ShatteredMirror wrote:

Perhaps it is. I don't know, I've asked people who consider themselves to be that kind of person what it means and none of them were able to explain it in a way that made any sense. Perhaps to be "hardcore" you have to have to forcibly narrow and shrink your mind.

In that context, hardcore would be some kind of Fundamentalism then... I'm shooting at fish in a Jacuzzi with a spud-gun.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

What scares me is that not all of them would be offended by that, even though they seem to think that they're very independent.

Independence through conformity. That sounds like something out of an Orwell novel.

Well, that's essentially how the subcultures tend to work. Express your individuality by looking and acting just like the rest of us.

As for the term hardcore, it's a rather general expression. It just means taking something (anything) very seriously.