What is this entity in America's youth called "Hardcore"

What is this new hardcore scene, and why is it so prevalent in Griffin? When I was a teenager, we used to go down to Barnesville to The Depot and watch bands like Blue Druids - even then hardcore held the majority position, musically, around here. Back then, we would get in there and let the music pump us up until we were all good and worked up - the air heavy with perspiration and pheromones. The conflagration of bodies in front of the stage would start to churn and slowly come into a common consciousness that began to rotate (usually counterclockwise, for some reason). Gaining both speed and intensity, it became a vortex not dissimilar from the process of properly texturing latte milk. There was an understood respect for one another in the pit - depending on the band, you might've found yourself like a kid suddenly thrown into the deep end of the pool without your water wings - watch out for the younger kids and don't mow down the girls. Then there were the peripherals - the guys that would stand in the corners of the room, face upturned, arms out, palms up, in some kind of grotesque effigy, soaking up the energy that splashed out of the vortex - then, without warning, the peripheral would break loose in that high-kneed run right through the middle of the pit, a maelstrom of elbows and fists. Those in the know would be on the look-out for these types that were especially nasty and would apply a good stiff arm to them as they tried to come by, effectively ending the transitory tirade.

I'm going downstairs to see what the vibe is - be right back.

Okay, that was not what I expected. There was some type of action at the front, but not much. Maybe it's just being in a new, unfamiliar venue, but there was not the vigor that I had hoped down there. I remember going to my very first hardcore show, aged fifteen, and the music and the kinetics pulled me into the maw of unbridled teen expression as if against my will. I was a classic rock kid - I didn't even know it was a hardcore show that night. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn into the vortex even though it wasn't "my kind of music". We all shuffled and milled around to the unnaturally quick beat like the infected of some viral pandemic movie and at the end of the night, we all left as friends and felt, somehow cleansed through our physical exertion and emotionally vulnerability.

This crowd has not these things, from my vantage point. Anger aplenty, but the soul-wrenching vulnerability of honest teenage angst seems to be vacuously absent. I'm not putting these kids down, I just sense a lack of genuine commitment to what's happening down there. Maybe I'm caught in the, "we did it better in my day" fantasy. Maybe I'm not. Maybe the scene isn't delivering what it used to and maybe that disconnect deprives the kids of the release they are here looking for at seven dollars a pop. Maybe they just need a heavy dose of Blue Druids and Hot Water Music. Maybe it's something else altogether.