Fortunate to be 43 and experience a real thriving underground independent music scene. That’s why any born after the mid 80’s will never understand participating in a valid underground art scene. Participating from your room through a computer is far from actually going out in the streets and commiserating with others. I feel there is a direct correlation between real valid underground scenes and good art/music. That’s why since the 2000’s there hasn’t been any real substantive music/art that will stand the test of time. Today, kids are so much about labels and other shallow experiences. Kids that grew up in the 80’s of 90’s we fought labeling ourselves and had a totally opposite perspective than todays kids. To them grunge is flannel and nirvana. They know little about riot Grrrl politics and DIY. I can go on and on. I pity kids today cause they have no clue on how much they’ve been robbed of.
Agree on your taking points about sub culture but I disagree that todays sub cultures aren’t good or bad, just different. Today’s subcultures don’t have the vested time or skin as it did in the past. Todays subcultures are shallow stale unoriginal and uninspired. Like you said, you barely need to even have a physical presence to be engaged in subcultures. That’s lame and that’s why kids today or young adults have no clue of what they’ve been robbed of. Instead they love to hold themselves to corny labels like “Cis” “nuerodivergent” “emo” etc. Kids in the past fought labels and found value in having a physical presence in a scene. What’s become of subcultures today is a 3rd rate rip off and only those from Gen X and older are the ones that best understand this.
@@kckstnd8 what do you think 00's kids are doing wrong, Do you think that there isn't enough research being done or maybe there isn't enough diy. or too much social media??
Hey bro, just wanted to say I watched the whole vid and dig yer writing and editing and narration, I checked out your list of vids and fashion isn't really my thing so none of 'em really caught my eye but if you did some other vids about music and culture and art then I would definitely check those out and if you started a 2nd channel on those topics I'd def subscribe cuz I like yer style
So I had a anthropology class called the practice of everyday life. And in that class, we looked at how subculture starts and dies. And teddy boy is regarded the regarded as the origin of subcultures. In that class my professor said that subculture is originated to rebel against the hegemonic culture, and the way a particular subculture dies is when it becomes to mainstream, and becomes profitable and becomes a part of the hegemonic culture. So I guess the internet just speeded up that process
I understand that rebellion has historically been a part of many definitions of subculture, but it’s never really resonated with me. I think a subculture can be as disinterested in the hegemon as it can rebellious. Also, I think a lot of the emphasis on ‘rebellion’ might be projection on academic Marxists’ part from the 60s onto different groups of people that may or may not fit that description. Like not everybody is as interested in subverting capitalism as Althusser. Gangs might be ‘rebellious’ in the sense that their interests run counter to the hegemon most of the time, but are ultimately out for their own more than they are any ideological notions of resistance. Neofascists are plenty supportive of the hegemon when it suits their interests, even if their ultimate goal is to replace it. Those are extreme examples to make it easy to see. Rebellion can definitely be a part of subcultures but it shouldn’t be a first principle. Plenty of subcultures today I see as subcultures simply by virtue of being their weird selves, before considering their relationship with the hegemon or rebellious potential.
What is there to replace in neoliberal global neocolonial capitalism? It’s the same stuff as facism, just on a lower level. Facism is closer to us than you think, or do you think modern capitalism is just natural and not forced upon us and or other nations? Just by taking a brief look at history shows us how violently capitalism has been forced upon us and still is around the world. We in the west just see the good side of it (over consumption and plenty of everything)
I'm 59 so I have some experience with this pre-internet and post-internet. I was into punk in the late 70's and early 80's. And several other music genres and subcultures after that. When I first got online in 1999 I thought this was a great enhancement to subcultures because a kid who lived out in the boonies that had no scene, nowhere to hang out and exchange information, and no other kids were into the same things as them, could now get online and make friends and meet their tribe from all over the world. Kids who were different would not have to feel ALONE anymore. They could see, there was a wider world out there with lots of people just like you. Eventually that kid could get old enough to travel on their own and go meet the new friends in person. And it did work that way for a while. I went to concerts that had message board meetups of 50 people from all over the world, all age groups. But now it feels like online interaction has replaced real life interaction. There are fewer and fewer physical meetups. Of course a global pandemic affected that too.
I also feel like the original online interactions (basically social media before it was called that) were mostly text based. Not everyone even had a digital camera and image-heavy pages loaded too slow for some people so we had conversations in words. Full sentences even! Social media has transitioned to being mostly images, often highly edited and inauthentic images, and if there are words it's only these small sound bites. Attention span is decreasing. Most people won't make it through this whole paragraph and I am just as guilty. I will watch a 10 minute youtube video before a 30 minute video because who can sit still for 30 whole minutes? So it seems inevitable that the only parts of subculture that people notice now are fashion, makeup, 'aesthetics'. The ideas and philosophy and history are kind of lost because nobody wants to read words. And this leads to young kids believing (for example) that goth is just a fashion style and they have no idea it is a music based subculture.
I got into subcultures through message boards just like you described. I'm a Millennial . I kind of feel like after millennials That's the end of subcultures but also the end of 'generations' per se
@@lestranged I agree. i'm a millennial and I think im the only one in my friend group who still reads books and watches movies without skipping ahead or binge watching shows straight through. I still like to let things marinate a little before moving on to the next episode or movie. Maybe its because i look at things a little more critically and try to analyze but I do see and feel a dip in peoples ability to conversate about books, movies or experiences theve had without spamming me with their social media. If it is about a place they went to they ask if I saw their post about it and I dont have social media so i say no and they get offended. I miss the days when everything didnt have to be posted, its fun just to do things without needed to document every trip with a photo dump. I miss talking to people without seeing their phone up or them checking stuff while talking. I guess im an old soul but when i do meet people like myself its just that more meaningful convos and experiences. Its sad I have to wait for those but i guess thats life nowadays.
@@demonicmaleficentviciously140 2 weeks ago I met up with some friends I had not seen all during the pandemic, people who are now living in other cities so we don't get much chance to see eachother face to face so this was probably a once-a year opportunity. Every time we hung out, everyone would just be staring at their phones and barely look up if you spoke to them, like you were interrupting them. And then if they did actually speak to anyone AT the table, it was "did u see this post" or showing eachother things on their phones. Maybe it's not subculture that's dead but just culture in general. How did a communication device be the thing to kill genuine communication. The irony!
Almost everyone I grew up who claimed to be "punk" turned out to be the opposite in time. Surprisingly tho many who were follow-the-rules, straight-laced people eventually ended up way punk rock in the end.
To be fair, when I was that age, I liked the skater kid style & wore that kind of clothes/ hair, despite not being a skater & when I started wearing black shoes & a black hoodie every day, everyone thought I'd gone emo &... I wasn't, nor did I want to be. I had a friend who was & my hair had naturally changed from blonde when I was in kindergarten to jet black by the time I was 13-14, so maybe people thought that I'd dyed it, too? I don't know. Point being, I preferred certain kinds of clothes & music, but never fully committed to a lifestyle choice & was fine leaving it there. I never got it when people called someone a "poser," because I thought that meant that someone was going out of their way to be a part of something without fully committing &, the way I saw it, I wasn't even trying, I just liked what I liked.
