Evanescent Youth Cultures
Evanescent youth cultures are iterations of pop cultures that target teens as they experience an intense focus on their social positions within local hierarchies, a strong desire to belong, and an instinct to rebel against authority.
Evanescent youth cultures often attract teens by enabling adherents to signal to themselves that they are:
- Special in some way
- Misunderstood in some way
- A “deeper” thinker than others
- Undergoing some challenge or form of suffering others wouldn’t understand
These cultures also often equip adherents to aggressively politicize and dehumanize outsiders.
While evanescent youth cultures frequently co-opt elements of discipline seen in hard cultures, they completely focus those elements inwards (on social politicking and the dehumanization of outsiders) to make adherents feel special. These elements are wildly effective at recruiting teenagers because, as studies have shown, adolescents have heightened emotional reactions to any challenge to their positions in social hierarchies and find social rejection much more painful.[[83]](#_ftn83)
Examples of Evanescent Youth Cultures
- Goths
- Punks
- Some brands of social justice advocates
- E-girls/boys
Characteristics of Evanescent Youth Cultures
Evanescent youth cultures rarely persist into adulthood but can be dangerous to other cultures as they can culturally reset adherents, erasing their birth cultures and priming them to join any group local to them upon entering adulthood. That said, it is not uncommon for culturally reset individuals to choose adult cultures aligned with their values (or spiral into super-soft culture). In a subsequent chapter, we will explore this process and detail how cultures can protect younger generations from being harvested by evanescent youth cultures, allowing them to aesthetically participate without being “culturally wiped.”