What is the counterculture of 2020s, that could be used as the basis for a contemporary countercultural tabletop game?Take the World of Darkness for example, which was so grounded in the the counterculture of the 90s that it comes across as dated and strange today. How would you update the World of Darkness so that it better represents the counterculture of today?Nightmare Mode: Talk about more than just politics. There's more to rebellion against the status quo and the prevailing social norm than who you vote for.
>What is the counterculture of 2020s?I...honestly want to know the answer to that myself, since it feels like every counterculture that I could think of is basically in someone's pocket. And that's a sickening thought. Though I'm tempted to think that's just because I'm older and ignorant of today's irreverent youth.
>>97322686There isn't one
>>97322686Counterculture doesn't exist anymore because the monoculture is dead
>>97323045well he might be counter to the general direction of the new world order but he has enough support that this claim is dubious
>>97322893>it feels like every counterculture that I could think of is basically in someone's pocket.In which case, is the most countercultural course of action to take a nihilistic and absurdist approach to everything, or has that mindset been coopted by the powers that be as well?
Not sure if i agree with the AI response here. Also what the fuck is Afrofuturism?
>>97322686The Dinergoth underbelly of rural and middle America maybe
>>97323111>radical honestythis is how I'm going to describe my racism
>>97323111>Also what the fuck is Afrofuturism?You could've just asked the AI that next, but it's basically just science fiction that doesn't just have black characters but focuses on the black experience and what it means to be black, through a black perspective. The only real mainstream example of this is Black Panther.
>>97323111>the fuck is Afrofuturism?Black Panther / Kangdom of Wakanda
>>97323111>Also what the fuck is Afrofuturism?George Droid but unironically.
>>97323091Given how many corporations seem to be trying to sell people on the concepts of "doomers" and "slop", the latter feels true
>>97323252young male voters disagree
>>97323310I want you to take a moment and think about what you just posted.
>>97323252While Donald Trump and his administration aren't counterculture, there are certainly countercultural elements who advocated for him. Sort of like how Clinton wasn't countercultural in 1992 but he was probably voted for by countercultural elements who wanted a change after twelve years of Republican dominance.
>>97323045Too bad that entire crowd (the new type of right-wing in general, not just trump supporters) is just kinda lame, and I mostly agree with such people. Say what you want about previous countercultures, they had some sort of message and a revolutionary spirit, but the message of the new right boils down to "Liberalism sucks, and things were far better a few decades ago". They're also very 'traditionalist', and ironically this makes them despite their general sense of their political and cultures opponents being 'the mainstream', unable to really have any sort of general counterculture spirit.>>97323091Nihilism might as well be considered mainstream at this point, but nihilism can't really be considered as part of the mainstream, or part of a counterculture, it's more like a cultural disease, an anti-culture, a complete lack of anything.>>97322686The only thing I can think of is the general anti-surveillance, anti-algorithm, and sometimes anti-technology in general sentiment that's been growing heavily recently (ironically, by algorithms). They're unorganized, there's no name for them, and perhaps it's a greater social revolution in it's earlier stages, but the sentiment is popular enough to consider it a proper counterculture, they make significant and distinct criticisms of not just politics, but specific aspects of the current society, and they have a good sense that they are doing this. It's also far more "feeling" than "logic", even if the arguments and criticisms they use are perfectly logical, which is important for any counterculture. It also is supported by many kinds of people, for many different reasons, often across political lines, which also makes it far more "cultural" than "political".
>>97323045This. Edginess is the first tool of the the political mainstream right now, at least in America.>but counterculture is not about being edgy, it's about being a niche!Bullshit. You can have a niche without it opposing the establishment. As a matter of fact, this is the main problem with leftism right now, it focuses on "easy" sociocultural battles (which might or not be just) thate the democrats can more or less pursue, without it being about something that is really outside of the institutional political spectrum. (especially economic justice, I'll add)>but Trump is literally on the motherfucking White House, how can he be "counterculture"?Even in the direction the US is going right now, he does pet the most extreme /pol/acks elements. But it's a fair point: counterculture as we had it is dead, and no, reps are not (really) counterculture. There is really no lving "other model" that can't be represent in the mainstream. Internet (were you can be whatever you like for 5 minutes) killed it as much as acceptance.
