I’m most fascinated by subcultures and fashion in that narrow little sweet spot between identifiable and becoming a template. That place where you recognize it, but aren’t quite sure what to call it.

I spent a couple years working with the then-nascent online hula hoop community, and it was keenly disappointing to me when people started posting about how they weren’t sure they could hula hoop, because they didn’t “look like a hooper.” When pressed about wtf they meant by that, what they really meant was a slender woman in hotpants, fuzzy legwarmers, and dread-falls, ie a Burning Man hooper. It was deeply depressing to me that somehow this playful activity suddenly had a uniform that, if it didn’t suit you, somehow meant you couldn’t be involved.

Anyway, great post, and I’ll definitely have to mull over the concept of quantum marketing.