Hey there.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, my name is Ossiana and I’ve been a counterculture person since I was a teenager. I’ve been involve in goth, rave, and punk scenes. I’ve listened to the music, attended concerts, dressed the part, and even squatted in warehouses.

I’ve lived it, through and through. I’ve seen alt culture survive everything from discrimination to the widespread use of SHEIN to normalize the clothing. It’s a badge of honor for me.

Lately, I’ve started to notice a weird trend among conservatives. Many talking heads in the conservative culture have tried to say that they are the “true punks and counterculture icons” of today. Let’s talk about it.

In the goth world, we’ve started to see growing numbers of influencers claim they’re a “conservative goth.” ConPunks have started to grow in unsettling numbers, too, alongside Skinheads. Sad to say, but I’ve also seen ravers, including the inventor of PLUR, fall to the conservative side.

Hipsters, once famous for being ultra-left-wing, also started to see a conservative uptick. They actually are named “nipsters,” a portmanteau of Nazi and hipsters. It’s become incredibly commonplace in certain areas. Remarkably, nipsterism was an older example of this trend taking place.

It doesn’t stop there. Recently, I also read an article about a MAGA makeover that made the recipient say, “Maybe the true punks today are the all-American, pearl-earringed pageant girls of the new conservatism. The Magababe is everything I am not — unrepentantly sexy, dressing for men and often (gasp) agreeing with them. But, and whisper it, here’s the thing: in a city like this, that takes a lot of guts.”

Yeah, it seems like a lot of MAGAts are trying their damned hardest to make themselves into punk rockers and goth baddies. Puzzling, isn’t it? I mean, their entire thing is conserving their idea of the status quo — even by turning back the clock 50 years or so.

Technically, counterculture groups like goths and ravers were created to rebel against conservative status quo chasers. So no, you can’t be a Trumper or a conservative while still being a goth. It literally cannot exist.

It’s simple: conservatives are trying to be seen as “cool” in the eyes of the populace. The problem is, they can’t really do that very well — or, if they are successful, for too long. Conservatives are not cool by default.

When people talk about “sticking it to the man,” the “man” is the status quo of a hierarchical nature. “The man” is a person who forces everyone to dress in suits, go to work, go to a corrupt church, and invest in corrupt stock markets.

If this sounds like the conservative head honchos, you understand why counterculture and conservatism don’t mix. Conservatives can’t really stick it to the man because it would mean sticking it to…themselves.

You would be surprised at what people will do in order to be seen as “cool” by others. It’s so big an influence, it shapes brands (especially fashion and music) and can even shape country diplomacy. That’s why Japan has a “ministry of cool” in its government.

“Cool” is why the Mormon church pays off influencers to make Mormons look good. “Cool” is why Andrew Tate and his ilk were so wildly successful with converting angry young men to the cause. It’s also why there is an entire industry dedicated to making people the next “it girl.”

People often underestimate the soft power that cool elicits.

Everyone wants to be cool, whether they admit it or not. It drives everything from industry profits to political power to things like who you marry. Cool is culture. Culture influences. Think about how many thick women got dates once being “thick” became the hot thing in dating.

When something becomes officially cool and trendy, it becomes culturally embraced. I mean, let’s get real. Who doesn’t want to say they hang out with famous movie stars or DJs? It’s a vibe. Cool is hot. Cool is sexy. Cool is edgy and more importantly, aspirational.

If you take a look at the last couple of decades of “cool” culture, you’ll notice that coolness is directly related to being provocative and questioning the status quo. Cool, by nature, gets slightly more progressive and more nuanced with each decade.

Being a conservative isn’t cool nor can it ever really be cool. It’s regressive — a hearkening back to 1940s Germany. It’s about bullying, about hurting others, and also about an extreme level of conformity.

By the sheer nature of the word, “cool” is not conformist in nature. It’s about showing your own individuality in a fun way, at least according to most studies. That’s right: studies confirmed that being unconventional is a main tenet of being cool.

It’s simple: conservatives know they’re not cool because they’re hyperconformists. These are not guys that most people typically aspire to be as teens. Teenagers want to be the next Sid Vicious, the next Markiplier, or the next Weeknd.

The angry guy in a suit with an American flag bitching about chastity? Not very aspirational. It’s edgy in the same style as sandpaper — abrasive and generally not pleasing to touch.

To be fair, conservative interests have been able to weasel into originally left-wing groups. Let’s see what happened.

We’ve all seen it happen. Otaku commentators started getting more anti-female. Tech bros are tech bros. MMA guys like Andrew Tate made being a Russian asset, erm, conservative, look glamorous. Gym bro guys took self-improvement and warped it to a toxic message.

All of those scenes were, at one point, fringe and edgy. They were technically subcultures. Despite the lack of leather jackets and other weird shit, they also had their own level of edginess.

There was something deeply glam about being a hacker — a dangerous type of glam that comes from knowing you can hack a guy’s bank account or create wild sci-fi tech. There was something oddly edgy about being an anime geek when it wasn’t mainstream.

Gym bros and MMA guys had a more heavy-handed, obvious type of edginess. They are “manly men” who could beat the piss out of a guy and they’re all built like modern superheroes.

People, especially men, got into those scenes. And then, conservatives saw that and sank their teeth into it…only to turn those scenes oddly conservative.

Did you notice how oddly uniform all of those scenes have gotten? You can always tell when another scene gets co-opted into the manosphere because all the talking points align, the scene bullies everyone who doesn’t fit in out, and many of the biggest players end up being really lonely.

A lot of those same once-edgy scenes have people who all wear the same shit, say the same shit, and also manage to exclude others who don’t do the same shit. Studies show that “cool” often deals with nonconformity — the same thing they kill off with their right-wing BS.

Now, there’s another secret sauce to cool that most people notice: popularity, particularly with women. Sex appeal is cool. That’s part of being perennially cool: being able to keep sexy people around.

People remember how you make them feel. If you’re spewing hate, people are going to get uncomfortable around you. If you spew misogyny like almost every one of those scenesters do, women eventually start avoiding you like the plague.

This is why tech bros have a hard time getting a date, even when they’re wildly rich. This is why gym bros are starting to become a red flag among fitness-oriented women, why MMA has become a massive red flag for women, and why otakus were the original incels.

Speaking as an otaku of sorts, I stopped attending cons because it got so bad. I’m far from the only geek girl who began to rebel against it. The same type of movements have started to pop up in gym bro circles and similar, in a bid to reclaim their scene.

Conservatives often assume that all countercultures or subcultures are cool by default. This is not true. They also have a bad habit of conflating appearances with counterculture edginess.

They wrongfully think that the clothes, tattoos, or badass appearance are what keep certain scenes and aesthetics permanently cool. This isn’t true for several reasons.

A lot of conservative edgelords are basically real-life trolls. They’re desperate to be badass, popular, and desired. They want cash, sex, and popularity — and will go to great lengths to get that, often at the expense of others.

Treat them like trolls. Ignore them. Shoo them out. Otherwise, they’re going to end up ruining a scene near you.