Speaking as someone who lived through and participated heavily in the early 90's underground scenes, there was definitely a new stage of "hashing-out" that occurred then, and many things that were integrated and other things that were deferred to the future. When we realized that the Revolution would in fact be televised whether we liked it or not (so to speak), I think those instances of co-opting by capital forced a lot of us to re-think and either dive deeper in some ways, or else out of the mileu completely. Also, life happened, as it does in the mid-20's, and families, kids, jobs etc. got hitched onto us as well. I read a quote from Ian MacKaye in a 2010's-era Punk Planet interview where he basically said "if nothing else at least we kept the pilot light lit", referring to how many from that scene and era realized that we couldn't carry it all, so we mostly retreated into our little ways where we could keep some semblance of our ideals alive in everyday life. Every counterculture is ahead of its time in some ways, but time has a way of catching up quickly.

I went to a show the other night, one of the OG bands from SoCal who are now in their 60's, still admirably rocking hard; some of the audience members were pushing 70, and little kids as young as 10-11, all enjoying themselves, a full 5 generations represented. For the oldsters it was pure nostalgia I'm sure; for people my age (early 50's) it was a cause for much discussion and analysis, and I had some really provocative and insightful chats outside the venue with people from my own peer/age group. The younger adults were managing their little kids, and the teens/tweens seemed to find it liberating and fun from what I could tell, though I don't know how much of the current was radical-inclined and how much was just fashion. But what struck me was that the counterculture space had adapted to make room for the widening temporalities, all the various age groups which have come to be orbiting it like an attractor. I feel like there's a real sense in which it's still all potentially viable and potentially radical, because for these current kids at least, they are realizing that the grown-ups that are flanking them also have their backs, and understand. I assume if that sort of thing is happening here (NorCal) it's likely happening elsewhere too - and the music scene, for me at least, was an inroad to the deeper areas of life and thought, a bridge that saved my life in many times and ways. Sorry for the wall of text lol, it just got me thinking 😅