Punk rock did not end, nor will it ever end. Nor did people turned to be opposite. - Problem is that Punk is not understood well. All what it in essence is, is a rebellion against perfection and production. It is ultimate liberating DIY movement. And If you look closely, its present everywhere lately. From Indie gaming to electronic music
The switching subcultures thing is so true. subcultures are still around today there's just not any real dominant ones, and i think a lot of people are like me, interested in a lott of different subcultures
@@ci6516 Yeah subcultures obviously still exist, the thing is you just don't have to limit yourself to one. The people who are part of those scenes, feel more comfortable also trying other things because the barrier of entree is lower and there's less gatekeeping. It's not uncommon to see someone be into metal and also listen to hyperpop or drum 'n' bass
you should give negative xp a try,he's one of the few people I've seen that are actually punk and edgy,listen to his music about cops beating hippie scum at democratic national convention.Ignore the people who calls his music incelcore though lol
I am a member of the vaporwave subculture, a musical style / art movement that was born and exists almost exclusively on the internet. It stayed that way for many years until legendary producer George Clanton started the first vaporwave festival, 100% ElectroniCON, in 2019. There is no doubt a passionate and underground following for this aesthetic, proving that subculture is alive and well in the internet age. And there is a very real (but different) barrier for entry, an appreciation for avant-garde music production techniques that many find annoying, as well as enjoyment of quirky jabs at pop culture / technology, both of which can be an acquired taste. Vaporwave is an interesting case of a subculture with very little real world presence at all, making it a great example of the way subcultures have manifested online.
And this is why I consider the videoman wrong when he says subculture is defined more by fashion than music. Vaporwave is defined by the music-- I have very little idea what Vaporwave 'fashion' would look like.There is certainly an 'aesthetic' but that is quite apart from 'fashion'.
@@heinoustentacles5719 and you can't nessicarly define metal or grunge based on its clothing either. It's stupid to say subcultures are defined by their aesthetic when the music is the glue that holds it all together. Now when people want to be part of a subculture they just have to play dress up and take photos on Instagram and not knowing who tf Curt Cobain is.
I have been thinking about this for a long time. I was a part of skateboarding and the rave scene for the majority of the 90’s and both scenes were not big. You had to know people in the scene and be around them or you just weren’t a part of it. It was all word of mouth. Also if you looked at someone, you could pretty much tell if you had the same interests. Nowadays people just dress like every subculture but all in one week. Remember in the early 2010’s when every girl dressed like a “rocker” but none of them were? I do find it weird that every kid dresses like my friends and I did in the 90’s. All on the skater style, blue hair and baggy jeans. I’ve been waiting to hear someone speak on this topic, thx.
i think the scenes then weren't big b/c there was a certain privilege? or persistence or something to actually get involved w/ a scene, i just vaguely wished to be involved w/ anything in the 90s, so i think these days people more actually have an opportunity to try something out & actually participate in it on some level ... as an autistic teen in the 90s i just wasn't present at all & i passively consumed what mainstream culture would give me & a few zines here & there & whatever ...... i think we should view it as a VASTLY LARGER pool of people participating in a yes shallower way but DEEPER THAN they would have been allowed to in the 90s when things were exclusive & just far away from where you were allowed to be in your suburban hell
Well, I don't know how original any of us were back in the 90s. My mom always used to chuckle about how we were all dressed like they did in the seventies. You see pictures of her back when she was a teen or college age, you would swear she was a skater in the 90s (like, just before they started wearing pants that were 20 sizes too big), Converse shoes, baggyish t-shirt and jeans, long straight hair parted in the middle, scowling face, and all.
Gabber was subculture in the 90's was big in the 90's my parents are gabbers i'm gabber and in 2022 the gabber subculture is huge we don't follow others we have our own gabber style. gabbers of the 90's are still gabber in 2022 , most than the difference with punk or gothic is that we grow and the rest stands still and our sound is extreme , other people from other subcultures have walk over to gabber .
As someone who happens to be diving into skateboarding and the underground rave scene within the past few years, it is definitely still not easy to distinguish who dresses up as a skater or raver because it is trending and actual participants of those subcultures. But it comes down to how “authentic” and plugged-in they are and a lot of that can be distinguished from their fashion. Of course there are exceptions and looks don’t tell all but you can make out who bought most of their outfit and accessories from Amazon and the mall versus who went and supported stores and creative members that are directly involved in the scene.
I think a big part of subcultures is gatekeeping. The subcultures that were the most difficult to be a "true" part of stayed the longest. So I think the exclusive nature is conducive to subcultures
@@corod-1 There is no "gatekeeping" you can be apart of anything without ever having to go or be invested now. So yes I think that niche groups and modes of expression should protect themselves from being co-opted and diluted.
This is a really interesting discussion. I think I would argue that subculture is dead but in that what our era once defined as subculture (Westwood's definition, 80s Hardcore, etc) no longer can exist. I think the internet, as you mentioned, changed how we interacted with our interests and reduced our need to physically commit to them. However I also remember a time when the internet was the new subculture, early 2000s message boards were a subculture - they ticked all the boxes of being a niche definable community based on interest with its own vernacular, etc etc etc. So I'm not entirely sure what changed from then until now. We're definitely more interconnected than ever before and late stage capitalism has certainly commodified everything further. Which I could see leading to communities getting co-opted, diluted and sold before they've had the chance to develop properly into a subculture. I think if we focus on fashion, I feel biggest issue is trend forecasting. Styles and new ideas don't get a chance to develop at all before they're copied and appearing everywhere, and designers and communities don't even get a choice to opt-out. The second something slightly interesting appears it’s immediately swallowed up and on a mood board somewhere. So I think subculture is dead because our wider society and the way it functions doesn't allow it to be. I think people would still develop subcultures if they were actually given the chance to. Robert Rauschenberg once said that it only takes six weeks of isolation to create a new movement and that’s all it took for Abstract Expressionism to start, and then it got co-opted and destroyed the second it became known. So I would guess it’s more our society has become so corporatised and commodified that it can't - the further march of capitalism killed subculture, our dependence on a highly controlled online playpen is only a facet of that, not the main cause. Quick aside: I think your mention of black people being unsafe/not welcome in Hardcore Punk is a bit inaccurate and lacked nuance. Black Flag among others would have Reggae bands appear on their sets regularly and Hip-Hop also got its start in live shows, outside of the initial house/street party culture, by playing on punk sets. Yes there were fringe groups that were racist, fascist, etc but the vast majority of punk was not that and the black community were heavily involved.
I think it's fundamentally human to have a minority of people looking for (and creating) an alternative to the mainstream culture. So if you define it that way (as an alternative), there will always be subculture. How subculture is expressed will change and give rise to statements that it is "dead" because it not the same as it was in the past (not recognizable to people comparing it to prior instances).
@Vladimir Jelisavcic I agree but I think that late stage capitalism and western culture have reached a point where there is next to no ability to be alternative or a minority.
I think what fundamentally changed from the early 2000s with regards to online subculture is that there was dedicated smaller social medias and message boards, these were all essentially replaced by big social media companies like Facebook so where as before there were lots of smaller websites people would go to, now these communities all share the same online space being Insta, Reddit or Twitter etc
I think a lot of interesting artists are emerging after the last two years of relative isolation. While the majority of the culture has melded into an internet driven monoculture, I think we’re on the cusp of new subcultures emerging (particularly in the realm of slow fashion). What a thought provoking video.
I think your point about anything new and interesting being commodified and put on mood boards is great. The new and trendable gets immediately swallowed up and shit out into a product. Maybe one way to avoid this in our current climate would be for new ideas and forms of expression to emerge that are un-trendable. What this could look like, I’m not sure. Maybe something is untrendable if it’s too niche or grotesque to be commodified. Or maybe the interest is so time consuming or high skill that it’s very difficult to imitate. I’m not sure, just thinking out loud.
