RE/Search in context

This article examines the growth and decline of RE/Search as a commercial enterprise dedicated to documenting and, in effect, marketing selected countercultural trends. Particular attention is given to the publishers’ attempts to negotiate the traditional bohemian disdain for commerce (as delineated in Malcolm Cowley’s Exile’s Return) in order to maintain credibility with both early adopters of trends, who provide essential information to RE/Search, and the intended consumers of RE/Search’s publications. The question is posed whether the Internet has provided a more efficient means of transmitting subcultural memes, rendering RE/Search commercially and otherwise unviable as a promoter and popularizer of subcultural trends and tendencies.