Subcultures

7 Pages 1777 Words

SUBCULTURES

There are many subcultures in our society today. Subculture can be any type of culture that's been further classified by status, ethnicity, residence, religion, etc. Many theorists say that subcultures develop because of their social tensions, or they are trying to be a solution of their social problems. Other people say that subcultures develop because they are simply resisting authority, or trying to develop this certain identity by reacting to what happens around them. “They are not to be read as simply resisting hegemony or as magical resolutions to social tensions” (Hebdige 441). Hebdige says, “Subcultures form in communal and symbolic engagements with the larger system of late industrial culture; they’re organized around, but not wholly determined by, age and class, and are expressed in the creation of styles.” He is saying subcultures are expressed in a creation of styles which are produced in specific historical events, and cultural circumstances. They come out autonomous, not because they are resisting authority.
Subcultures are formed by historical and ideological events, cultural circumstances, and in response to what is going on around them. Hebdige says, “Culture is ‘that level at which social groups develop distinct patterns of life and give expressive form to their social and material…….experience’, we can see that each subculture represents a different handling of the ‘raw material of social……..existence’ (Hall and Jefferson 1976). They are expressed in creation of their styles, for example, “punk rockers” have a certain fashion of how they dress, what type of music they listen to, their class, etc. These methods of style are the key elements of their subculture, in which we can identify them with. Without having these key elements we would not be able to determine the different subcultures, or give them names.
“The proximity of the two positions—white wor...