It's me, the EGL/Jgoth person. Not only is subculture and counterculture timeless human nature (I would personally argue that many fringe religions over the past several millennia qualify as subculture-style rebellion), but the kind of pessimistic ideals that say zoomers can't be alternative and subcultures are dead often comes from a very misanthropic place. Just because the world is different from a given person's youth doesn't mean that commitment to rebellion is dead. In fact, the sour grapes idea of the comparative ease of subcultural participation making them less worthy is more reminiscent of the whining against student loan cancellation than any coherent cultural argument. The fact is, whether the 'punk is dead' crowd accepts it or not, people are still out there, rebelling, having fun, making friends, and screwing with the system. I've spent a third of my life and the vast majority of my disposable income and storage space for elegant gothic lolita: that is in no way normalized or low commitment. If anything, the internet is a boon for subcultures-- it's easier to learn about them, fight misinformation, and stay safe without having to rely on word of mouth. If the entire argument hinges on people not suffering enough, maybe the point of interest there is suffering, not the subculture itself. Maybe teddyboys were the prototype for subcultures as people want to know them, but it's ridiculous to neglect current subcultures just because they don't fit a 20th century British masculine ideal. So the question is not "are subcultures dead?" but rather "am I willing to expand my definition of subculture to stop centering the boomer-gen X experience?" Limiting subcultures to the past and declaring the youth to inescapable enforced conformity are, in my opinion, about as conformist and anti-punk as you can get.
This! The last time this topic came around on this channel I'd said something along the lines of the definition of what a subculture was no longer feeling current, and I think part of it is that what commitment looks like has changed as so much of it has moved into online spaces. Most things are visible enough now to be understood, and so can be participated in even if it doesn't resonate, so the litmus test is probably something more like prolonged interest and a time/money commitment. Everything changes; it only dies if group participation disappears or, like prep, it becomes the mainstream.
I think that today's subcultures are mostly people who do their own research and don't let themselves fall into the trends as quick as others. Today's communities are different because you can have plenty of likings and interests, but also there's the void of what's popular today which is not bad but sometimes it overshadows the large and interesting things that the internet and people have to offer. I find myself more troubled today of feeling that I no longer belong to the communities where I used to be active, and finding that niche is harder because everyone likes the same popular things (there's no problem of liking popular things) that, in my opinion, lacks genuineness or people joining communities jsut because they are the trend.
TL:DR: subculture used to have low visibility, be hard to get into, and had a strong sense of individuality; the internet made them visible, easy to access and too huge for someone to have any impact on. There are tons of subculture that still have these exact requirements in the modern world, and they look invisible in the online world the same way old subculture looked invisible in the real world By looking at tour video and some comments, it kinda looks like subculture is existing through low visibility and difficulty. Before, the high majority of people didn’t even knew punks or skateboarders existed, finding people like you was hard and difficult, and when you did find some, it created strong connection and a micro universe of style lore attitude taste and all. You could influence the culture and the culture could influence you. Now that they are commonly known and easy to access, it doesn’t feel like subculture anymore, the numbers of people are way too big, there is no room for individuality, everything start looking repetitive. Your example of the Barcelone club is good, it didn’t felt like it had any individuality, because if it did other clubs will start doing the same to still earn money (does a subculture starts dying when it’s becoming commercial? idk maybe) Thus id argue that the modern subcultures are the one that are still not that visible/ easy to get into/ appreciated in this internet world, the exact same way « og » subcultures were like this in the real world. I have a two examples : the parkour and the beatboxing scene. Before the internet it was impossible for them to be a subculture, it’s way to weird and niche for people to actually try to create a community. But years later, while looking at the depth of internet, you come across a video of a beatbox battle in an empty parking space, or people doing parkour on an abandoned building, and the internet was able to connect these people, make them create a community, some events, somme dresscode, some brand, some memes etc. Even on the internet, it was still unknown, niche, hard to get into; you had to talk to people, meet people, go to some events irl or online, know the language, you had to make an effort to come in the community. Nowadays even though they are fairly popular and tons of people know about them, it’s still under the mainstream eye, you could still become a part of the community and have an impact as an individual and not be just a small part of the mass Id also argue that the hackers, metaverse, and all these deep internet niche communities are modern examples of subculture, but i can’t really tell because im not a part of them. I highly invite you to take a look at the parkour and beatboxing scene tho, it’s two cultures i became a part of PRECISELY because it felt like the only last subculture in this online world
I don't know man, I think this would mean that 2stroke scooters, motorized bicycles, racing drones, RC drift cars, and a lot of other underground sports like roller-blading or the scooters wheeling scene in east europe and arab countries also become subcultures. It's hard to cross the line between a hobbie and a subculture.
@@AnonGZthis is why I love people that follow rhythm games. It's difficult to involve yourself or relate with the community without getting good at the game, but rhythm games with level editors and community maps/levels get so impossibly difficult that you are forced to put in a large amount of time and commitment into it. I was heavily involved with Geometry Dash for years before I eventually got tired and left because it just wasn't my thing anymore.
As a person within the punk ethos, one must take into account how society as whole has changed, and additionally how the subculture concept has changed. The culture itself has attempted to rid itself of its dirtier aspects such as leather bars, swingers clubs, dive bars and the like. The subcultures of the 70’s-00’s were taking aspects of those logical fallacies of the culture’s they were in to throw them back in the face of that society. Bondage pants, bullet belts, beer tabs, etc were the fashion in order to show society what it was. Also, multiple times punk rock as a music has been co-opted into mass media, and as such most of the music has blended metal into itself in order to remove itself from the Green Day’s of the world. Also, in mass social media you rarely see actual punks doing much more than call outs to bars to hangout, promoting shows, or informing their friends about who has passed. There’s very little in punk rock that hasn’t been updated, and so one has to look harder to find punks in the modern era as they are still against the modern framework of society. Although they are no more difficult to find than they once were, in truth, just seen as more difficult for not being as easy to find on the internet as normal people
I just noticed, that (dont skip it cause you see this name) Tyler, the Creator often speaks about how if you have a hobby or something you love, you should engage into it as much as you can and stick with it, despite the fact if there is a hype or not. Being a geek and this kind of becoming this one person in your friendgroup that you should ask if you want to know anything about a specific topic yk? Like this one person who just knows everything about anime or that one car guy who can tell which model it is just by listening to the exhaust. And thats where I see Subcultures. They've changed to being a way more universal way of living which brings a lot less sacrifices and boundaries with it just as Bliss described. They've become decentraliced by the internet but they still very much exist. Just as in this comment section: They are some people who just managed to randomly find a video but most of us are invested in fashion and art. Isn't that some kind of subculture? (yeah fashion isnt a good example but look under Lego videos or beatboxing tutorials and youll get my point xD)
Fascinating ! This explains why I’ve had trouble getting my English students to write about subcultures recently. I don’t think they understand what subcultures are, or were, or maybe I don’t understand what their subcultures are. Anyway, I wish this video were longer.
I think we have been realizing that subculture was very illusory and amorphous all along. When people start to describe a past subculture they tend to all start with the same reference points (various touchstones like music, fashion, political ideas) but the more detail an individual adds the more the description diverges from other peoples descriptions. Now since we don't have the cultural narrative funnel and everything is accelerated so much you just get little influencer fiefdoms that may or may not overlap, depending on the perception of the individual partaking in it.
do you think there's any credence to the idea that global consumerism contributes to the lack of subculture? possibly more so than the Internet itself? so often a gentrification-like process happens to new "cool" subcultures. shifting focus to profit on a subculture's aesthetic is kind of like investing in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood. and oftentimes that consumerist approach kills off the soul of the actual movement
i think so, like things can exist on the internet just generally, but as soon as it falls into your preferred fast fashion outlet it is usually a sign that the end it very near.
