Are there any games nowadays that interact with subcultures outside of the tabletop scene itself to the same extent that e.g. Vampire: the Masquerade or Cyberpunk 2020 did back in the day? (could be any number of other examples, these are just the ones that pop in my head from my days of smoking in the mall parking lot as a teenager)
>>98626503Subcultures are dying out themselves.Most young people lack the disposable income and free time to be a committed goth or biker or whatever. I work at a University and it's depressing to see all the campus amenities (bars, groups, etc.) slowly closing due to lack of interest/attendance. I don't want to get too specific about the culture war bullshit everything is coated in, but if you look at those types as "subcultures" then some games tilt one way or another, but otherwise no.
>>98626503Tabletop has become such an enshittified medium dominated by the biggest two monopolies that nobody who enjoys the concept of subculture wants to take part of it. Is all larpers, tourists, critical role imitators and soulless corporations all the way to the bottom with very small but commendable number of crazy indie exceptions. Even WoD the biggest promotor of subculture in the past has sellout and joined the bad guys, they're now what they fought against. The great majority of subcultures have joined other bruised but less astroturfed and corpo dominated mediums like indie videogames, music, niche bands, LITRPG and self-publishing. TTRPGs don't have anything to offer in the form of transgression. Everything is sanitized, everything is bland and made for the lowest common denominator and even many indies are slave to the corpo machines and made up rules, unaware they're free to do anything they want.
>>98626556At least where I live, teenagers still hang around at the parking lot smoking and pretending to have read Nietzsche.
>>98626503well there's MYFAROG, neonazis are a subculture
>>98626571The coffeeshop/hangout spot place on campus has had all its actual coffeeshop stuff replaced with vending machines and an electric kettle. I see students with jars of instant coffee in hand making themselves hot drinks then mooching the WiFi. It's about the only spot on campus still thriving, not counting teaching spaces and the libraries.
>>98626503>Are there any games nowadays that interact with subcultures outside of the tabletop sceneIt gets said a lot here, but literally just move away from D&D. Actually not even that, JUST 5th edition, and you run into various subcultures.
>>98626503>disposable incomeI can see that, but you can get in some cheap ass shit if that's the problem>free timeWhat do they even do? I know lots of young boys and girls that sure as fuck don't work and barely study (because school is the perfect cover for not working)
>>98626559I want to give credit where credit is due and say that at least they didn't go on the usual "capitalism bad-but we sell luxury products anyway"
>>98627505Meant for >>98626556
>>98627505This might be a regional/national thing, so don't take my works as 100% gospel, but... For our students it's three things:A) working jobs to pay for rent/foodB) looking after family (this has SKYROCKETED) in the last 5-10 years, and I don't think it's a scam based on a few students I knew wellC) Spending a lot of time on indoor/solitary pursuits which are (I think) a defence mechanism against a seemingly hostile world (aka anxiety).I know that punk and hippy subcultures are based on low-cost fun but the cheapest option of all is not getting dressed and watching reels in bed.
>>98627597As for A, there's one I know that dropped school and is now working because he wants to fuck off from home and get his own house, but his family circumstances are...rough. I can respect him for working to achieve his goals at least. There's several others that don't have to work to live as long as their family is around, but they're probably the last generation that can do that.B is not an issue at the moment around here, young ones in their 20s have relatively young parents still.C...yeah, I blame covid and them having their social life fucked with, along with all the other problems we have in modern society (that actively go against our social life)One could argue that by not getting an expensive phone you could get a whole bunch of other stuff, but everything changed. Still, I see some of them cutting out digital shit and working on learning some craft or art, that's better than doom scrolling.
>>98627658I agree to a point about the phones. Often they're not totally in control of it (bought them by parents, etc) but there's definitely a trend to overconsumption. It's certainly true that they can't get by without one of some kind: work, connection to uni services, etc. Also, many of them lack the skills with other devices (principally laptops and desktops) which would be more useful in their studies and work.
>>98627695Oh I'm not advocating for having no phone at all in this day and age. You need one, period. But you don't have to spend a couple month's salary to get the fanciest one.
>>98627524I mean, it's pretty popular nowadays to distribute tabletop games as ""zines"", which is all about giving them that underground aesthetic.
>>98626503Subcultures barely even exist anymore so no, it’s not a thing outside some very mentally ill people pretending they are still teenagers
>>98626556I guess furries are still around and bigger than they've ever been. Often very good artists too
>>98629626I wouldn't know.
>>98626503No. It's Corruption era, sincerity is risky and therefore ill-advised.
>>98626556Man fuck uni culture. I dont want to waste my meager savings getting wasted in the overpriced bar full of randoms, i dont want to join a club full of normies, and i sure as fuck dont want to stay on campus any longer than physically nesessary. I WANT to go the fuck home. I skipped my graduation rather than go in for a single extra day. >>98627597I dont drink or do drugs, and i already have a gaming group. Everything else worth doing in life i can do at or from home for free>gaming>pirate anime>gym>go to park/beach>art gallery / museum>play with dog>masturbate on webcamUni has what, an overpriced food court and a 5c per page printer? Theres no contest
>>98629626Furries are mostly a millenial thing, they were mentally damaged by disney as kids. Its very rare to see a gen Z furry.
