“When young people don outlandish costumes, thrift-store gowns and kooky hats, they touch off a subtle fear among the “straights” in society because they announce, by their clothing, that their behavior is likely to be unpredictable. The strength of their attachment to their own subculture, at the same time, derives from the fact that within the group, unpredictability is reduced. They can make better predictions about the behavior of their peers and subcult colleagues than about the outside world.”

—Alvin Toffler, from a footnote to Future Shock, 1970.