I think this actually might be true. I live in Bali, Indonesia where most of the locals don't have access to fast fashion at all. I love to see the different subcultures that have developed here, despite the predominantly traditional way of life. The internet has given them access to subcultures like Rastafarian, biker, and skater aesthetics and points of view. But these subcultures actually take root in the physical world and they put in the time to grow them. I've lived in big cities in Asia and Europe and I haven't seen subcultures take root as I've seen in Bali. Another thought is that Indonesia is very group-based and the West is becoming more and more individualistic. I wonder if that plays a part in the death of subcultures too.
@@MarisseReyes I agree, I think people are more likely to view themselves as individuals (shaped by their own unique combination of interests) rather than identify as belonging to one group. People have always found comfort in belonging to something larger than themselves, but I think nowadays they build their own communities to match their interests (i.e. having friends that belong to separate subcultures) rather than find an existing one they can fit in.
i remember a tutor of mine discussed this with me once in regards to what 'era' of art we currently are in and how do we identify it and he called it an era of 'pluralism', essentially meaning what you said about how so much looks the same. and this is in massive part to being in the age of the internet and it allowing us to cherry pick references from anywhere without context. subculture I can imagine is less defined because how we find them and how we identify them is different from before
I know this video sort of focuses on punk subculture but I feel that there are other subcultures that adhere more closely to the traditional definition of the word for that aren’t talked about that much because the haven’t really been absorbed into the mainstream like punk has. Some examples I can think of would be kawaii culture(like Lolita) and furry culture. Both of these things are still very niche and have specific gathering places both online and in person. I also feel that the people that identify themselves as being a part of these subcultures are a lot more dedicated to it than the average person who would identify themselves as punk.
This really sort of hit home for me. I saw a comment that said that aesthetics could replace subculture and thinking along those lines it makes sense. The access to internet makes it easy for us to learn about what a ‘goth’ or a ‘mod’ does. It shows how everything in this modern age feels watered down, we don’t have initiation rituals, no actual commitments in terms of how far you had to go to find and alter your clothes to fit an aesthetic. We just hop from one things to another.
I agree that perhaps aesthetics are the new subs. From a stylist pov, a small percentage of people are still really linking their identity to aesthetics. It speaks for them, shapes their world or is an expression of who they are or what has been brewing inside of them and now they have found their 'tribe' they won't hold back. Some do it as a trend, others live it . The difference to me is that the social gap isn't as big as it used to be. I'm from London UK and I'm not old enough to speak on early punk stuff but for me I don't remember back in the day,the punks and goths of Camden market hanging with the hip hop/rappers of South London. Where I lived was even more divided by looks,music etc. There was no event, no space that would bring them together. It was clear who belonged where in London. Yet today at the same event, same area can be an Instagram baddie, a cottage core princess a Maximilist, a street wear advocate and what we call a classic hipster. The worlds collide easier now. I can go on Reddit and be part of all of these groups and not actually be part of their world, if I wanted I could recreate their 'looks' without the beliefs, struggles, the actual world's that go with them. I can create Pinterest boards for all of them as If I know them first hand and people can cycle through my boards and find what eventually 'speaks to them'. I find that it means aesthetics don't always last or mean anything to the majority of people. Dark acedmia for example isn't as strong as it once was. I've seen People tap into it when life seemed tough and completely reverse when it got better. Is that a subculture? That said each true aesthetic has its own rules in it's own world, true Instagram Baddies only go to certain bars, listen to certain music and dress a certain way, make up and hairstyles are specific. They use the same/similar words, have their nails done in the same way and I might be able to guess their wall art affirmations. The real Cottage Core fans romanticise life, they have similar layout's in their homes or basic requirements to qualify even if the details are slightly different. I can guess what journal they will buy ,what books they may read and events they go to. Even the young ones long for a life that once was and not as modern as it really is and they will continue even after they have had kids because the world of the past is deep in them. Punks had more than the fashion that related them, experiences, taste's, likes and dislike of the establishments, poverty meant creativity in garment structure and getting a bargain on secound hand clothes , an attitude of 'all in this together, doing what we have to do' and forget anyone who stands in our way' kind of thing. Not sure if this community spirit works with aesthetics. People who share the same aesthetics don't necessarily think the same way at all. They can have completly different world views, different value on living life , because it's just aesthetics. Can that be a subculture?
@@thechronicreative I think you're completely spot on in your assessment. All the points you've listed show why aesthetics can't be a subculture, it needs to be more a commitment/lifestyle than something anyone can put on or imitate.
I think the fact that people can switch between subcultures and merge them into their own personal identities makes subcultures less gatekept than before but much more true to individuals rather than a scene itself, it’s very cool and an amazing thing
It’s just not the same now. Like today gothic means nothing besides wearing dark clothes , it means nothing for musical interests , emotional perspectives, political views , like it used to.
The idea of things getting closer and more interrelated over time because of advancements in transportation and communication is called space-time compression btw if anybody was wondering. This is why a club in Barcelona felt the same as a club in America. Because people at each could communicate so freely many things were the same. (Also if I said anything wrong feel free to correct me i’m not an expert)
@@Habib_Osman That’s exactly what i said? Idk if i’m reading your comment wrong or if you misunderstood mine. Connectedness makes there be less diversity. That is what you meant right?
because of the internet there is no need to physically signal yourself to others, so there is a detachment between fashion and subculture, there is no more commitment, you no longer need to "fit in" and there is no real threat of being deemed a poser so people can kind of identify with many things at once without any effort on their end besides time. Tons of young girls have goth outfits in their closets nowadays, but its just an identity that they can put on and take off whenever they want
Thank you for making this video. Your ability to communicate things like this is really something I admire and look up to. As a teenager who has felt alienated by the rapidly changing aesthetics and trends of my generation, I never actually knew this was a conversation at all. I genuinely thought I would just constantly feel alienated and simply try my best to navigate through the rest of my life feeling that way. The fact that I now know I'm not actually crazy and that there is a lack of commitment to identity within my generation opens up so many more opportunities for thought and idea. I also think there is something to be said about how because of the internet and subsequently, the everchanging and rapidfire trends it brings about, the idea of subculture-- of maintaining ideology and wholly representing what you believe in --is inherently and easily destroyed because every visual aspect of it (which is sometimes really the only thing you can go on since you're online) is immediately identified as some "aesthetic" and called "xyz-core" and then mass-produced so that it does become a trend and you can buy products related to it until eventually another aesthetic takes over and that becomes the trend. The thing is, I do believe in the reality of community on the internet because I have experienced it before and I know it exists. But the general consensus of the internet is that trend is more important (and more profitable) than committed idea. I used to be a part of the early Dark Academia tumblr community where literally all we did was talk about the books which were under the Dark Academia GENRE of media, and posted photographs, literature, and ideas relevant to that concept. But because of tiktok and the internet generally turning it into an aesthetic trend, DA became this criticized clusterfuck of "problematic" ideas and philosophies. This is where it gets tricky. The community I was a part of never actually adopted the darker ideas in the books; DA was legit just this niche little genre of stories which we found interesting and found we could build upon in terms of idea, concept, and aesthetic (in its literal sense). Now, I don’t deny that DA has been for the most part eurocentric and elitist, but I’ve always considered that to be one of its main originating points: the inevitable downfall of academic pride and prowess. (Of course, this can still and should include stories from all over the world. I’m Filipino. I would also love to see diversity in this genre but that is up to you and me to contribute to that.) This is like criticizing somebody who loves horror movies because they support death, violence, and trauma. And the reason why people got this idea of how dArK acAdeMiA is proBlemATIC is precisely because it was mass-produced and turned into a trend and it lost all of its actual essence. It lost all of its complex ideas as a genre and was reduced to turtlenecks and male, white books. DA HAS gotten more diverse in recent years. But people constantly perpetuating the idea that it isn’t diverse and is exclusive, will only destroy all the progress POC HAVE made. Of course, I do realize that subculture was born because the mainstream culture at that time was far more demanding and restrictive than it is now. I think less people are choosing to put themselves in a specific box because we as a generation are trying our best to emancipate from the concept of there needing to be a box at all. A person is meant to be more than just a single set of concepts and ideas. My truest concern is that because of the fast-paced and borderline thoughtless consumption of media that is brought on by the internet, people may not participate in any concept or idea at all. People may only choose to stick to whatever other people are currently saying on twitter and instagram, and wait until the next new thing to think, say, or do. It also doesn’t help that my generation reflexively communicates under irony. This matter simply has too many layers for me to tackle in a single youtube comment, but I’m genuinely glad this conversation exists and people actually care. Thank you.