Based on what I've read here, there seem to be a few core traits of the 2020s counterculture.>Tendency towards extremes regarding the supposedly meritocratic nature of modern society. They either devote all of their energy to a hyper-productive sigma grindset lifestyle in order to achieve a better standard of living, or they are utterly disillusioned with the rat race of modern living and put in no more effort than is necessary to survive.>Zero respect for civility. They all believe that nothing is gained by playing nice and showing respect to your opposition. Direct honesty is admired and often manifests as audacity and barefaced loathing.>A lack of seriousness and decorum. They feel zero shame when communicating using the latest memetic jargon, discussing childish subjects like video games and anime, or fixating on unimportant minutia like phrenology.>Disrupting or upsetting supporters of the status quo is seen as a badge of honour. If someone that they view as mainstream (whether they are or not) gasps with horror at their actions, they consider that a sign that they're doing the right thing.>Absolute tribalism. Little to no regard for humanity at large, the only people that matter are the ones who belong to their tribe who are loyal to their tribe. Anyone outside of this group might as well be subhuman in their eyes.>No shits are given about hypocrisy. They either believe that have no choice but to live a lifestyle that contradicts their beliefs, or they believe that they're just doing what their opponent would do to them if the shoe was on the other foot.A lot of these elements can be found in pre-existing countercultures, but these seem to be core to life in the 2020s. How would you represent these in a setting like the World of Darkness, through the medium of vampires, werewolves, mages and so on?
>>97323680All mainstream, sadly enough. Maybe not the majority, but still.
>>97323021^
Ruling government is not a counterculture, just because it's crass.
>>97322686>What is the counterculture of 2020sgeneral incel loser culture, however it doesn't make for a very good gameyou could maybe make something from "biohacking" and trannies now that the pendulum is swinging against them and they're counterculture again
>>97323722"Not the majority" might have to do, if a true counterculture no longer exists, paired with nihilistic commentary about how these subcultures are exploited and manipulated by the powers that be.
>>97322686The immediate area around me and the social circles adjacent to my hobby are full of radical queer identity-politics leftists, so I have a hard time considering them a counterculture when every corporate HR department endorses them.I've noticed a strange insistence from the extremely-online politics-brained of either persuasion that everyone should care about politics, just like how everyone with a brainslug is always telling everyone how important, virtuous, and sexy brainslugs are. Like every moment you're not fighting for The Cause is a crime of negligence.I think there might be a valid counterculture in individualism; you are a you, the people around you are people, they are not arrangements of identity labels who share collective responsibility for the unfairness of the world. Doomscrolling, activism, and ideological possession are cringe and lame, even when it's for "your" side.
>>97322686Unironically, the counterculture right now is slipping into some discord server, reddit sub, twitter echo chamber, some kind of polarizing online community, and then becoming an extremist whackjob who shrieks about politics.That's what happens in the normal culture too, only the extremism of their new whackjob beliefs is much lower.I get you're hoping for an aesthetic or an attitude beyond that, but that's really it. The counterculture right now is an angry zoomer watching Nick Fuentez.
>>97323830>I think there might be a valid counterculture in individualism; you are a you, the people around you are people, they are not arrangements of identity labels who share collective responsibility for the unfairness of the world.While I think it's valid to say that such an approach to life opposes the status quo, I would call that empathy rather than individualism and there aren't enough people engaging in this radical empathy as an act of rebellion, for them to be considered a counterculture.
Unironically, sincere national socialism
>>97322686This is simpler than a lot of Anons are making it out to be. Mainstream culture of the 20s is defined by its divided and tribalistic nature. To be countercultural in this day and age, the most important factor is that your movement or group contains a wide range of ideologies and subcultures but exists with little to no friction. It must be something that transcends the mainstream cultural divisions.
>>97323902And someone with a brainslug would say that identity politics is radical empathy, because of the suffering endured by womyn and people of color.
>>97323993Not even wrong, but not "aesthetical" enough. People didn't care for punk philososphy in Vampire (if there is one as such), they wanted a guy with a mohawk with high brawling abilities and a zero fucks given attitude.
>>97323091Deluze already lost last century.
>>97324019>Counterculture is wholesome gaming
>>97322893You boil in the stew of a hundred anti-culture subcultures, and there's no uniting culture to speak of. Punk has become a victim of its own success. Only the void is left.
