Oh man. In the past 5 years or so, I've been drifting more and more into the goth scene in my city. And the music is great and the people are mostly great, but damn if this particular mental hangup hasn't infected basically everybody in the goth subculture.
It is a music based subculture, so some of it makes sense. But so many times I've entered a conversation about music with someone, and thought we were talking about our personal music tastes, the music itself--things I enjoy talking about--Only to realize that the other person thought we were taking about "who you and I are as people."
Namedropping of major goth bands has secret language-of-flowers ass meanings to people. Mentioning Joy Division means you're a sub. Mentioning Bauhaus means "smart" or "please think I'm smart".
When I say Molchat Doma and Clan of Xymox were my favorite sets at this music festival, I meant that I liked their sets. I'm not saying "I want you to know I'm an ethereal doomer who's into tiktok" or whatever, but that's what people seem to hear.
Its weird to be hanging out in a music subculture, going to concerts and clubs with people and listening lots of different music I like and care about--and yet I find myself avoiding talking about music with these people unless I know them really well already.