I feel JUST like you. I never thought the lack of commitmment and overall alienation related to identity was an actual topic to discuss. I've been trying new aesthetics and subcultures that might interest me, but some questions come to mind: "it's so easy to join and be part of those groups ONLINE, but am I truly belonging or even worthy of that?" "is this who I really am? should I let myself be defined by those specific aesthetics?" And just like you said, maybe all of this modern thinking of not fitting in boxes or stereotypes may lead to people not participate in any concept at all, just kinda "go with the flow" because it's what everyone's doing and you don't wanna be left out. but yeah, I guess we should follow what our interests are and be glad that nowadays we have easy access to everything we want to consume, about music, books, movies and culture in general. everyday new subcultures emerge with specific contents. and even though maybe the original "punk" has died, there are plenty of other different movements that refer to it, so at the same time it's not present in the modern days there are still vestiges and traces of what once was. in summary, I liked the way you discussed this topic! there's still many layers to talk about this, though. but hey, thank you for reading until here.
I've been interested in the metal sub culture for the past 3 years (I'm 18 now) I do have a metalhead friend, so I'm not alone with it. Only recently I got to go to an actual metal event (Megadeth Concert, with the friend I mentioned) and the amount of people with battle vests, band t shirts and long hair was amazing to see. It really gives you a sense of belonging when you see other people just like you, and I wish there was more stuff like this in my town.
I personally feel like there is a lot less elitism when it comes to subculture now and it's great. I'm too young to have been part of the original punk scene but one of my moms was and I grew up with old hard-core punk as a result. That didn't stop people from trying to gatekeep me on the basis of me being a weird nerd who doesn't dress the part. I'm glad that younger people seem to have more of a, "let people enjoy things," kind of attitude.
Most things you don't have to dress up for. It's always the music that is more important than the style itself. I could be wearing some basic ass t shirt and I'll still listen to the cure when I can.
Love this topic. I feel the aesthetics and the identity are changing everyday. I don't think subculture and contraculture is dying it's metamorphosing in something we'll be able to understand in a couple of years
Putting it this way gives me hope, growing up with the internet has really made me wish I knew what growing up in the 80’s /90’s was like when these subcultures were more “exclusive.” I’m tired of getting into things I like and then a year or two later it’s milked and ruined by boring people who just wanna use it for a trend, whether that be clothes, music, etc. Usually I can tune it out and I don’t get bothered but when it’s in my face everyday on social media it definitely ruins it. It seems with the introduction of the internet things get popular at such a rapid rate. Fads have existed long before the web but the internet has made it way too easy now for trends to come and go. Look at something like Arc’teryx, after being an exclusive brand only a select amount of people in the hardcore outdoor enthusiast world knew about for decades it became a hypebeast/tiktok brand in under 2 years just from one guy being seen in a jacket.
@@ouzsnfouaenxfgfgsgsuhoauvdjd I don't really like the term subculture, because that implies that there is a superior culture and in reality there's not a superior culture. I would adopt the term counterculture vs massive culture. Counterculture seeks alternative ways of experiencing subjectivity. The media and the internet show only a part of what youth culture was or is right now, it only exposes the part that can be commercialized or what can be put as an internal enemy so a system can prevail , build an internal enemy to justify restrictive and oppressive measures. I believe that we can find our local counterculture gang that manages itself outside massive culture, creating new means of expression.
What you said between 0:50 and 1:28 makes so much sense. I have grown up with the internet. And it’s been my way of accessing so many passions and cultures. But I’ve never truly felt like a part of any of them. Always looking in from the outside, never truly living them in the real world, because I wasn’t surrounded by people who shared those interests. Grateful to have seen so much but wish I could have been a part of something
I'm mid-level employee at a multi-national business by day and my passions are punk rock, piercings/tattoos, and science fiction. My partner is African-American and we have two adopted children. By day, I've got to speak with people who may not approve of portions of my lifestyle. But I can go home, immerse myself in my record collection and occasionally go to concerts where people don't care whether i've got on slacks and short hair...i'm there for the same reason they are. Punk rock made me who i am, probably saved my life. I am forever grateful.
Counter culture is disappearing, there are so many subcultures and sub sub cultures the world over. But the “if your parents hate it, it must be cool” way of thinking has just left us with so many tired and hackneyed cultures of rebellion where people are challenging status quos that never even existed. What people see as edgy and rebellious is ironically the status quo
I wonder if being normal is diverting from the status qou in the modern era now that goth and punk are practically mainstream now. Not to say that these subcultures becoming mainstream is a bad thing I actually think it's kinda cool that these cultures are now accepted into the majority. But it makes you think ya know. If I say I'm a goth today it certainly wouldn't be as special or unique as it was when it first emerged. But I don't think I'll ever stop dressing goth or listening to the music. Because its a genuine thing that makes me happy. Whether it be special or not. I just like it for what it is. And I don't think anyone should stop liking a certain thing just because it's not as QuIRkY as it once was.
@@coffintears5821 I’m actually going through the same thing. I always had this kind of conversation with my few goth friends how the fashion has become overhyped and now a days a real goth wouldn’t even wear that stuff anymore which isn’t true, it just depends on the mood of the day personally. But when I do go out as full goth it isn’t as shocking as it was like 20 to 30 years ago, although it doesn’t matter as long as there’s goth music to be made and heard.
Peterson's living hell, I'm kinda fine with it hehe. But seriously, on an optimistic note I'd like to see this translate into more emotional intelligence across the board.
Back in the day, being a member of a subculture might carry a physical risk when you were on your way out to link up with your fellow members. Some of the other subcultures wore lace up boots and might object to your particular look. Truth be told, that was all part of the fun!
With the internet, subcultural aesthetics can be co-opted easier than ever before. Subcultural art can be accessed easier than ever before. Just because you can be plugged into a scene via the internet doesnt make you part of it, but rather a spectator. A voyeur into a world you watch from afar. But, for me, what will make subculture real is the physical community meeting up and coming together. Real subculture never dies...
Because internet subcultures are often designed to never meet up in the physical world, its a totally different approach to the phenomenon in my opinion
Interesting topic. I’m a Black American, so I don’t have the luxury of not making everything about race🤪 Thankfully, subculture is not dead. I was born into many subcultures that are successfully thriving off of the internet today. Some legal and illegal. A few Subcultures I was raised in (Rap/Hiphop, Ballroom, walked my 1st ball @ 14 in Harlem) are experiencing what the PUNK movement and House music went thru. Once White Americans get involved, things get repackaged for the white gaze. And then Re-branded as something else to further distance itself from blackness in an attempt to manipulate history. It’s some kind of strange obsession. Rock n Roll, Country music, Techno, Jazz, we’re all apart of Black subcultures that mysteriously became synonymous with whiteness 🤔 I even saw a white “Wiccan” lady buy a Santeria book the other day😂😂😂
this. I also think to say subculture is dead, it a bit difficult to parse out when most subcultures have youth movements. I.e Punk in the Bay and Drill in NYC / England. In SF subcultures are very here... and somewhat underground.
