"What teenagers today are offered... is a hyperactive landscape of so-called aesthetics... including everything from the infamous cottagecore to, these days, prep."

"These are more like cultural atmospheres, performed mainly online, with names and looks and hashtags, an easy visual pablum.... They have much content but little context — a lot to look at but a very thin relationship to any 'real life' anything.... On one end, even a distinctly in-the-world subculture (like, say, grunge) can be reduced to a vibe packet of anodyne references (cigarettes, grimy things); on the other, a mere mood tone can be elevated to something offered as lifestyle (there are girls who enjoy the color red and a certain Euro effortlessness, and they are called Tomato Girls, while others who prefer white are called Vanilla Girls). If two dozen things on a Pinterest page feel as if they go together, chances are someone, even just as a lark or experiment, is calling it an aesthetic.... Kids are not failing by wanting to be cottagecore or meatcore or this new preppy. It’s the culture available to them that is failing.... Kids... need more, deserve more...."

Writes Mireille Silcoff, in "Teen Subcultures Are Fading. Pity the Poor Kids. Gorgeous, abundant visuals are just pale imitations of what young people used to have: an actual scene" (NYT)(free access link).