Normcore

New York Magazine talks about a recent fashion trend:

Normcore—it was funny, but it also effectively captured the self-aware, stylized blandness I’d been noticing. Brad’s source for the term was the trend forecasting collective (and fellow artists) K-Hole. They had been using it in a slightly different sense, not to describe a particular look but a general attitude: embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for “difference” or “authenticity.”

It’s easy to see something like this and have a reaction similar to “Yeah, Rita, they’re Civics.”  Of COURSE kids that value teamwork and unity would begin a fashion trend where the cool kids all try to look the same. Or rebel against their childhood in the Unraveling, where everyone was trying so hard to be noticeable. Or want all Individuals to Conform.

Really, though, and despite that immediate reaction, it’s not the case that any of this is obvious. The normcorians aren’t the first group to decide they wanted to dress the same.  It’s not that distinctive as a movement - grunge or punk or even mods seem more intentionally different. There’s little about those earlier three that make them predictable, either, or that would explain why those would have appeared after hair metal, flower children, or rockers, respectively.  

Which is all a reminder not to expect everything to be explained by Strauss & Howe's Extra-Stupendous Theory of History, the Universe, and More. Even if it does seem very like the world that the Civics will be taking us to.