I think the issue is that things move faster these days which means the gap (in terms of time) between early adopters and mass market has shrunk.
Part of this is because of the internet, but it's also down to the fact that the changes are largely software rather than hardware and can be adopted faster and cheaper.
This means that where in the past alpha geeks would have adopted a behaviour and had it as their own for several years before the man or woman on the street, that period is now several months and the gap between something being identifiable as a geek trend and going mass market is so small that it's effectively disappeared.
This isn't true for everything but I think it accounts for why there are less solid non-mass market geek trends than there might have been.
Part of this is because of the internet, but it's also down to the fact that the changes are largely software rather than hardware and can be adopted faster and cheaper.
This means that where in the past alpha geeks would have adopted a behaviour and had it as their own for several years before the man or woman on the street, that period is now several months and the gap between something being identifiable as a geek trend and going mass market is so small that it's effectively disappeared.
This isn't true for everything but I think it accounts for why there are less solid non-mass market geek trends than there might have been.