subcultures

Subcultures

hippies

Hippies were one of the most powerful countercultures of the 20th Century. They started in the mid- 1960s in the Unites States as a youth subculture characterized by free love, utopian socialism, sexual revolution and psychedelic art and music. The movement peaked in the 1969 Summer of Love and subsided by the mid 70s. They were strongly against the Vietnam war and often took psychedelic drugs like LSD and mushrooms.

emos

Emos were a music subculture of the early 2000s known for melancholic music designed to empathize with teen angst. Shortened from ’emotional music’, Emos gathered inspiration from pop punk and gothic rock music. They’re identifiable by their all-black outfits, black died mid-length hair swept over their faces, skinny jeans, and gauge earrings. Central bands from the movement include Simple Plan, Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance and Weezer.

k-pops

Shortened from ‘Korean Pop’, K-Pop was a subculture that became a predominant cultural identification among Korean youth, although its influence is global. Upbeat pop and hiphop music, its most globally recognizable song is Gangnam Style. Fashion from this sub-culture includes sporty street wear, bandanas and hip-hop outfits.

punks

Punk rock was one of the most influential youth music subcultures in the 20th Century. Born in the 1970s, the original wave of punk rock only lasted a few years, but has influenced many subsequent subcultures hoping to embrace the passion and creativity of punk rock. Punk bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones introduced music with a rapid-fire driven beat. The subculture was strongly anti-corporatism, against ‘selling out’ to music labels, and even embraced anarchism. Punks wore leather jackets, Dr. Martens boots and spiked colorful mohawks. Subsequent waves of punk rock never matched the original wave, but gave rise to several worldwide supergroups including Blink 182 and Green Day.

goths

Goths are a music subculture that originated in the UK in the 1980s. Its group members embrace post-punk Gothic rock from bands like Bauhaus and Joy Division. Their fashion includes all-black clothing, dark eyeliner, pale face blush, black nail polish, and androgynous dress.

hipsters

Hipsters were a sub-culture in the 1940s, but made a resurgence in the early 21st Century. It is characterized by counter-cultural fashion, including wearing clothing and stylings ironically. Full beards, twirled mustaches, big glasses, bicylces and skinny jeans are common. While intended to be counter-cultural, the fashion is derided for its internal consistency and conformism, and was quickly co-opted into the fashion mainstream of the 2010s. The term ‘hipster’ is often pejorative, and rarely used by hipsters themselves.

Subcultures are usually associated with youth and often seen with some degree of suspicion by older people.

Belonging to a social group or youth subculture is often about exploring who you are and what you stand for. During adolescence, teenagers strive to form independent adult identities. Experimenting with different social groups is one way of doing this. Belonging to youth subcultures or social groups can also be a way for teenagers to decide what they identify with in the adult world. It gives a teenager a way of exploring new values and deciding how these fit with their family values. Social groups can offer a set of guidelines about how to behave, dress and think. Dressing, behaving and thinking like the rest of a subculture can give a teenager a sense of belonging and identity. And belonging is important for teenage mental health and wellbeing. It can also just be fun. For young people who choose to belong to subcultures, membership might be long term, short term, or on and off. It isn’t unusual and can be a passing phase.

Subculture is an identifiable subgroup within a society or group of people, esp. one characterized by beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger group; the distinctive ideas, practices, or way of life of such a subgroup