Alternative culture

Last updated July 01, 2025

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations . Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations.(August 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )

This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions.(August 2016)

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate.(December 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )

( Learn how and when to remove this message )

Anti-consumerism
Part of a series on
Theories and ideas Asceticism Affluenza Alternative culture Anti-capitalism Autonomous building Billboard hacking Buyer's remorse Bioeconomics Buddhist economics Buy Nothing Day Collaborative consumption Collapsology Commodification Commodity fetishism Commune Compulsive buying disorder Conspicuous consumption Consumer capitalism Consumerism Conviviality Criticism of advertising Culture jamming Do it yourself Downshifting Durable good Earth Overshoot Day Ecological economics Ecovillage Ethical consumerism Feminist political ecology Food loss and waste Freeganism Gift economy Green consumption Hyperconsumerism Laconophilia Local food Microgeneration Non-possession Overconsumption Planned obsolescence Right to repair Political ecology Post-consumerism Simple living Slow Food Steady-state economy Subvertising Sustainable consumer behaviour Sustainable consumption
Notable works Walden The Theory of the Leisure Class Brave New World The Affluent Society One-Dimensional Man The Society of the Spectacle (book, film) The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures [ fr ] Steal This Book Small Is Beautiful To Have or to Be? Future Primitive and Other Essays Fight Club (novel, film) Escape from Affluenza No Logo Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order The Cultural Creatives Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic Evasion The Corporation Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers So, What's Your Price? What Would Jesus Buy?
Organizations and groups Adbusters Crass CrimethInc. Deep Green Resistance Democracy Now! Earth Liberation Front Fifth Estate Freecycle Green Anarchy Institute for Social Ecology Monthly Review Rage Against the Machine Reverend Billy The Venus Project The Yes Men 350.org
People Mauro Bonaiuti Noam Chomsky Erich Fromm Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen Edward Goldsmith Paul Goodman André Gorz Ivan Illich Serge Latouche Donella Meadows Pierre Rabhi John Ruskin E. F. Schumacher Bernard Stiegler Henry David Thoreau
Related social movements Alter-globalization Amateurism Anarcho-communism Anarcho-primitivism Anarcho-punk Anti-capitalism Anti-corporate activism Anti-globalization movement Communism Diggers (theater) Ecofeminism Eco-socialism Environmentalism Food Not Bombs Fossil fuel phase-out Green anarchism Green left Green politics Hippie Libertarian socialism Neo-Luddism New Left Occupy Wall Street Postmodernism Punk Situationists Slow movement Social anarchism Social ecology
See also Advanced capitalism Advertising Barter Consumer behaviour Consumption (economics) Consumption (sociology) Cooperative Counterculture Disneyfication Ecological economics Economic materialism Economic problems Frugality Green economy Gross National Happiness Heterodox economics HospEx Illth Influence of mass media Informal sector Intentional community Left-wing politics McDonaldization Mutual aid Natural resource economics Non-monetary economy Permaculture Post-materialism Productivism Shopping Subsistence economy Sustainability Sweatshops Veblen good Workaholic
v t e

Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures. These subcultures may have little or nothing in common besides their relative obscurity, but cultural studies uses this common basis of obscurity to classify them as alternative cultures, or, taken as a whole, the alternative culture. Compare with the more politically charged term, counterculture.

History
See also
Further reading

History

Alternative societies have probably always existed, but their peak was during World War II. In 1960 they experienced a boom, some of which have survived to this day. Currently, alternative societies are being created for various reasons, for example loneliness.^[1]

The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed, Heath, Joseph & Potter, Andrew, Harper Perennial, 2004, ISBN 1-84112-654-3
The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, Frank, Thomas, University of Chicago Press, 1998, ISBN 0-226-26012-7
Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from The Baffler, essay collection, WW Norton & Co, 1997, ISBN 0-393-31673-4

v t e Culture
Outline
Sciences	Cultural anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural geography Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory
Subfields	Bioculture Cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural leadership Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural psychology Cultural analytics Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural history Cultural mapping Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Cultural values Culturomics Intercultural learning Intercultural relations Internet culture Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Postcritique Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Transcultural nursing
Types	Constructed culture Counterculture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Microculture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Resistance through culture Subculture Alternative culture Fandom Far-right subcultures Youth subculture list Super culture Underground culture Vernacular culture Culture by location
Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appreciation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural bias Cultural capital Cross-cultural Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural emphasis Cultural framework Cultural heritage Destroyed Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Relational mobility Safety culture Symbolic culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation Visual culture
Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cross cultural sensitivity Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural contracts Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural racism Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural subsidy Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Deculturalization Dominator culture Interculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Biculturalism Multiracial democracy Pluriculturalism Polyculturalism Transculturism
Religions	Buddhism Christianity Catholicism Cultural Christians Protestantism Role of Christianity in civilization Eastern Orthodoxy Mormonism Cultural Hindus Islam Cultural Muslims Judaism Sikhism
Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Cannabis culture Circuit of culture Civilization Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural center Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural determinism Cultural diversity Cultural evolutionism Cultural homogenization Cultural institution Cultural jet lag Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural mulatto Cultural probe Cultural relativism Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture and menstruation Culture and positive psychology Culture and social cognition Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Culturgen Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Drinking culture Drug culture Eastern culture Emotions and culture Intercultural communication Intercultural competence Languaculture Living things in culture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture Western culture Youth culture
Category Commons WikiProject Changes

↑ https://theconversation.com/how-alternative-communities-have-evolved-from-pacifist-communes-to-a-solution-to-the-ageing-population-224680

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Alternative culture

Contents

History

See also

Further reading