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UPCOMING EVENTS
23/10/2014 - 2:00 am
Youth Subcultures and Their Impact Written by Kiriakos Anastasiadis (/articles/author/497-kiriakosanastasiadis)
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Youth subcultures have always played a vital role in evolution. On many occasions they have been cause of fundamental sociopolitical changes and even violent events. Always separate from mainstream behaviours, they are regarded as a threat to the political and economic status quo of society and are therefore attacked by any means – often unethical and illegal – available, in order to reduce their impact on the rest of the population. Due to these attacks, few subcultures ever last long enough to have a significant and permanent influence in any given society. The few that do, lead to changes that have a positive impact on people's lives. Nowadays, globalization and the explosion of the Internet have a dramatic effect on the formation and evolution of subcultures and on their potential impact on society. Although the speed of the flow of information and communication can make some subcultures a global event, it can also be a very successful means of controlling them. It took the hippie movement almost a decade to evolve and grow from a marginal group of hallucinogenic drug users to a subculture that changed American society forever and even sped up the end of the Vietnam War. Today, subcultures evolve in weeks or months and can therefore have an immediate impact on a global scale. But at the same time, they only base their growth on online communication and mainstream media, which makes it easy for them to be controlled and transformed. Perhaps, this is the reason why we have not yet seen another subculture grow to be anything like the hippie movement was. So what is considered a subculture? In general, it is a group of people with common behaviours, slang, styles and interests that are distinct from the rest of the population’s. There is a great diversity in subcultures. Music interests led to the formation of punk, ravers, and rockers. A free lifestyle was the main interest of hippies and bikers. Vehicle preferences differentiated mods and rockers in England in the 1960s. Fashion, as well as music, can also be distinctive in these subcultures, like in grunge and emo. But there has been a common link between all subcultures throughout the years. They are all hostile to the dominant political, social and economic systems of their time. Influential subcultures of the 20th century The Beat Generation was a literature subculture formed by writers after WWII in New York. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs are the most well-known writers of the Beat Generation. They promoted an alternative lifestyle to that of the puritan American society of the time. Open sexuality, drug use, anti-war sentiments and excess are the movement’s characteristics. This group was persecuted extensively but it had a major impact on the cultural status of the United States. The obscenity trials led to the limitation of censorship and helped other writers and publishers to overcome their fear. They influenced music artists like Bob Dylan, The Doors, and The Beetles. People started to express their sexuality more openly and the Beat Generation made the first step for the acceptance, by the rest of the population, of homosexuality. The most famous subculture is of course the hippie movement. Although its proposed ideology and lifestyle date back to ancient Greek philosophy and Eastern religions, the hippies as we know them originated from the beatniks of the Beat Generation. The movement started at Greenwich Village in New York, and San Francisco. Hippies promoted a lifestyle that was totally different from the social norms of their era, which involved: communal living, travel, rejection of marriage, open sexuality, anti-nuclear and anti-war sentiments, a healthy diet, distinct fashion, long hair and beards and the use of drugs to achieve a higher level of consciousness. By the mid-1960s this subculture had millions of members in the US and had started to expand into Europe and the rest of the world. The most influential hippie events are the Summer of Love in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The movement started to decline in the 1970s, but many of its ideas are embraced by millions of people even today. The hippie movement is mostly remembered for its anti-war protests, which sped up the end of the Vietnam War, and for its influential artists. Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Jimmy Hendrix and The Charlatans are just a few that owe many of their creations to hippie ideas and the lifestyle. After the decline of the hippie movement, subcultures returned to their minority status. They were fragmented and usually limited to one or two distinct characteristics, mainly in music, fashion or lifestyle. The higher social and political ideas of the hippie movement lost their significance and its members were living in the margins of society and seen as outcasts and potential criminals. The 1970s’ punk subculture has perhaps since been the most influential, as it gained considerable popularity, mainly in Europe. The American equivalent was the hiphop subculture during the 1980s and early 1990s. Nowadays, the most dominant subculture is Generation Y, also known as the Internet Generation. It includes people born from the early 1990s until the year 2000. Many sociologists actually classify Generation Y as a culture that includes subcultures like hackers, skaters, emo, gamers and many others. They are probably right since it includes almost everyone. Its members are familiar with digital media and communication, they lack higher sociopolitical ideals, they are integrated into the consumer markets, and they love digital products – sometimes to the level of addiction. Its differences from the 20th century subcultures are evident, especially regarding materialism. Generation Y does not reject money and in fact it is the steam engine of Western economies. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook managed to surpass the giants of the old economy and strangely, they even have followers like the music bands of the past. Facebook, Google and Apple customers can be easily classified as subcultures. Facebook has 500 million active members. Apple was transformed from a cult, bankrupted brand to the most valuable company on the planet in just fifteen years. Google has access to every piece of information available on the Web. Its customers share with it every aspect of their lives without hesitation, from their credit card numbers and addresses to their sexuality and political views. This is totally contradictory to the ideas of past subcultures, which fought for the protection of fundamental human rights. By studying the above facts it becomes evident that Generation Y has the social and economic impact that the hippies and other movements could only dream of. In fact it has not just influenced societies, it has become the society. But it is a society that has rejected direct communication for an isolated existence. The success of these virtual worlds is a worrying phenomenon that should be studied carefully. Direct human interaction is the basis for the formation of a balanced and healthy society and Generation Y seems unable to understand this. Past subcultures were crucial to evolution. Although their members were often seen as dangerous outcasts and were therefore persecuted, they offered the next generations the rights that we all take for granted today – female emancipation, free artistic expression, sexual and religious freedom, political and human rights reforms – these things have all became a reality thanks largely to subcultures. Generation Y has followed a different path by rejecting direct human interaction and by focusing on excessive consumerism and an apolitical life. Generation Alpha is now forming and will be crucial to evolution. Sociologists predict that it will be an even more market and technology dependent culture, although there are a few who hope for a marriage of the old ideals and current technology that will lead to a balanced society. The answer is not far away. Tweet
Tags: #yt6 (/articles/tag/yt6) #subcultures (/articles/tag/subcultures) #ytanalytics (/articles/tag/ytanalytics)
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