ENG 102C

Student: R*** A********

Professor: S*** H****
Argumentative Research Paper

Youth Subcultures in the 21st Century

When one looks at the western cultural history since World War II, youth subcultures are one of the
brightest spots. Watching photos of the mods in Britain, the hippies, the punks and the goths and
learning about the associated lifestyle and music is fascinating. When we think of these subcultures, we
imagine personal freedom and rebellion against societal norms. Then a young person starts to wonder
what are the subcultures of today? Someone may point uncertainly to the hipsters, who seem to be the
last major subculture to emerge in America and Europe. That is hardly a satisfactory answer, though,
for while we all have the stereotypical image of hipsters ingrained in our minds, little of us have seen a
self-identified hipster in flesh and blood. Surely, youth subcultures in the past must have been more
significant than this? Is it nostalgia for an idealized past? Or has the nature of subcultures really
changed?

In order to solve the riddle, we must take a look back and reexamine our notion of a subculture. Youth
subcultures as we know them emerged after the Second World War when for the first time teenagers
became a prominent social and economic group and an industry was created to cater to their needs
(Griffin 245). A group of researchers at Birmingham in the late 70s, most notably Hall and Jefferson in
their book Resistance through Rituals and Hebdige in Subculture: the Meaning of Style, described
subcultures as working class's opposition to cultural hegemony. A subculture, argued Hebdige, was a
symbolic violation of the social order (Hebdige 19). In punk, with its defiant attitude and tendency to

borrow freely from conflicting styles, Hebdige saw the ultimate subculture of his time. His semiotic
approach to youth subcultures, based on his observations of working-class British youth, proved
immensely popular and came to define popular notions of subcultures.

Subsequently, however, different scholars found it inapplicable to the subjects of their study. As an
alternative to Hebdige's class-conscious approach, Sarah Thornton focused on power relations within
subcultures, and, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's idea of cultural capital (or acquired knowledge that
determines social status), established the notion of subcultural capital as a measure of hipness
within a subculture (Thornton 11). She also pointed that while in Hebdige's time difference could be
seen as defiance against the cultural hegemony of power, and therefore intrinsically a good thing,
(i)n a post-industrial world where consumers are incited to individualize
themselves and where the operations of power seem to favour classification and
segregation, it is hard to regard difference as necessarily progressive. The
flexibility of new modes of commodity production and the expansion of multiple
media support micro-communities and fragmented niche cultures. (Thornton 166)

David Muggleton reasoned in a similar vein in his book Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning
of Style. He theorized that subculturalists are postmodern in that they demonstrate a fragmented,
heterogeneous and individualistic stylistic identification. However, he did not find support for his
hypothesis that, displaying a postmodern attitude, they would regard themselves as an ironic parody,
celebrating their own lack of authenticity and the superficiality of an image saturated culture, and
concluded that subcultures display a mixture of postmodern and modern characteristics (Muggleton
158). It is a point I will return to, since I believe that times have finally caught up with Muggleton's
ideas and these are traits we see in contemporary subcultures.

Another point on which both Muggleton and Thornton differed from Hebdige was the influence of the
media on subcultures. Hebdige saw the role of the media in domesticating a subculture and thus
robbing it of its inherent Otherness (Hebdige 97). However, he failed to acknowledge the role of the
media in shaping a subculture. As Muggleton demonstrated, subcultures only become labeled and
recognized as such when covered by the media (Muggleton 133). Sarah Thornton was especially
careful to distinguish between micro, niche and mass media, emphasizing the effects of the first two on
the formation of subcultures (Thornton 122).

Once familiar with the major critical positions on subculture, we may return our question: are youth
subcultures in the 21st century really different from similar youth movements in the past? A recent
editorial in the Guardian raised that exact question. The author, Alexis Petridis, admitted to being
confused by modern-day subcultures. Judging by the multitude of comments under the article, he is not
alone.

One point he raised was the apparent lack of easily distinguished subcultural styles in comparison to
the uniforms of the subcultures of the past. It is difficult for me to evaluate that claim because I
haven't lived in the said times. However, from Muggleton's and Thornton's accounts on the influence of
the media in the formation of subcultural styles, I can conclude that the image we have of the
subcultures of the past is largely deformed. Originally, subcultures were not as clearly delineated as we
like to imagine today. This reminds me about a subculture I mentioned in the beginning of my paper
the hipsters. A couple of years ago, when the media coverage of this weird subculture was in boom and
calling your friends hipsters was a running gag, an often heard joke was that no hipster admits he is a
hipster. At the time, this could have been accepted as a sign that the subculture was largely a
fabrication. However, it is more difficult to doubt it now, when one can go on Wikipedia and see a
detailed description of a hipster's lifestyle, preferences and associated music. With the distance of time,

the subculture seems to have crystallized into something clear and tangible.

That is not to suggest, however, that the apparent change in subcultures is entirely a question of
perspective. Petridis suggests a couple of possible reasons for the change, the most convincing of them
being the appearance of a new influence in our lives - the Internet. He presents a couple of increasingly
weird subcultures that seem to thrive online, such as seapunk and the cult of Tumblr icon Molly Soda,
only to observe that once you start examining subcultures online, things become blurred and
confusing, compounded by the fact that a lot of online subcultures seem to come cloaked in layers of
knowing irony and I invariably can't work out whether what I'm looking at is meant to be serious or a
joke. In the end, he concludes with the observation that the internet seems to spawn only brief,
microcosmic subcultures. I think this is important, because these are exactly the traits Muggleton
expected to find in a postmodern subculture. It seems like in the cyberspace, they have finally found
their suitable habitat.

However, if we are to research the influence of the internet further, it appears that it can also
accommodate different kinds of subcultures. A study on the virtual psytrance community suggests that
it exhibits traits similar to the ones you would expect to find in a traditional subculture, only without
the restrictions of class and area (Greener, Tracey and Hollands 414). Also, while youth subcultures are
usually associated with music, since traditionally it is the preferred form of entertainment for young
people (Thornton 19), with the rising popularity of the Internet emerge subcultures specific to it, such
as the geek subculture (McArthur 58). As for the effect of the internet on already existing subcultures,
it appears that it serves as a natural extension of them. A theorist remarks that consumption, which is so
central to subcultures, is related not only to the purchase of different objects, but invariably extends to
appropriation and innovative inscription of objects, texts and images already circulating in particular
local spaces and, increasingly, on the Internet (Bennett 500). A study on Internet's connection with

local music scenes has shown that, contrary to popular belief, it has no adverse effects to them (Cruse
639).

If we are to return to Petridis' article, one final remark should be made. A point that the author glances
over, but I think shouldn't be left unnoticed, is that there are still typical examples of subcultures, such
as metal (the most deathless youth movement of all) and emo. While their existence in itself seems
uninteresting, the fact that they coexist with the other, new kinds of subcultures is fascinating.

It appears that there is no simple answer to the question of whether and how have subcultures changed.
The perceived difference between the past and the present is bigger than the actual, due to the media's
way of turning a chaotic, living subculture into something fixed and easily recognizable. Traditional
subcultures, such as the ones described by Hebdige, continue to exist in opposition to the established
order, but they are by now a rarity. There are still the youth subcultures described by Thornton and
Muggleton that combine characteristics of modernity and postmodernity and are not so clearly defined.
All these cultures have found their natural continuation in internet communities. And finally, there are
subcultures you may never hear about that exist purely as an internet phenomenon, peculiar, selfconscious, ironic and ultimately short-lived. Instead of developing in a linear way, subcultures have
branched out and assumed all kinds of forms. We only must learn to recognize them.

Bibliography

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