>>97324019This is just a subtle subversive attempt at saying "big tent neoliberal politics are cool and punk, actually"
>>97324019>It must be something that transcends the mainstream cultural divisions.To transcend would be to go mainstream itself. You've diagnosed the problem correctly, there's no mainstream, but incorrectly assigned corrective action. By growing a cohesive mainstream, you would have to be anti-punk and pro-uniculture. The second issue is that conflict is always the birth and reinforcer of cultural spirit. You can't malaise yourself into a higher order state through sets of compromises. The lack of compromise, the limits of toleration, are the beginning of identity. When countercultures only identity was "we don't have an identity, and we're not the other guy", it was always a doomed proposition.>>97323552>They're also very 'traditionalist', and ironically this makes them despite their general sense of their political and cultures opponents being 'the mainstream', unable to really have any sort of general counterculture spiritCultures are always countering each other anyways. What you're referring to as counterculture isn't the defeat of one culture over another, it's blacking out of culture. In essence, a degeneration into nihilism. The thread, to be fair, is premised on how we can brainwash ourselves out of having a culture.
>>97324386Basically this. Your brevity speaks to your wit- you cut right to the dark heart of the thing.
>>97324301Maybe the real punks were the friends we made all along, anon!
>>97323798DIY HRT has always been counterculture, conservatives hate trannies in general while progressives are squeamish about unregulated medication.But dunno how to make a game about hormone smuggling trannies.
>>97324450To be a punk is to break down the bonds that would bridge friendships.
>>97324457Creating a negative allegory for the trans community would be pretty easy. Any cult dedicated to some sort of self-mutilation would suffice.Using Vampire the Masquerade as an example, there could be a growing subculture of vampires who put the thin-blooded condition on a pedestal and have devised a method of intentionally raising their generation, diluting Caine's blood until they're barely vampires at all. To make matters worse, they lionise the thin-blooded state and intentionally try to coax other vampires into subjecting themselves to this generation-raising ritual. From a Camarilla point of view, performing such a rite would be self-destructive idiocy and from a Sabbat point of view, it would be sacrilegious.
>>97322686National Socialism (the real kind, not the fake cucked kind)
>>97324900this and CHECKED
>>97324386You're so deep into your (very mainstream) tribalism that you assume everyone else is, too. I don't even know what "big tent neoliberal politics" would entail, I'm intentionally ignorant about subdivisions in the politics fandom. >>97324410There isn't a problem. Having a collection of subcultures forming the mainstream isn't inherently better or worse than having a single dominant culture. But in my book, something counter-cultural has to not only be separate from the mainstream but perpendicular to it. If the mainstream is fragmented groups and subgroups divided along ideological lines, then a counter-cultural movement must reject and ignore those divisions completely and focus on an entirely different axis of group identity.
>>97323902>I would call that empathyAnyone capable of true empathy will become antisocial.
>>97323830>every corporate HR department endorses them.They claim to because they dont want to get done for discriminatory hiring practices like cracker barrel, but show up with it on your resume and see what happensWhat corpos say and what corpos do are usually opposites
>>97322686Is it really that hard to pin down? Just do the opposite of what is currently mainstream and popular
>>97322686Furries. Unironically.As someone who lived through the '90s, I can tell you goth culture was regarded exactly the way we see furries today. It was a movement which involved fashion as a shibboleth, a specific and recognizable artistic stylization which united what would otherwise be smaller fragmented sub-groups, and a ubiquitous undertone of victim identity (that is to say, they believed themselves to be outcasts and persecuted by mainstream society). It was stupid, childish, painfully cringe and insular, and the only people who participated were exactly the same sorts of socially-maladjusted dorks who we today call autistic.The counterculture of the 2020s is furries.Seriously.
>>97325581Can you? And isn't your group currently in control of all three branches of your government specifically because you wanted to kill anyone who wasn't a Christian?Yeah. That's what I thought.
>>97322686>countercultureThat no longer exists; globalism killed culture in general.
>>97326925lmao, those degenerates are protected by the elites. Even 4chan stopped banning them.
>>97326946Anon doesn't consider Israel's adamant supporters to be genuine white supremacists.
>>97322686Traditional games?