I'm Cuban with Canarian ancestry so oops I look white. Many santeros in my family. And yeah, white punx got the shit kicked out of them everywhere too so my white gaze is on Bad Brains. I know my roots and I ain't blind
I love watching your videos because you address thoughts that have passed through my mind but I haven't actually vocalized. This content really causes people to analyze human behavior and psyche. I always finish your videos with more to contemplate than I did prior to watching. Keep creating the dialogue, Bliss.
Im a thrasher / heavy metal fan since i was 12, and back in those days (late 2000s) the tribalism was still pretty real, none of us angry young teens where alive when Metallica or Sodom came into existence, but we loved the music and that feeling of "being part of something unique" so much that we despised other metalheads for listening to Metalcore o other forms of mainstream metal. That feeling is gone, nowadays younger dudes don't care if what they like is Thrash or Djent or Doom Metal, they just vibe with what they like, thats pretty good for musicians and people who plays in bands, but dillute the feeling of "being part of a scene" a lot. Also, the fact that you don't need to go outside to get new music is a big factor for music-based subcultures, when i was a kid you need to make a net of contact and friends to even get some mp3 or someones older brother cassetes. Subcultures needs the physical world.
Metalcore was the best metal genre in the early 2000's with a bunch of breakdowns and fry screams even if there were corny bands. But i miss grunge the most
I think subcultures have become more nebulous since the ubiquity of the internet. There’s definitely still something there at their core, but they’ve become so wide-reaching and ill-defined at the edges. There’s an ebb and a flow as the waves of revival and aesthetic adoption by fashion come and go. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Punk as a specific genre and sub-culture indeed is “dead”. However, punk rock was just an incarnation of a timeless phenomenon/world view/attitude, and THAT has ALWAYS been with us, and will never die.
There's actually a substantial punk scene where I am. There's restaurants and coffeeshops that are known punk hangout spots; you can recognize them by the vegan options and weird handwritten menus. There's probably also a corkboard with local events/businesses/etc that has the local punk show calendar, also in the weird handwriting. The shows are typically at either one of a few known proper venues or one of the many punk houses that the city would like to demolish. I lived in one of those for awhile, in one of the utility rooms in the basement. I paid $80 and learned very quickly why people turn to opiates. That house was my intro to the punk world, though specifically they called themselves crustpunks. I don't think the scene at large calls itself crustpunk, but I've heard random friends of coworkers talk about the "crusties" specifically.
@@carriefernandez8705 HEY, we are the 90's punks only much more extreme the gabber we are in everything more extreme our gabber scene is heaven . My parents are gabber i'm gabber , plus we gabbers and punks are friends there are also some punks to gabber partys our subculture is forever .
Another thing this video made me think of is the concept of people who go into subcultures and only stay in it for a few years(it being young person phase) vs the amount of people who stayed in that subculture forever basically. The amount of old and middle aged punks metal heads and goths walking around from when those subcultures first started is very interesting. I think the internet has increased the amount of folks jumping around to different subcultures and it being only a phase, rather then a true core part of their personality, and simply has to be because its so much more accessible now.
This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time, and I'm glad your video came across my reccomendations. So, as a Millennial (currently 30) who grew up in that kind of middle era of internet culture, and seeing how it interacted with and connected existing subcultures, what I've witnessed is that the internet kind of over time choked down and restricted what one would consider pertaining to a certain subculture, while simultaneously opening access to that subculture. So, where I'm from in Southern California, there was(and may still be, I've been gone for a while) a pretty big overlap between punk, skater, gang, and hip hop culture. Like, you could walk into a backyard show, and people from all these subcultures would be enjoying one aspect of one respective scene, right? And there's no, "well you dress like an extra in an NWA video, but I look like the costume designers from SLC Punk picked my wardrobe, so we're not gonna hang out. It was like, agreed upon that we were into what we were into for a lot of the same reasons: poverty, abusive parents, anti establishment views, a need to belong, or of course, we just thought that shit was dope; and we found that in all those things, so we were able to share our interests and crossover in a lot of really cool ways. And back then, a lot of stuff was really still word of mouth. So if there was a show or something, you found out about it from someone at school, they'd pick you up or text you the address, and you'd go. A lot of secret shows, underground skate seshes, whatever, happened because people handed out flyers or maybe there was that one kid who knew what was up, so it was like, "oh talk to Jimmy, he's got the hookup" What social media did, as infantile as it was back then, was sort of dissolve that "in crowd" kind of thing that existed around those meetups. It also made it easier to host bigger shows, or more people made your open mic set, or first headlining punk show. Which was cool. The downside was that instead of the agreed upon crossover, where we all have common ground and are enjoying this thing together, people that might not have been welcome were showing up, and kind of ripping off or shouldering their way into our thing. So some preppy kid from uptown comes by, maybe just to see the freak show, and either finds out he likes what he sees/hears, or for the first time in his life, he's not the center of attention, so next week he has a mohawk and is wearing a Dead Kennedys t shirt, Docs and a leather. And he posts pics on his Myspace or Facebook or whatever, and his friends see that and go, "oh, so Jason's a Punk now" And then, the scope of what was considered "Punk" or "Street" or "Goth" or whatever, has now narrowed, because it's being shown through a lens that is outside looking in, without the experience. It used to be, if you didn't listen to the music, or live the lifestyle, chances were you weren't into that subculture. Social media has allowed access into these subcultures without the work. You don't have to order the albums from the back if magazines, or dig endlessly through record store crates, or make your own shirts, because it's all justa click away. The underground has broken the surface. Is it neccesarily a bad thing? No, I don't think so. I think it's kind of cool. But the downside is that this constant exposure makes people think they immediately know what you're about, and then they miss the mark, because what is shown online is really just surface level. If I say I'm into Hip Hop, and only listen to Top 40, I'm not really into Hip Hop, I'm probably just into the aesthetic. And for me, that's the double edged sword. That effort you're talking about, it still has to be done. You can find everything you energy wanted to know about what you're into or curious about, and if you want the good shit, you still gotta dig. I love in a town now where the Punk and Metal scene still exists, and a lot of the shows or band I discover are through word of mouth, but instead of tearing a flyer off a telephone post, someone just sends me a link. Instead of having to be at the show to buy the album or the shirt, I can just go to the BandCamp, or whatever. But for people that are REALLY into what they're into, they still gotta go out and look for it. Because (Pandemic not withstanding) I don't think anyone wants to experience a show or a Lowrider Meetup, or a skate comp through a screen. If they wanna experience something, they're gonna go out and experience it. All the internet did was make it easier to be a poser, but what it also did was give the diehard acolytes of whatever thing more access, more ways to hear, see, connect, and that's beautiful. Without online culture, I wouldn't have been able to travel the country and meet al kinds of badass people and see all kinds of bands, artists, and creators in the way that I have in the past 10 years. I probably would've stayed in my hometown, got tired of the local scene by 20, and moved on with my life. But through technology, I have been able to keep digging, keep learning, keep listening. It's like having an endless record store bin, and it's fuckin sick. So yeah, people are gonna float from trend to trend, as they always have. Kids switching up interests is nothing new. But for those who are really about it, the gems, the REALLY good stuff, is still hidden. We still have our underground. All it takes is a little digging, and for people just floating through a trend, or maybe trying something new, whether they truly experience the fullness of that underground filly depends on just how much digging they are willing to do.
