Sunday, 29 March 2009

Are youth subcultures genuine signs of revolt or simply the manifestation of style?

Many youth subcultures have their roots in revolt of some type. Usually musical subcultures are formed by the young as a way of establishing an identity for their group. In order to create this new identity people listen to a specialist type of music that often is not accessible to older people. They also invent new fashions to reinforce their separate identity.
The key question is whether the apparent revolt is only a means of creating an identity or whether it represents something more substantial. Some subcultures are genuinely based on trying to promote change and punk was probably the best example of this. In this case not only were youth revolting against the social conditions in the 1970s, they also revolted against other youth cultures and especially the rock establishment that had existed before.
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1 comment:

  1. While what you say about punk does represent a school of thought there are others that would suggest that punk was just as much about consumption as it was about revolt. I would have liked to see some evidence of awareness of this in the form of reference to theory.

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