>>97323111Might be onto something with digital detox and offline connection. Given nearly everyone is addicted to their phones now. Not me though, I'm addicted to my computer. Very different and cooler
>>97322893There isn't a counter-cultute because there is no broader uniting culture. For the most part, people have broken off into insular communities within communities. 4chan is a great example. You like video games? There's a board for you. Do you prefer mobile games, old games, or RPGs? Those have boards too. Maybe you only like a certain niche genre? There's a general on /vg/ for it.People choose who they interact with in their own echo chambers. /tg/ is no different.The internet fractured culture massively. You can find a subreddit for fucking anything. You can block any subs you don't like. Everything is curated, everything is optimized. Love or hate, love to hate, doesn't matter. There is something somewhere for everyone and someone to sell it.
>>97326946Are you Discordies still pretending white nationalism is in charge in the US with Zion DonLike really
>>97322686NEET, antiwork, MGTOW, silent quitting, counterurbanization, retroreturn, and so on.Good luck trying to make a coherent setting from those though.
>>97322686>What is the counterculture of 2020sBeing authentic. Being private. Being skeptical.
>>97323111Basically the whole "Wokeanda" BS we been seeing them push since a bunch of activists saw Black Panther and now pushing that whole Africa would been a super power if it wasn't for the white man. Forgetting that most of Africa the fucking Termites were building bigger structures than the Africans till the white man or arab came. Since outside of Egypt and a few other places most buildings were simple mud huts.
Counterculture in the 2020 would be punk and anti-fascism, opposing the rightwing fuckos tearing down legal systems and blackbagging folks on the street.
>>97327996
>>97326946lol, Christians are the ones being killed today.
>>97322686>What is the counterculture of 2020sThere isn't one. The only ones opposing the zeitgeist are unironically fascists, and they are not large or influential enough to form a functioning counterculture.
>>97327996>anti-fascism>counter-culturalYou're fucking delusional.
>>97322686>>97322893>>97322992it's white supremacy. 100%
>>97323165>The only real mainstream example of this is Black Panther.I'd argue Overwatch is mainstream, and that game is all in on afrofuturism
>>97322686wod doesn't come across as dated or strange.
>>97323111>not sure if I agree with autocomplete
>>97323321Yep, it's still correct.
>>97322893What about homeless druggies?
>>97324457lol
>>97329287The difference is that this case is true Afrofuturism.It's literally Africa in the future.The only reason it's not a hellhole is because, in the game's lore, they achieved a semi-utopian society on a global scale before the robots attacked.Wakanda is retarded, the stupidest thing in the MCU.
>>97322686killing queers
>>97323680What you described is just punk rock to a t.
>>97322686>What is the counterculture of 2020sDoesn't exist.
>>97322686Truth is to get some edge now you'd have to go to the second or third world outside of common internet range
>>97329474Not entirely.>extreme reaction to meritocracyWhile some of them certainly refused to participate in the rat race and have any ambitions, there were never any sigma grindset punks.>absolute tribalismThey didn't alienate and revile everyone outside of their subculture to the same that modern culture war terminally online subcultures do. They didn't get anywhere near that extreme.>no shits about hypocrismSelling out was absolutely considered a sin and anyone who chose money over the punk rock way was spat upon. These days, even the most zealous subcultures have a heap of excuses for why they participate in society in ways that contradict their subculture.
>>97328881>>97329015Note how much the current culture reviles this idea, proving his point.
>>97329745Fine, I'll bite. How do we define current culture?Several people here have said that there is no longer any "current culture," the old monoculture has fragmented.If you're talking specifically about the current culture of 4chan, then yes, I guess le reddit antifascism is indeed a counterculture here. But I'm pretty sure the original question was referring to society in general, not the board culture of /tg/.Also, I parse replies like >>97329320 as jokes. Bad, tedious braindead jokes that have gotten tiresome. The first fart joke is funny, so is the third one, but the 50th time its gonna fall flat.I parse replies like >>97327996 as a nominal leftist thinking they're fighting the chuds, or a troll. The posts are of similar length and cognitive depth, but anti-fascism is a contemporary buzzword that's also used to describe cops existing, it's not intended as a joke. A troll maybe, but not a joke.
