The Alternative Community and It's Issue With Pastels

I was reading the lovely post by user ocdgotgame, "Why Not Be Yourself?", and it made me think about something that tends to bother me about the alternative community.

See, ocdgotgame spoke about the desire to conform to certain standards, even in the alternative community. This made me think of my own experiences with the community as someone who considers myself to be in the alternative community. As someone who takes inspiration from retro/vintage fashion and wears primarily a pastel palette, I often times find myself excluded from the larger 'alternative' umbrella. The stereotype associated with alt fashion tends to be someone decked out in leather, latex, spikes, and darker colors.

But what is alternative? Well, the only descriptor is that's a fashion that stands apart from mainstream, commercial fashion. So, why are styles like Lolita, Decora-Kei, Cybercore, and other light and pastel styles excluded from this umbrella?
To be entirely honest, I don't have a great answer. While most of those under the alt umbrella certainly wouldn't call the styles I just mentioned 'mainstream', many also wouldn't call them 'alternative', either. Now, for clarity, I do have to type the mandatory part of this argument- most people in the alt community are lovely and inclusive, and absolutely do not alienate people from the community. However, it doesn't remove this hesitancy to accept these lighter styles into the community.

What is everyone's thoughts on this? Do you think more pastel styles are accepted or rejected from the alt community?
-C1oud