Capitalism has an extraordinary ability to assimilate and exploit the energy of any and all cultural movements

Brands have always found a way of selling the image of outsiders back to insiders, but, partly as a result, charismatic outsiders do not really exist anymore. Every new cultural idea, however radical or subversive, gets absorbed into the mainstream, which is made up of a million different splinters rather than one dominant form. The velocity with which marginal ideas or people become widely accepted and over-familiar has been accelerated by the internet and social media, as has fragmentation. It is hard or impossible for brands to find novel cultural stances. Counter-cultures were like forests that marketers used for wood; over time the landscape has become denuded.