>>97329874I parse those reddit-y replies as "Oh great, another kiddie loaded up with talking points who's going to regurgitate them everywhere they go and accuse anyone who doesn't buy into the alarmism of being fascist forces of reaction. I definitely don't run into enough of you, IRL or on the internet. Go be a propaganda vector somewhere else."
>>97329874I wasn't joking, queer. You're next.
>>97322686Go off-line. Remain off-line. Use your cellphone just to call people you know, no social media, no videos, no whatsapp/telegram. No group of people of unknown nationalities with a singular common interest.Talk to strangers while waiting the bus, look outside instead of at your phone during the ride. Learn things, then don't share them online afterwards.
>>97330408Off topic, but I've tried doing this several times. It's ridiculous how hard it is. I hate how my brain has been rewired to want constant engagement with somebody over the internet.
>>97329745>you can't be counter-culture AND electablemidwit
>>97330408fag
>>97329745lmao you talk like 4chan is real life.
If there's one thing that this thread has made clear, it's that there is no dominant monoculture any longer and there is no counterculture that is opposed to it. The internet connected everyone and everyone decided to fuck off to their separate echo chambers.A 2020s take on the World of Darkness would have to focus on the fractured nature of contemporary culture to feel relevant. The Camarilla would have to fracture into a bunch of different camps vying for supremacy, as would the Sabbat and even the Anarchs. The setting would have to be bursting at the seams with countless batshit crazy cults and movements all fighting for relevance and the reader's attention, all of them extreme and absurd and calling for the death of one another. Vampire trannies and vampire tradcaths and vampire zionists and vampire afrocentrists and vampire commies and vampire techbros all just duking it out and ripping each other to shreds, forever and ever and ever.
>>97322893It's unfortunately been the case that many countercultures become monetized and corporate controlled if they have anything of value. Happened to the hippies, the punks, the goths, and everyone else. By the time anyone is reporting on it or recording it as part of history, it's already too late to stop the commodification.
>>97324457You can't be counterculture while having the entire medical industry bending over backwards to make up excuses for why they need to keep supporting your self-mutilation.
>>97331542Nor can you be counterculture when you are represented by the most powerful man in the world, who is signing hundreds of different executive orders designed to appease you. If there is a "true" counterculture, it has nothing to deal with the culture war at all.
>>97331585>>97330613
In a world where the system and media promote LGBT, Marxism, globalism, atheism and BLM, the only real counter culture left is traditionalist Christian nationalism. Being a based nazi is the new punk rock
>>97327780I suppose you could theroretically have a tradwerewolf thing in which farmers promoting "values" are honest to god shapeshifters.
>>97331542Are you retarded? Do-it-yourself and over-the-counter is what medical industry is opposed to.
There is no more "counterculture" because there is no more monoculture. All cultures got split into a million microcultures, and they stopped really transmitting their culture to the next generation. There isn't enough overlap to get a critical mass of interested passionate people to care about something other than whatever niche distraction.
I think incels or actual racists were counterculture up to a few years ago, but Zoomer fags have appropriated their culture so much that it's no longer true. Now you have normies talking about physiognomy and identifying with "most racist guy with asian wife" memes.
>>97331947Whining is not a culture.
>>97329874>>97330613>>97331152Note the continued and extreme backlash against the idea of being anti-fascist.It's become counter culture.
>>97331649Sorry, LGBT shit is counter culture again, on account of you guys coming into power.
>>97323146>>97322686it's dinergothshttps://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenewatlantis.com%2Fpublications%2Famerican-diner-gothic
>>97322686at best you could argue some RETVRN shit is countercultural but even then there's no unified grognard aesthetic or ideology like with goths or punks or hippies or beatniks, there's a thousand different groups who all agree modern culture sucks ass but none of them agree in what way or have any shared media/cultural landscape with each other. Maybe anprim neo-luddite doomerism could make for a decent counter culture game? A 2020s reimagining of Werewolf the Apocalypse where Gaia is already dead thanks to micro plastics and Pentex-owned chatbots convincing schizophrenics to commit suicide are actually manifestations of the Wyrm? Unfortunately the actual W5 is dogshit and addresses none of this and is mostly about retconning the garou to be lame and retarded and inoffensive so it'd have to be a different game using similar themes
>>97333538I mean, wouldn't a real counterculture be like - you're all manly white warrior dudes slaughtering the cowards and soft-handed corrupt politicians who want to make everyone brown effeminate eunuchs?
