back to Cambridge’s definition, they describe aesthetics as “a set of principles used in a particular artistic movement” (Cambridge English Dictionary). I’d venture that this is not what most people mean when they use the term these days. Aesthetics, to me at least, are based on capital. Want to be a clean girl? Buy this gel from my Tiktok shop. Trying to enter your eclectic grandpa era? Here’s the hyper specific pair of shoes you need. Want to prove you’re a downtown girl? Get this nail polish. It’s not about ideology or artistic proclivities, it’s about buying your way to individuality. And how can you possibly create community when you are too focused on consumerism to care about rallying? You don’t even have to agree with the core tenets of a subculture to call yourself a member at this point. Wearing a Nirvana shirt because you like the street cred is enough to get one deemed punk in most people's eyes regardless of one’s anti establishment beliefs or lack thereof. I doubt actual political punks would be willing to align themselves with the former. Similarly, the internet has become so decentralized that mobilization seems impossible. Sure, one could find and follow people with similar interests and identities online with relative ease, but that doesn’t translate into real world community building. What makes scenes important is the taking action part. People can spread the gospel on ballet core or russian supermodel core all over Instagram and Titok to their heart’s content, but that’s not the same thing as meeting in person and trying to create a movement. If anything, I think aesthetics negate movement. It’s all about presentation and social capital. It’s inherently shallow. Scenes, even the most obnoxious ones, at least tried to stir the pot. I’d take an annoying hipster and their IPAs over girlbloggers anyday. Is the next William S. Burroughs seriously hiding somewhere in the depths of Tiktok’s for you page? Get real.
Honestly, I think I’m mourning the loss of scenes because of what the next four years will bring. Trump is going to be president again, and as it stands I doubt there will be any counterculture or scene that will spring up because of it. I wish there would. I wish I could find other freak socialist performance artists and start a movement. I’m lucky I go to a school that’s chock full of these kinds, but I fear it will disappear when I graduate. There’s been a few mini scenes in the last few years. The student intifada being a shining example. Ballroom and drag culture seem to be thriving, though admittedly that’s not my area of expertise. Charli XCX’s “Brat” has created a group of brat-esque celebrities, but again it’s so decentralized that I wonder if it even counts. I refuse to believe that the dirtbag left is the closest we’ve come to an actual scene because look how well that turned out.
So, to anyone reading this, get outside. Touch some grass. Find your people and start doing something. Anything. I’m going to try it myself. It just might be our best defense.
Written by Grace Bradley
Photography by Katelynn Herrera from the i16 drop party.
Sources:
Scene | definition in the Cambridge english dictionary. the Cambridge English Dictionary . (n.d.). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/scene
Aesthetic | definition in the Cambridge english dictionary. (n.d.). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/aesthetic
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Scene definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scene