What is meant by ‘Youth Culture’?
Youth culture is about… • Collectivity/ Being part of a group • Defining yourself against adult culture • Taking things from adult culture and redefining them • Resistance and Rebellion • An attempt to find your own space/ language/ identity for youth
The Meaning of Style • Young people construct their identity through fashion and musical influence • Style has a meaning for every youth (sub)culture • Style is a way of defining who you are and who you are not Subculture is resistance • Youth subcultural styles are often seen as a threat; a threat to the norm. • Youth subcultures often celebrate deviance • Youth cultural styles resist the expectations of adult culture. As such, youth subcultural style is an expression of symbolic resistance (resistance through symbols) • Youth cultures create their own elusive meanings, creating a language of youth and for youth • Youth subcultures are a form of collective selfdefence • Youth subcultures are attempts at counterhegemony and resistance to the social injustices of the working class world In youth culture, the body is a site of resistance • Clothing, accessories, hair, make up, jewellery become a space of meaning-making • Appearance is a language and a way of expressing/ defining/ identifying yourself
Bricolage • Subcultures identify themselves and define themselves through symbols (clothing; accessories etc) • Subcultures subvert usual symbolic meanings –
• • •
the symbolic value of scooters, conventional smart clothes, medical drugs and even metal combs were hijacked by mods, who turned such everyday objects into symbols of subcultural hedonism and intimidation – subversive parodies of all that was conventional
In subverting meanings, subcultures redefine culture. They rebel. Subcultures borrow from previous styles/ subcultures, but they change the meanings of these styles. Punk was a subculture that borrowed from all previous subcultures and its only binding collectivity was chaos
The commercialisation of a subculture • Subcultures begin as rebellious, but eventually become tamed/ ‘norm’-alised by becoming part of the mainstream • Subcultures become commercialised and commodified by the establishment, being assimilated into mainstream culture • This is accomplished through “the conversion of subcultural signs (dress, music, etc.) into massproduced objects (i.e. the commodity form)”, • “Youth cultural styles may begin by issuing symbolic challenges, but they must inevitably end by establishing new sets of conventions, by creating new commodities…” • In this way, subculture becomes hegemony
The Meaning of Style • Young people construct their identity through fashion and musical influence • Style has a meaning for every youth (sub)culture • Style is a way of defining who you are and who you are not Subculture is resistance • Youth subcultural styles are often seen as a threat; a threat to the norm. • Youth subcultures often celebrate deviance • Youth cultural styles resist the expectations of adult culture. As such, youth subcultural style is an expression of symbolic resistance (resistance through symbols) • Youth cultures create their own elusive meanings, creating a language of youth and for youth • Youth subcultures are a form of collective selfdefence • Youth subcultures are attempts at counterhegemony and resistance to the social injustices of the working class world In youth culture, the body is a site of resistance • Clothing, accessories, hair, make up, jewellery become a space of meaning-making • Appearance is a language and a way of expressing/ defining/ identifying yourself
Bricolage • Subcultures identify themselves and define themselves through symbols (clothing; accessories etc) • Subcultures subvert usual symbolic meanings –
• • •
the symbolic value of scooters, conventional smart clothes, medical drugs and even metal combs were hijacked by mods, who turned such everyday objects into symbols of subcultural hedonism and intimidation – subversive parodies of all that was conventional
In subverting meanings, subcultures redefine culture. They rebel. Subcultures borrow from previous styles/ subcultures, but they change the meanings of these styles. Punk was a subculture that borrowed from all previous subcultures and its only binding collectivity was chaos
The commercialisation of a subculture • Subcultures begin as rebellious, but eventually become tamed/ ‘norm’-alised by becoming part of the mainstream • Subcultures become commercialised and commodified by the establishment, being assimilated into mainstream culture • This is accomplished through “the conversion of subcultural signs (dress, music, etc.) into massproduced objects (i.e. the commodity form)”, • “Youth cultural styles may begin by issuing symbolic challenges, but they must inevitably end by establishing new sets of conventions, by creating new commodities…” • In this way, subculture becomes hegemony
Dick Hebdige • “Subculture: The Meaning of Style”, 1979 • Two parts: – History of UK youth subcultures (hipsters,
beatniks, teddy boys, mods, skinheads, rude boys, glam and glitter rockers, punks, and dreads)
– Analysis of punk subculture and its meanings • Punk style as ‘symbolic resistance’
• Puts social conditions at the centre of youth culture and youth ‘meaning-making’ – Class – Race and immigration
• Birmingham, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (home of what I see Media Studies)
• Worked alongside – Stuart Hall (director of CCCS) – Angela McRobbie
How could these ideas be applied to FindYourTribe? Michel Maffesoli? Ricouer/ Giddens/ Narrative of the Self? Stanley Cohen? Hoodies, and McRobbie’s writings about hoodies?