The Underground
Corporate America is assured perpetual income from the underground. And the underground, by its very nature, ensures that this continues. Here's the way it works.
Some kids in high school, in a way to gain attention and to try and assert their individuality, decide to dress different from other kids. They effectively alienate themselves by sending a message of defiance against social norms and at the same time pledging allegiance to each other and the new "underground" they have started. At first people laugh, as they must have at the first mohawks, wallet chains, bleached hair etc. This made the new members of the "underground" feel persecuted while stronger at the same time because they have shunned conformity.
However, others started to notice that these new members of the underground were gaining notoriety by physically manifesting their difference. This notoriety was attractive to people outside the "underground" as well as to the members inside. People started to notice these "underground" members and they were no longer just a disaffected face in the crowd. This was very intoxicating to the formerly unknown "underground" as it is probably their first taste of the attention they don't receive at home.
Whether positively or negatively, people had taken notice of these new mavericks. Other people, attention hungry (as are the original members) begin to adopt this new style. At first these early adopters are welcome as the members quench their thirst for acceptance but as the number of people grow larger this backfires and they become angered at all the people copying what they "started." Pretty soon a majority of the kids at school are dressed in the same fashion as the "underground." This angers the original members as they are no longer different and no longer receive the attention they once did as everyone looks the same again.
The corporate world, eager to capitalize on the new trend, notices that the kids are dressing differently but still uniformly. They quickly make their own quasi versions of the popular dress code and market these to kids in the suburbs that haven't joined the trend. Soon the stores are flooded with this once "anti-fashion." Corporate America reaps huge profits off people's need to maintain the status quo yet be "different." The fashion permeates every aspect of youth culture, dominating back-to-school sales at the mall as every aspect of the "underground" fashion is commercialized and sold to fashion hungry teens.
The original members of the "underground," no longer different in the sea of people that all look like them, must change in order to keep attention focused on them. They once again begin to dress differently to buck the trend they had "started." And the cycle continues. A new style is created and it takes over, allowing corporate America to exploit it for billions. So in this way corporate America is guaranteed profits from the perpetual cycle of the ever changing "underground." No just think of this same cycle in musical terms. Welcome to the show.