Youth subculture

1. Youth Subculture
Azimi Hamzah

2. Subculture -- Concept
• A social-cultural formation that exists as a
sort of island within the larger society
• Meaning systems, modes of expression,
lifestyles
• Developed by groups in subordinate
structural positions in response to
dominant or larger systems
• Reflect the group’s attempt to solve
contradictions rising from the wider society

3. Significance of subculture to youth
• Extension to larger culture
• Opposition to larger culture
• Solution to structural dislocations
• Offering symbolic elements to construct
identity
• Majority of youth pass through life without
significant involvement in deviant
subcultures

4. Elements of Subculture
• Relatively unique values and norms
• A special slang not shared with society
• Separate channels of communication
• Unique styles and fads
• Hierarchy of social patterns
• Receptivity to charisma of leaders

5. Formation of youth subcultures
• When larger culture fails to meet the
needs
• Industralization & modern societies
contribute to:
– Institutional structure of specialization
– Lead to extended education
– Advance nutrition widen age period
– Mother not mom, father not dad

6. Theories related to formation of
youth subcultures
• Journey from childhood to adulthood – survival in
otherwise hostile world
• Class struggle expressed through use of style –
striving against dominant class, older generation
and those who conform
• Rebellion through use of shock tactics – through
clothes and wear like punk and hip-hop
• Construction of new identity based on individualism
– alienation, loneliness, meaningless

7. The increase of youth subcultures
• Size of society
• Rate of change in society
• Globalization in society
• Position of youth in society
• Generational size in society

8. Features of youth subculture
• Features include style/fashion, language, music,
rebellious symbols, identity
• Class/family and youth subcultures
– Working class -- more of gang activity, more
emphasis on fashion
– Middle to upper class – more of special interest such
as sports, computers, smart cars, sound system
• Music and youth subcultures
– Groups can be identified with specific music genre:
hip hop, hippies, black metal

9. Types of youth subcultures
• Stable subcultures – functional,
hierarchical, and age based
• Developing subcultures – those roles that
become more or less important to the lives
of the young people
• Counter cultures – those that contradict or
confront the larger/mainstream culture;
also referred to as oppositional
subcultures

10. Variety of youth subcultures
• Achievers, intellectuals, image conscious,
heavy metal, hippies, average teenager,
religious, punk, trendy, rappers, satanist,
nerds, skinhead, traditionalist, sporty
• I really hate an adult to understand me.
That is our strength. We need to mystify
and worry them

11. Subculture as Meaning-Making
• The study of subcultures, therefore, is in
large part the study of conflict and the
struggle for meaning in Western capitalist
societies. (Abowitz, ?)

12. What Can You Tell from These?

13. Hip Hop Subculture
• What can you tell about hip hop style by looking
at these images of hip hop artists?
• While these artists only represent a small
sampling of hip hop styles, what can you tell
about the costume, accessories, jewelry, and
artifacts of hip hop subcultural members?
• What about the demeanor of these groups: what
attitude do they communicate with their
expressions and postures?

14. What Does Subculture Provide?
As Brake summarizes, youth subcultures provide
particular functions for the young:
• They offer a solution, often at a 'magical' or
illusionary level, to certain structural problems
created by the internal contradictions of a socio-
economic structure, which are collectively
experienced. The problems are often class
problems experienced generationally.

15. What Does Subculture Provide?
• They offer a culture, from which can be
selected certain cultural elements such as
style, values, ideologies and life style.
These can be used to develop an
achieved identity outside the ascribed
identity offered by work, home or school.

16. What Does Subculture Provide?
• As such, an alternative form of social reality is
experienced, rooted in class culture (often), but
mediated by neighborhood, or else a symbolic
community transmitted through the mass media.
• Subcultures offer, through their expressive
elements, a meaningful way of life during leisure,
which has been removed from the instrumental
world of work.
• Subcultures offer to the individual solutions to
certain existential dilemmas. This involves style
to construct an identity outside work or school
(from Brake,1985, p. 24).

17. The Variety of Youth Subcultures
• In Britain in the 1980s the following groups of youth were
identified: Casuals, Rastas, Sloans, Goths, Punks and
Straights.
• In South Africa in the 1990s the following youth
subculture groups were identified: Socialite, Striver,
Traditionalist, Independent, Uninvolved, Careful and
Acceptor.
• In 1995 a market research project discovered that within
the Black youth culture there are three main subcultures:
the Rappers, Pantsulas and the Italians. While within the
White youth subculture only thirty percent of youth
identify with a subculture and the subcultures are far
more numerous: alternatives, Punks, Goths, Technoids,
Metalheads, Homeboys, Yuppies, Hippies and Grunge.

18. The Variety of Youth Subcultures
• The following subculture groups were identified by
students studying at the Baptist Theological College in
South Africa: Achievers; Intellectuals; Belongers; Image-
Conscious; Very Poor; Models; Heavy Metal Dudes;
Rugby Boys; Metalheads; Hippies; Mainstream; Average
Teenager; Fashion Fanatic; Intellectuals; Physical;
Clubers; Family Centered; Workaholics; Pleasure
Seekers; Hobby Fanatics; Religious Freaks; Head
Banger; Punk; Home Boys; Skater; Gothics; Yuppies;
Trendys; Rappers; Club-Hoppers; Metal Heads;
Socialites; Independents; Uninvolved; Carefuls;
Socialites - Pantsulas; Mapanga (Punks); Mapantsula;
Strivers; Comrades; Preppy; Outrageous; Sexy; Sporty;
Gothic/Satanists; Nerds; Intellectual Strivers; Socialites;
Jokers; Gangsters; Independents; Traditionalists;
Teenyboppers; Trendy Group; Arty Type; Alternative
Group; Drug Culture; Gay Culture; Squatters/Vagrants
Culture.

19. Subcultures in Malaysia
• Can you name some?