What happened to the music?

TL; DR 

MySpace died and shifted from music discovery culture to Tumblr/Instagram visuals culture.

Discourse on whether scene is fashion-based or music-based circles a lot.

Let me be clear: scene would not have begun if music wasn’t involved. Specifically through the metalcore band Eighteen Visions. Subcultures often form through music and the band that inspired that subculture to go forward. 

At Scene's™ infancy there wasn't a name yet, but there was a scene and a scene that was more masculine in appearance.

Eighteen Visions was a band that went against that. They wore tighter clothes, straightened their hair, put a streak of colour and wore eyeliner. The hardcore scene made fun of their appearance, they called it "fashioncore" a name that wanted to poke at their fashion forward appearance in a masculine dominant industry. In subculture fashion, fans followed this look in uniform, visually becoming recognizable amongst one another. Without this happening within hardcore, within music, there would be no fashion.      

So what happened? Why did the music drift so far out of focus?

We start on how the subculture amplified. MySpace was *the* social-hub to be in if you wanted to get connected with your favourite band. 

Because of MySpace we finally had a centralized space to connect on one site. A social media site that brought in new bands and new fans instead of relying on separate forums or blogs to receive updates. It was our personal space, our creative output. 

It told those on our profiles not just who we were or what we looked like, but what we listened to, and the sounds we enjoyed. It's where we got our latest concerts and updates from the band directly. It was more connect than X (twitter) could ever have done.  

While scene originated through the changes happening in metalcore, its music identity later expanded through experimentation, blending hardcore with electronic influences and internet-era genre hybrids. This period saw the rise of crunkcore, electronicore, and neon synth integration into post-hardcore and metalcore.

Alongside this, deathcore existed within the same MySpace scene, sometimes referred to as MySpace deathcore, this heavier side of scene began a meme where they were later known as br00tal kids. A mix of scene and brutal that mainly listened to anything heavier. Internet-circulated genres like Nintendocore and meme labels such as crabcore and swancore, including so much more that came out of MySpace, also became part of the broader scene eco.

Bands outside the hardcore scene began adopting elements of the fashioncore aesthetic. Making it a shared visual identity across both hardcore and adjacent bands. Fashioncore was the uniform for scenesters– for identification, and that's all thanks to the metalcore band Eighteen Visions. Without them, scene wouldn't have happened. 

While this music was being built, so was social media platforms. Scenesters moved away from MySpace to get into whatever was new, getting there first meant your identity (scene handle) wouldn't be taken by catfishers.  

Without realising how logistics worked, MySpace was declining and before we know it we lost our musical hub. Our bands were grounded and we all followed them wherever they went after MySpace, but newer bands now had a difficult time with reach. Scene being of musical discovery was hardly being touched on anymore. 

Scene became less about the music and more about fashion. The hair became the scene marker, skinny jeans and band tees were only a choice. During this transition, platforms were already shifting how identity was expressed online. YouTube normalized personality-driven content, while Tumblr began reinforcing aesthetic-based identity. Instagram later solidified visuals as the primary form of cultural attention. It was increasingly clear that visuals grabbed media attention best. Other sites like Facebook and Twitter were now spaces to go to - to connect with others and share updates. 

Scene's visual identity was gaining the attention of so many people who "wanted in." But the music was hardly ever touched on. 

Its resurgence in 2020 is proof of that. When scene was starting its revival of the rawring 20s, music was no longer a factor in identity.