What does the author mean by counterculture? They don't define what a counterculture is, or why it is either good or bad to have one, before listing their suspected symptoms of it.

Rather than one monolithic counterculture, there are lots of small signs of divergent movements I would call true counterculture. LGBT, veganism, youth culture like tiktok. There's also harmful ones like the alt-right, antivax, and conspiracy theory movements.

These two lines here:

"Creative work is increasingly embedded in genres that feel rigid, not flexible"

"Even avant-garde work often feels like a rehash of 50-60 years ago"

Convinced me the author is having a depressive episode after rewatching Friends on Netflix for the 4th time this year.