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Notes -
IMO the better explanation is that the music culture itself led to the antisocial behavior. It valued short term gratification and the expression of rage, reinforced through catchy songs and interesting music videos. Once you find that “cool” as a kid, it’s only a matter of time before there’s temptation to imitate that behavior. What better place to do than then the live performance of the band? Social ills don’t have to factor in at all, and in fact we can see the social ills as also being a product of the culture at the time, which includes music culture. Kids look up to their favorite artist, and they love imitating people they up to, and music is the best way to communicate an emotional state. So it shouldn’t be surprising if they internalize the emotional state that they spend hundreds of hours listening to, and if that’s an aggressive state then they will behave aggressively.
More generally, 1997-1999 was a really weird period where the US economy was booming, America was undisputed global hegemon, and unemployment was very low. In this environment of them mid-late 90s a weird post-Nirvana alt scene evolved that was weirdly self destructive, nihilistic and generally full of rebels without a cause.
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