@@divergent0042 thank you. I'm glad someone actually took the time to read it lol Just trying to share my experience to the best of my ability, one of the rare times an opportunity appears for me to do so. Glad you liked it
Fun fact: During the late 70's/early 80's, rap was still a subculture, as the mainstream black culture was Disco, Punk was just emerging, so in New York, you'd have a lot of Punk people rubbing shoulders with Hip Hop people
I agree how in today’s scenes one doesn’t have to physically commit to every subculture in existence. If I tell others that I’m a goth with barely any black clothes on and they’ll believe me unlike back then you would have to literally be at the shows in full goth wear. I kinda envy that experience since it’s become difficult meeting genuine people of the subcultures I wish to participate in but it doesn’t matter now what you wear. The internet made it all too accessible and confused everyone in a way, but it’s also a good thing to be more exposed, a double edged sword if you will.
Used to be way into fashion and archive and used to watch a lot of fashion UA-cam (including this channel), but have fallen out of fashion in general and have gotten more into car enthusiasm, basically trading 1 expensive hobby for a more expensive one. Just wanted to say that coming across this channel again took me back to the fashion days, and this was a great thought-provoking video. Somewhat reminded me of my experience as a car guy so far, cause I used to always found it weird that as much as I liked sports cars, I hated having to use a car daily both due to the stress of the commute and environmental reasons. So that put me on to biking culture. And through the internet, I found out that quite a few other car enthusiasts felt the same. So through the internet I feel that it’s much easier for people to get into other subcultures.
I think the a negative about subcultures back then was how difficult it was to actually build an array of different interests; like you were either a hippie or a punk etc. you could never be a hippie who went to a punk concert. That obviously had a lot to do with the fact that there was no internet back then or way of having connections on a larger scale. Nowadays, we discover that people actually have way more interests than before because of how exposed we are to them and I think that is a good thing; people are quite complex and can't really be boxed into one thing, life can become really monotonous if that's the case. I think in postmodern society the 'original' subcultures have been slightly watered down and commodified so anyone can just 'buy' into it. Subcultures may also just be different, as mentioned in the video. Newer scenes and cultures have developed from previous subcultures to fit the way of the world now.
Westwood played a big part in UK punk fashion at the time, but the underground here in the US was coming up in a much different way at the same time. So I don’t give her as much credit as being a “founder” for punk, or anything of that kind as others like to.
I wonder how fandom fits in with subculture. I don't know if it's emerged as some sort of replacement or maybe it is, in itself, a smaller more specific facet of subculture. Musically, I feel like more people associate themselves with specific artists first, and the subcultures they belong to second. But maybe as the lines between musical genres have become blurred over the years, so too have subcultures.
I think one huge thing is being left out when it comes to the type of sacrifice people endured because they were punk rock, or gay, or hip-hop, or ravers. During the 70s through the 90s-society in general was much more conservative. In the 90's I volunteered at a convalescent home with a friend who had ear piercings, old folks would call him homophobic slurs but he was straight, and eventually stopped volunteering because of the harassment. If you had green hair in the 90s, forget it, people would be staring at you everywhere you went. You have to consider that all of this was happening for the first time and it was really freaking people out. The phrase “I feel like society's judging me“ was never more true, despite what these crybaby conservatives are saying now about people taking away their freedoms. Ironically those conservatives of the past created the conditions that have spawned the activists of today.
@@Habib_Osman I don’t know much about the Netherlands but yeah, in many ways there’s a resurgence of the right wing, like we see in the Philippines and Brazil etc. our Chito head former president helped popularize right wing extremism globally while he was in office. These world leaders love wanking each other off.
Scrolling through the comments, i was starting to think about the same thing. And i believe a big part of why subcultures are struggling to stay subcultures is because identity is so fickle and everyone, especially teenagers resonate with so many different things and are not bound by space, as Bliss pointed out, that everyone is the receptacle for a big soup of ideals and aesthetics and music taste. The commodification of all of these (ideals included) has led to a fragmentation, the immediate result of which is this acceleration of the lifespan of subcultures, the end of which i personally cannot predict. I hope someone who sees this the same as me could elaborate but this is all I've got for now. I hope i find an answer someday because it bugs me a lot. As someone who was a teen in the 2010s, internet subcultures were around for way longer and people's allegiance to those subcultures were more pronounced. I don't know if this acceleration process is good in any way but it sure is scary. This is a new phase in human history that is so drastically different from before that previsions and analyses are hard to make. Uff i need to end this comment, I'm getting really worked up about this 😅
By fragmentation i meant of identity. It is so broad and some aspects of one clash with the other and it's hard to stick to one thing. Is that good? Is it bad? I don't know. I'm very confused and conflicted about this (obviously)
I 100% agree with the idea that punk has an increasing appeal in bipoc communities, I've been noticing that amongst my friends and coworkers, but I didn't think about it being because historically they really weren't afforded the same social opportunities. Really appreciate you saying that and connecting more dots for me. I think that they way people can try on different aesthetics and people inherently assume there is less substance to it might also make it safer for communities where appearance was always used as a justification to oppress/harm them. Historically, its dangerous for bipoc individuals to stand out, blending in is a survival tactic. Maybe as fashion becomes fast and generally less divisive, it becomes safer for individuals to make alternative fashion choices.
Look, punk can’t die because punk is the simple act of non compliance and being yourself, punk in music and the art form may evolve and dissolve away becoming something new but punk as an idea will never die
The internet and social media really blew up the western otaku subculture over the last 20 years. Anime and otaku is basically mainstream in the west. A lot of those old subcultures that were considered fringe/nerdy are now mainstream. It's a mixed bag now for me because I can remember the dark days before it became more mainstream, but it felt special and exclusive. Now you can find whatever you want, watch whatever you want, buy whatever you want, and supposedly be part of the subculture...
I personally don't think Punk or many subcultures are dead, they just have returned to the underground where they belong, in the mainstream media is no longer profiting on it. But of course that is just my and my friends opinions, I go to punk shows, and there seems to me to be plenty of punks who are like the old school Punks, and not the posers we have now in the mainstream
In the 80s I went to a large high school that had many subcultures. Burnouts, jocks, punks, preppys, etc. and we would all fight one another. There was no line crossing.
i just finished my college project where I made a zine on how music influence fashion (i started at 70 punk and progressed through to modern day, and how all the different eras and subcultures are still held strong nowadays, but in its own way). and this video woulda been hella useful for my research if i’d seen it earlier aha but we move. anyways i think you hit the nail exactly on the head man. amazing content, love it!
Im 20 y/o and I've been going to punk shows for a couple years, somewhat interrupted in 2020/21 by the global events. But as of late, there have been plenty of fresh bands playing. In fact, lots of them started forming as the lockdowns lifted, just friend groups that grabbed some instruments and got noisy. My reason why, from my perspective, is that you've got a choice between partying at someone's parents house, listening to drake, or you can go to the shows. Its either drake over a bluetooth speaker, the bar, the club, or the punk show. Nobody talks about how it used to be, nobody really cares about stuff like that. Just jam out and stop worrying about it, and if your town doesn't have a scene, go grab a guitar and some friends so you can save your local dissatisfied youth from bluetooth drake.
I actually count 1920’s flappers as a subculture. Also, the Bohemian movement etc. Subcultures are probably part of human nature as you say. I was a bit Goth and Britpop light in the 90’s. We also had a nice subculture called ”Pandas”, think 1960’s aestethics but all black and white ( including hair). Damn people looked good!
