Amidst endless magazines on the market today, it´s difficult to pin point a specific title that could be classed as a counterculture publication. Looking back to the 1960s and 70s, there was a handful of underground and left-wing magazines published. Catering to those who challenged social conformity in the western world, some of these publications included German magazine Twen, as well as America´s Avant Garde. Where has the individual personality of magazines such as Avant Guard gone? Would an article on Skinheads versus the Cavaliers be relevant now? No, so have all the rules already been broken? Is there nothing left to be explored? Perhaps Post-modernism has instigated a society consisting of a bricolage of the past, leaving us with no room for individuality.
We wondered why there is no obvious counterculture press around today? With huge advances in technology, new media, and the speed at which information is disseminated, it would seem there is no time for rare publications to survive. Underground ideologies and youth movements bubble up to mainstream far too quickly for them to ever last as long as they did in the past. Have we become one huge commercial entity? It´s nice to slow down, look back at Twen and Avant Guarde and consider how much things have changed.