>>98626556Don't think it's the outcome, it's just that people can have their "mask" online for free. No need to paint their skin for that.
>>98626616>The coffeeshop/hangout spot place on campus has had all its actual coffeeshop stuff replaced with vending machines and an electric kettle.Wtf, that's so bleak.
>>98626556I don’t think it’s the lack of disposable income. Any kiddo can get at $15/hr job these days pushing carts at a grocery store and be able to afford accessories while having the luxury of living at home and on their parents insurance plans. I think the bigger issue is the mainstreaming of internet culture and merge of subculture identities into one soulless mob. You see the “jock kids” hanging out with the “punk kids” and “goth kids” and “book nerds”, etc. They all share the same personalities and the accessorizing is just their “unique spin” on that same personality. They watch the same shows and play the same video games as each other, which are all mainstream now, and they know nothing about the origins of the look they choose to wear. The “goth kids” will listen to the same pop artists as the “jocks”. The kids wearing Nirvana shirts don’t even know that it was a band. It’s sad.
>>98632455>Any kiddo can get at $15/hr job these days pushing carts at a grocery store and be able to afford accessories while having the luxury of living at home and on their parents insurance plans.Incredibly out of touch thing to say. Maybe 15 years ago, but this is becoming less and less true as time goes on.
>>98632455This might be the case in the US, I have no idea. However, I live in a city with two 20k student universities, and we are inundated with requests for financial and employment support, etc. Bar and shop work is incredibly hard to get due to the huge oversupply of 18 year olds. The information we get nationally from the ONS indicates this is not atypical.Also, I would say the student body is - if anything - more atomised. At mixer events we often find students have nothing to talk to each other about because they have no music/film/tv/social media overlap at all. There was a plan to try and do a subsidised "classic cinema" just to bridge those gaps, but licensing issues fucked it into a cocked hat.
>>98626556It's not lack of income, it's the homogenizing nature and rapid pace of the internet monoculture. Going further I'd say it's basically to the human brain not being designed for instant attention online.
>>98632552See>>98632547
>>98632455>Any kiddo can get at $15/hr job these days pushing carts at a grocery store lmao, delusional
>>98632552The rapid pace is an interesting point actually. On one hand, I think you're right, the "next thing" comes at most in a month. On the other, I feel like people are kinda fixed on the same shit (cultural war), with very minor variations. Not sure how kids manage - probably badly, but that's understandable, look at how their parents and grandparents fare.
I graduated high school in 2022.I cannot speak for every school, but at ours we had two subcultures. There were a few furries and then the military JROTC kids. Everyone else might have had a gimmick, like being in theatre or band or whatnot, but would intermingle freely and act similarly.
>>98632709I feel that's just because the culture war is a profitable media environment which any "new thing" can be fed into as either pro- or anti-. It's a function of news as entertainment and 24/7 entertainment to me. It's absolutely nuts to go read Neil Postman talk about how nuance and real debate was leaving public discourse because of TV in the 90s and think about how much worse off we are today.And algorithmically shit is crazy, look at the A/B testing tiktok was doing that has them being sued over that teen that killed himself. People are wired in this weird way where they perceive any private/noninteractive action on an app as wholly private, and any interaction with another user as a facsimile for IRL interaction, when in actual fact everything is this kind of halfworld where they're under observation constantly.You would need a total rebuild of the media environment to get back to a position of sanity. But people certainly don't want that, they majority want more and coarser grotesquerie.
>>98632750My point wasn't even to say that the CW ruins everything (I think it might disingenous, as people saying that.... almost eveytime have a side they side with, so they agree that there needs to be a war of sort). I do agree that it's basically everything right now, that was my point. Like... the new thing is almost always the new internet shitstorm anyway, or is connected to it.I mean, look at, I don't fucking know, the Odyssey, which people clearly watched and talked about. Like half of that discourse was about the melanin of some actors.
>>98632627Every grocery store, fast food place, etc. in my area has “now hiring” signs and starts at $15/hr. I guarantee you if you call your nearest grocery store and ask them if they’re hiring and ask what they start at they’ll tell you the same thing. Just because you’re too lazy to get a job doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. Zoomies don’t want to work unless it’s streaming themselves playing video games for $100/hr.
>>98632991Just because they have the signs out doesn't mean they're actually hiring, and 90% of the time if you actually go into them to see if that's true they'll just direct you to their website where they can reject you without having to look at your face.
>>98632991as someone who recently escaped that income bracket, there are 4 types of people who are working those jobs; the old ones trying to supplement their Social Security Checks or can't retire due to no savings, mostly part-timersthe middle aged ones who are playing the corporate game and trying to wrangle a life from this, mostly in managementthe ones of all ages who can't or won't do better, the depressed, the ones who live paycheck to paycheck to survive, the majority and the ones who were unaware that they would be required to do actual work, often don't last long. It also doesn't help that roughly 40% of all advertised job postings aren't real, some are legal requirements and some are data harvesting. And there's the fact that they are cutting staff and increasing workload to the remaing staff. What once was the job of 3 people is now the job of 1. Burnout and turnover is at an all time high. But that's cheaper than hiring new staff.
