I know very little about aesthetics, but i think the concept of mímesis is more relevant than ever. Big fashion brands try to sell the buyer an idealized lifestyle, rather than a visually appealing garment, and major labels keep pushing artists that can easily get millions of streams, instead of signing skilled artists that have more potential, but aren't as marketable.

Notice how we keep going back to the same trends?

There is a craze for the so called Y2K aesthetic (an aesthetic resembling trends that were popular in the 2000's), which a lot of people are obsessed with because they're driven by nostalgia; for this reason people on the internet invented the term "nostalgia-bait" refering to musicians whose popularity entirely depends on their 2000's-like sound.

Companies know the formula for what sells, so they keep proposing syles and ideas that have previously been done.

In this mess, art loses its property of intimacy, meanwhile personality is crushed by conformity in an industry that favours hype.

Nowadays, the most popular artists try to imitate a lifestyle that doesn't actually represent their personality, instead of conveying their true emotions or passions through music and fashion.

You can definetely feel when music is heartfelt, and most artists in the new hip-hop scene (the most poupular genre) just lack self expression.

Aristotle wrote: "In rhythms and melodies there are representations, remarkably close to reality, of anger and gentleness, as well as courage and temperance, and of all their opposites and other moral qualities (and this is proven by experience, for when we listen to them, given their nature, our soul undergoes a change): moreover, the habit of feeling pain or joy at these [musical] representations is quite similar to behaving in the same way in real life." (Politics VIII)

In my opinion we've gone from imitating ideas (Plato thinks of art as the imitation of an imitation) to imitating ideals, which are merely our perspective of another idea, that we do not fully comprehend. Consequently, we get further away from the essence of the idea we are trying to portray, and we are never truly familiar with the idea we want to express.

Identifying in a subculture is becoming harder and harder, because every subculture, which gains a little bit of popularity gets exploited by companies so they can profit off of them.

Aristotle says: "when we listen rythms, our sould undergoes a change, given their nature", but what if the music is stripped of the natural, personal feeling?

My question is how can I find a subculture that feels genuine and that I can resonate with?