How does it look like with American eyes—completely fake? Or normal?
It looks like a very exaggerated version of one particular America. There are shops that sell this kind of merchandise in the Western US, but they sell as much to tourists as to folks who actually dress like this.
What you need to understand is that there is more than one distinctively American subculture in the US. In particular, there are at least two major poor, rural, white American cultures: the high-religiosity country music culture, and the low-religiosity rock/metal culture. Though they can often be found side by side in the same trailer park, the same home, or even sometimes the same individual, there is also some real tension between them. Rock/metal appeals more to teenage rebellion, rejection of responsibility and civilization, rootless adventure. Country is more aspirational and its adherents see themselves as salt-of-the-earth folks who love their family, flag, and God. I guess that doesn’t go over so much in Europe, so we mostly export rock culture. (Even in the US, urban upper-middle-class people tend to get the two cultures confused since they both equally reject things like suits and liberal arts degrees and clever hipster music.)
Even in the US, urban upper-middle-class people tend to get the two cultures confused since they both equally reject things like suits and liberal arts degrees and clever hipster music.
(European here. Also an amateur rock musician, FWIW.)
It sounds like American urban upper-middle-class culture (you mean the one which Mencius Moldbug calls Optimates, Yvain calls Blue Tribe, Christian Lander calls SWPL, etc., right?) is even more foreign to me than I thought: I’m mildly surprised they find rockers outgroupish enough to lump them with country music folks. I’m also surprised by the association of rock/metal with “rural”—the first place in the US that springs to my mind when I hear about rock would be somewhere like Los Angeles.
No, it’s not that all rockers are poor, rural, and white, it’s that one of the poor, rural, white subcultures likes rock and metal more than country music.
It looks like a very exaggerated version of one particular America. There are shops that sell this kind of merchandise in the Western US, but they sell as much to tourists as to folks who actually dress like this.
What you need to understand is that there is more than one distinctively American subculture in the US. In particular, there are at least two major poor, rural, white American cultures: the high-religiosity country music culture, and the low-religiosity rock/metal culture. Though they can often be found side by side in the same trailer park, the same home, or even sometimes the same individual, there is also some real tension between them. Rock/metal appeals more to teenage rebellion, rejection of responsibility and civilization, rootless adventure. Country is more aspirational and its adherents see themselves as salt-of-the-earth folks who love their family, flag, and God. I guess that doesn’t go over so much in Europe, so we mostly export rock culture. (Even in the US, urban upper-middle-class people tend to get the two cultures confused since they both equally reject things like suits and liberal arts degrees and clever hipster music.)
(European here. Also an amateur rock musician, FWIW.)
It sounds like American urban upper-middle-class culture (you mean the one which Mencius Moldbug calls Optimates, Yvain calls Blue Tribe, Christian Lander calls SWPL, etc., right?) is even more foreign to me than I thought: I’m mildly surprised they find rockers outgroupish enough to lump them with country music folks. I’m also surprised by the association of rock/metal with “rural”—the first place in the US that springs to my mind when I hear about rock would be somewhere like Los Angeles.
No, it’s not that all rockers are poor, rural, and white, it’s that one of the poor, rural, white subcultures likes rock and metal more than country music.