>>97333462While there's some truth in this, could dinergoths be used as a basis for a tabletop game in the same way that goths were used for Vampire the Masquerade?It doesn't seem like there would be something to drive such a game, if it's all about a lack of ambition or life goals and a focus on mouldering in the stagnant comfort of nerd culture.
>>97322893>I...honestly want to know the answer to that myselfAs another anon said, the closest thing we've got left to a counter-culture is white supremacy. Being a chud is, unironically, the last bastion of "punk" left. Which isn't saying much, because the core of counter-culture is, y'know, raging against a culture. But we don't have a culture anymore, we have a dozen cultures fighting each other at the beck of cultureless megacorporations. If there is a culture worth declaring the "majority" in America, it's Globalism. But not the fun kind of Globalism, it's that bland, "be nice!" Kind of Globalism where "be a good human being" is carried by a dozen huge assumptions that the person being told to "be nice" grew up understanding, even vaguely, that they are part of a culture built upon Western traditions. That this person simply understands what "be nice" means because they grew up in a culture that the "Be Nicer" understands and values. To put it more bluntly so I don't ramble, current Western culture is a rootless globalist wearing the face of Western traditions and acting like the skin-mask they're wearing represents every culture on Earth.It explains everything. Why they hate white supremacy. Why they hate "native" cultures, why they worship the Other - until the Other starts insisting they're a culture where the globalist lives, in which case the Globalist waggles their finger and starts the whole, "nu uh, you're a Human:tm: and under this roof, Good Humans follow Globalism."So what this means, if we're going to extract anything from this post, is that a "true punk" living in modern times would look more like a foreign invader than subversive opposition. A punk in this instance would push for an ethnostate, would attack Globalist displays (Raytheon gay pride parades, for example) and would espouse their cultural values while protecting their heritage. If this sounds uncomfortably fascist, that's kind of the point - it's counterculture, not a hug box.
>>97333752>foreign invader than subversive oppositionThat's a matter of perspective though, since the other side would say the same thing. We see it in this thread with "X is not the counterculture because they're endorsed by the president/media." One side sees the other side as the dominant hegemonic status quo and their side as the plucky rebellious underdogs sticking it to the man.Hence the "there is no dominant culture so there can be no subculture" statement that pops up so much in this thread. There's no consensus of reality, everyone's hiding their own bubbles and radicalising themselves in echo chambers.
>>97333784>Hence the "there is no dominant culture so there can be no subculture" statement that pops up so much in this thread.We live in the worst sort of cyberpunk dystopia. I hate this. I hate living in the American Economic Zone.
>>97322686>Ravers. >Actual musicians.>Cottagecore/survivalists>People who read (not Morning Glory Milking Farm, but serious literature)>Backpackers>Bodybuilders>Biohackers/Flow Cultists/Nootropics Enthusiasts>Actual BDSM>1950s Household Intentionalists>Hikers, Mountaineers and "Disappear into Nature to Wander" types>People who raise large, dangerous exotic animals
Unironically, groypers.
>>97333449Redditor, for your argument to work you have to consider 4chan as mainstream culture.
>>97333752>a-actually the government of the most bloated military superpower in the world is so l-le based and punk!!Read the first sentence, didn't bother with the rest.
>>97322686White trash.Like, genuine white trash.
>>97323111Listen to Deltron 3030 and watch the Boondocks.
>>973341844chan IS mainstream culture.
>>97330613>The only thing that matters in politics is which letter is next to a politician's nameRetard.>>97331757>I'm punk!! I'm totally punk! Stop telling me I'm not punk!!You're not the wild rebel you think you are. You're right there alongside all the fent zombies crowding up west coast cities who also have the explicit support and zero concern from the government.
>>97331542Why do you people seethe about trannies so much?They're just obsessives obsessed with a gender condition. That's it. The treatment of transitioning has a lower suicide rate than standard obsessive condition practices, so we do it.It's no worse than someone being obsessed with anything else that's not true, like flat earth or god.
>>97333752It's not 2016 anymore. There's no Raytheon pride, they're all "based" now, you have been co-opted.
>>97334482who are you quoting?
