Totally agreed, these were the points I was trying to make by defining them as regressive but I poorly worded my argument, so apologies. If anything deafeners are a poignant example of how we live in a time almost absent of a revolutionary youth subcultures, which I think is due in part to how the internet has arguably made all music mainstream by removing the boundaries of exclusion such as cost and location. I do still believe however that the development of deafeners is partly down to a reluctance of embracing progression in music, which follows a historical trend of hostility towards forms of dance music. Admittedly discussing how British music tabloids created a culture of "indie vs hip hop" in the late 80s / early 90s would have been a better example to base my argument on compared to the Disco Sucks movement due to the flaws which you correctly pointed out earlier.
