Before becoming commercialized and extremely prominent here in the states, the movement has almost transformed in to the complete polar opposite from that of it's somewhat dark origins. It all began within the underground music scene of South London. The fathers of this genre were basically taking a similar pre existing form of electronic music entitled "drum & bass" and slowing it down, creating what has now been dubbed "dubstep". The culture surrounding the genre was similar to that of the grunge fad that came out of Seattle. Followers and early adapters of the counterculture sported that alternative look that consisted of button down flannels, ripped washed up skinny jeans, and pretty much anything similar to something Kurt Cobain would've worn.
Before it was cool (or perhaps "when" it was cool?):
At this moment in time, dubstep was so new, and so different that no one really wanted anything to do with it simply due to the fact that no one really knew how to react to it. Before the 'early majority' crowd got on board, people viewed it as this weird act where "geeky" musically inclined computer nerds got together and got off by making weird alien type noises with extra heavy bass leads, and then spinning these tracks at some hole in the wall venue that probably almost nobody has heard of. Like any new fresh fad being born, there will always be the early doubters. And just like Gladwell states in that article "The Coolhunt", "..cool is something you can't control, you need someone to find cool and tell you what it is". That's exactly what was going on, the counterculture had been born but no one knew or felt that it was cool yet. Unless you're one of the innovators of a fad, people need other "cool" people to let them know what is "cool" and what isn't. What gave the dubstep culture this kick, was Londons' corporate radio.
When BBC radio DJ Mary Anne Hobbs gave a attention to the newly found counterculture on a national circuit across the UK, the fad really took off and started snowballing a lot faster than probably anyone ever predicted (other than Jim Morrison...). Dubstep night clubs started appearing in New York, San Fransico, and even Tokyo, and Barcelona. Britney Spears started sampling it in some of her radio friendly pop tunes, commercials started using it, and corporate america really just embraced the whole fad as a whole once they took note of the youth catching on.
American producers started revitalizing the genre to make it more dance oriented and this in turn, effected the fashion that went a long with the genre.
When corporate America got it's hand on dubstep culture, it took the genres previous crowd of intellectual social outcasts and completely flopped it. Concert goers now dub dubstep concerts as "raves" and sport wardrobes similar to those found on Halloween. Girls dress up in multi neon colored outfits, and the guys where thins as far out as Mario costumes or maybe nothing but a trash bag, "stunna" shades, and unnecessary amount of glow-sticks as necklaces and bracelets. Dubstep concert attendance is higher than anything else, selling out stadiums, putting on larger than life works of LED lighting, pyrotechnics, and technology. DJs have now been dubbed the new modern day rock star.
After corporate America embraced it:
So the question is, is dubstep still cool? According to the ideologies of Gladwell on cool hunting, it's not, and hasn't been for the past couple years now. It as already been discovered and commercialized; once something cool has been discovered, it is no longer cool. The bigger question is what's next? What will be the cool new genre/fad after dubstep?
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