On this topic: part of counterculture used to be the ability to *signal* your identification with the group to other group members. Styles of dress, certain symbols or artifacts have all been commonly used. How does one signal to others their social media rejectionism in the age of social media communication ubiquity?
Socialize in person. I don’t even remember the last time I went somewhere with the intention of socializing but without any knowledge or plan about who would be there (e.g. in my small town, there was a specific place teenagers used to just go to hang out without specific plans to do so, meeting with whoever happened to also show up).
A dumb phone, an old walkman, etc. but also some of the following: second hand clothes, a second hand bicycle, a car from the 90s, a cheap second hand watch etc. The gathering spaces include your local library, your small local music venue/record store, and your local print shops and book cafés.
“ local library, your small local music venue/record store, and your local print shops and book cafés”
With the except of publicly funded libraries, it might be notable to suggest that, in many/most communities, everything else on this list is struggling to exist.
I guess that is a point in favor of this being a counter culture. It is my perception of history that venues that cater to counter culture tend to struggle financially, at least since the Reaganonics of the 1980s.
You definitely do not carry a smartphone. You might be excused a flip phone, if only because you’re not likely to b super-connected with it, but honestly that’s pushing it; even the most primitive cellphone has sms.
