Alternative culture

Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures. These subcultures may have little or nothing in common besides their relative obscurity, but cultural studies uses this common basis of obscurity to classify them as alternative cultures, or, taken as a whole, the alternative culture. Compare with the more politically charged term, counterculture.

Alternative societies have probably always existed, but their peak was during World War II. In 1960 they experienced a boom, some of which have survived to this day. Currently, alternative societies are being created for various reasons, for example loneliness.