The most pronounced effect of New Wave music was its thrusting of androgynous and unambiguously homosexual fashion into the mainstream. Created in part as a reaction to the macho posturing of arena rock acts, new wave bands such as Culture Club, featuring the openly gay lead singer Boy George, and Adam and the Ants appeared in clothes and makeup that were androgynous if not feminine. Appearing on MTV, New Wave marked a proud affirmation of gay culture and, by extension, of gay rights. It also declared rock music to be open to different interpretations of masculinity.
Another societal effect of New Wave was to introduce the "high culture" of visual arts and literature into the "low culture" of rock music. Bands such as the Talking Heads were openly influenced by contemporary art, mixing some of the techniques of these artists, such as collage, into their songs, while songwriters such as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe offered complex, overtly literary lyrics. Socially, this complicated the popular conception of rock music as the domain of unsophisticated teenagers, transforming it into a vehicle of expression for a wider swath of listeners and performers.
According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, the era of New Wave music was one of the most democratic in musical history. With the introduction of MTV and low-cost video equipment, the production of music videos was open to nearly anyone, allowing independent acts to enter the popular consciousness in a way that had formerly been restricted to groups signed to well-financed major labels. Socially, this allowed groups with political or cultural viewpoints that may not have been accepted by commercially minded corporations to make their point to a wide audience.
Although New Wave has been criticized for its lack of an overtly political viewpoint--in contrast to radical anger endemic to the punk genre--New Wave's expansion of rock's musical purview paved the way for a number of other genres that did have an overtly political and socially minded focus, such as grunge and certain types of political ska.