Grind... is this the subculture I'm in?
So today I stumbled upon this video about a genre of fiction called grind fiction. Upon some very brief and obvious reflection I think I fit right into this aesthetic. But it also seems like grind comes with certain philosophical aspects too. The commenter @totaaaally called the video & the larger culture: the "anti-thesis of non-chalant ... in other words, being sincere and earnest." That's a core tenet of my philosophical beliefs already.
I'd never exactly connected the philosophical importance of being authentic and railing against irony to my interests in aggressive inline skating, street fashion, EDM, music festivals, Splatoon 3, the old web, and thickly outlined artstyles before, but upon watching this video I think I finally get what they all have in common. And that understanding also goes towards answering a question I had while watching the video: would I still like grind even if I didn't like the visual aesthetics?
The same commenter went on to say that "culture goes through waves where being detached, aloof, ironic, or [having] unconcerned affectations seem to define what is cool." In January of 2025, I went on a trip with a teacher/mentor of mine and a few friends/fellow students. We had talked throughout the last year about irony, and we continued the discussion there. My teacher posited that right now we live in a culture of extreme irony, of extreme tearing-down and meta-commentary, without any real attempts at building anything up. That we live in an age where being biting and sarcastic serves as a complete response to someone's earnest attempt to say or do something.
I don't think that that conversation fully resonated with me until right now, watching that video and reading the comments. Because now I have had a year and a half's worth of trying to attend a college that I hated. The social culture was DOGSHIT and I could not for the life of me figure out exactly what was wrong the whole time I was there. But now I understand: everyone was living in a heaping fog of performance. Thinking that it's not mean to be judgmental if I just steep it in irony, while never offering my authentic self up for others to do the same to.
And so as to my question about whether my love of grind is just aesthetics: I don't think so! If grind is at its core about being real and presenting your actual self to the world, then I think the vast majority of the aesthetics stem from that, and that's why I like them. I think my fashion SUPER falls under grind. Even though it's kinda just... clothes. I mostly wear straight cut jeans and graphic shirts with one or two accessories involved. Whenever people are asked to describe my style they typically go with "90s skater". Why? I think it's more of a philosophic vibe than anything else. I wear clothes that are like me, and I'm a pretty straightforward person. That's my theory as to one of my favorite aggressive inline skaters, Jamie Willis, also looks "like a skater" despite half the time not wearing a shirt and half the time wearing a Patriots jersey.
I think grind is somewhat unique in terms of its position as an aesthetic that isn't really tied to a specific music genre or fashion style. I think grind fashion largely consists of a mix between Japanese street fashion aesthetics and grunge, but I don't think grind is boxed in in the way that grunge, emo, goth, and scene fashion may be. I think grind is weirdly far more of a philosophy- truly just a t-shirt and jeans can be distinctly grind if the person wearing them has the right vibe and attitude. Weirdly enough, and from the little I know about all of these subcultures, I think grind is most similar to punk in that there is a core philosophical component to it. Punk's main tenet being: anti-establishment. To the point that, if you gain any mainstream success, you must self-immolate that success to remain punk. Punk and grind didn't 100% start as music or as fashion but as ideas about how to live that ended up having styles that naturally sprang from them.
Judging from the comments under the video, it seems like grind, similarly to punk, involves the theme of rebellion. This is where I lose the plot a little. (And this was addressed well in the video itself at 35:00). I think "rebellion" as a premise cannot be a core tenet of anything, or else it will become like punk: self-destructive. Rebellion should be a symptom of your existing philosophic tenets being stifled, not one of the tenets itself. Rebellion qua rebellion seems to me to completely contradict the other pervasive idea of grind: being anti-non-chalant. Giving a damn. Being real. If grind is against hiding behind irony and being aloof, then that speaks to me of themes of building something and pointing to something real. Rebellion, at least in my mind's association of the word, focuses on tearing down. Rebel against what stops you from being you! Then build from there.
The old web is something I never would've thought to connect to the same aesthetic as my other interests, but now it makes sense. The old web aesthetic is commonly described as being what the internet was before anyone tried to make money off of it. It was for self expression and for fun. Nobody was taking it seriously except as a means to make something personally satisfying and COOL to your own tastes. That is right up the alley of grind, and lives in lockstep with the idea behind posting my art to this website rather than to Instagram.