80s punk guy here. Good video. I think subcultures have always been around as long as there were groups of people who didn't fit in who were able to find each other. I think we will never know about a lot of them simply because they weren't documented. I think it's fair to say that the fashion and language surrounding Jazz music was a definite subculture. We still use a lot of their slang to this day ("cool?") Hobos during the depression were a subculture. Men returning from WW2 who formed the motorcycle clubs which became the Hells Angels and others were absolutely a subculture. Beatniks, Bohemians, all subcultures. The thing that I think is really interesting is that we used to see major societal shifts in culture every 8 to 10 years. Look at footage from 1958 compared to 1968 compared to 1978... such major differences both culturally and subculturally. I feel like these shifts have greatly slowed with the advent of the Internet. Which is weird because you'd think unlimited access to information would be speeding things up. But since the Millenium it seems like we've been in a cultural mulligan's stew -- with bits and bobs from lots of the past. Maybe it's just hard to see because we're in it. I feel like what some people describe as "woke" is some kind of cultural shift as well as whatever you call all those weirdo Trump worshippers. Those are pretty unique-to-our-time cultural shifts, but oddly I don't feel like those idealogical shifts are as tied to fashion, music, and the arts as in the past. There isn't as much of a sense of needing to find a tribe as there was "back in the day." I'm not sure why this is. Part of it might be that "back in my day" you basically had 3 TV stations giving you your information on the world (maybe 30 if you had cable). You generally had one radio station in your area that played the kind of music you liked. You had to pay money to try out a new record, often just judging by the cover art. Because there was access to so much less input, you often felt like you had to commit to your choices. If I paid $10 for a record because it had a cool skull on it, I'm going to listen to it until I like it kind of mentality. I'm rambling here. Things are really different now and it's difficult to put my finger on the reasons why. But I do think there will always be groups of people who feel like they don't fit in with the status quo. I think there will always be some form of subculture and counterculture. Maybe it's just going to become more disparate and harder to define. Good job on the video.
Question: Was the subculture of hyperviolence in Clockwork Orange based on the teddy boys?? Never actually seen the movie, but their style also has edwardian/victorian influences and they love violence.
I've read a few interesting articles on this. I remember one suggested that late-capitalism created a need for subcultures, with less people being brought up in tight communities, such as a local church, people had to look elsewhere to receive camaraderie and build connections. The fashion production capabilities of late-capitalism also broke the restrictions of fashion being tied to one's social class, and with this, fashion could be used by all to advertise their interests and subculture. So this lead to fashion being used by people to identify with a subculture, which is important in providing one with a sense of belonging; A sense that late-capitalism and globalisation took away from by negatively impacting the connections within small, local communities.
Jazz by black musicians in the 1920s were the original subculture. The jazz subculture had fashion, music, language and dance that was a subculture to mainstream popular music and culture of the time. That definitely predated the Teddy Boys.
Subcultures evolved into different movements so in a way Punk did die out in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Punk evolved into SKA, The New Romantics, the Goths, Post Punk, Grunge, Riot Girl and the Cyber Punk movement. I thought Punk had died out. Ow dear.
Super interesting topic. I've been deep into punk music and style for many years, that's how I first recognized clothes as a way to express myself and communicate my belonging to a community and I've also been the guy saying that "things are not as good as they were before" but I finally came to a similar conclusion as Bliss' in his analysis. I personally think a subculture really starts to exist (culturally) the moment it is recognized as something "other" by external observers, and when this happens it inevitably becomes codified into esthetic patterns. The internet have certainly made such patterns more difficult to be identified because of the speed and multiplicity of the information we have access to but I don't believe that means subcultures are dead, we probably just cannot put them in focus as easily as before. Well some of us can (winks at Demna). And if that implies new subcultures have a better chance to stay authentic and not be exploited, then I'm all in!
speaking as someone whos a teen right now, subcultures switch too quick, i think it used to be that one subculture would be popular then it would become too mainstream and die out, yknow, teddy boys, greasers, hippies, skinheads, punks, metalheads, emos, whatever but now with tiktok and youtube and pinterest everyone feels like they need to curate their entire aesthetic with ten different words they've tacked core onto the end of so that they can feel unique, I guess i'm punk, i mean I have a mohawk, listen to black flag, smoke weed, go to protests and read the socialist worker but I feel like most punks would call me a poser and kids at school keep coming up to me and being like "are u a goff" so i don't really say i'm part of any subculture other than making the occasional "i'm emo cause i like my chemical romance" joke
I would like to direct you to the italian subculture of "scapigliatura", which was by all means a subculture which developed in the 800s and encompassed everything that can be defined as that. As you can see it predates the teddies by a lot but I know that one isn't even the first. I'm not sure yet we can say a sub begins because it wants to rebel against a determined force, I myself believe the birthplace of many concepts of social structures is school, and it would be interesting to investigate on how some forms of community could arise in that specific environment, or rather why it doesn't happen at all, what I can say is that we had this very specific idea of rebellion taht we have carried with us for a long time and, although in they're own distinct ways in history, perhaps we can start looking for them in medieval times too when we look at alchemy, very secretive, spoke through coded arts, and way more gatekeeper than anything we got today, the fact music and style has little to do with them doesn't take away the fact that it's yet another sub, they were just harder to reconcile within the meaning of the word as history and media changes and the aforementioned goods were not exactly a common good back then
One thing that i’ve been thinking about a lot is the connection between developments in queer discourse and the movement away from the necessity of in-person contact with the subculture that you mentioned. The queer bars I frequent are filled with older leather queers, trans lesbians, all these groups that are being discussed online by fellow (younger) queer folks who clearly haven’t been in touch with offline queer community and the associated subculture, and thus more frequently misunderstand and vilify them. I know we tell people to touch grass jokingly, and I do believe that there’s immense value in the decentralized presence of subculture through online spaces, but I’m afraid that there’s a loss of connection that can only be really counteracted through in-person interaction in shared spaces.
Oh, and I love this. Someone took a punk club in Minneapolis when I was 18 and fresh off the boat and I felt so out of place (I'm black); wish I could relive it now that I know what I know.
This is really interesting. As someone growing up in the 70s and 80s I can see how the internet (well digital communication in general) has changed things creatively. I feel like the big difference is digital life’s ability to clone something exactly. There used to be a sort of distortion of ideas between people. If you went to Brazil and listened to their music back in the day when you came back to London you would recreate what you remember. It would inevitably be slightly different to Brazilian music as your memory of things won’t be exact. Nowadays you can just get on the internet and get an exact replication of the things you saw, the things you heard etc. the distortion doesn’t happen so much. Everyone can be into and recreate the exact same thing at the same time all being thousands of miles apart. There’s very little that can diverge from its origin anymore and cause the natural creation of a sub group. The more access you have to digital communication the less different you can be. Basically all subcultures are distortions of previous cultures because of the inability / lack of resource to recreate the original thing. Hip hop music evolved through sampling because technology allowed people to play music they physically couldn’t. But that created a distortion (rigid 16th note drums for example) that we now see as it’s own genre. It’s worth noting that poorer nations and villages where they lack digital communication develop their own cultures in a vacuum and even when foreign elements are added, the uniqueness remains. It’s really the digital vs analog debate in some ways. Distortion is actually interesting, which is why we crave it. Does society always need the ability to exactly replicate any one thing? Is fidelity overrated?
This was an interesting watch. I have been invested in subculture (or have I?) all my life. Recently I have started questioning a lot of it. I feel like it failed to have a profound effect on my surroundings, or myself. I have also struggled trying to grasp what’s going on with my “tribe” recently. Maybe it just transformed into something I can’t grasp anymore. I guess it’s normal when you get older, but I feel the changes you described add a lot to it. Sorry for rambling. Thanks for an interesting channel!
Without sounding like someone who is talking down people that have only grown up with the internet what I can see after seeing both is something like punk rock (which I was lucky to find at an early) was very hard to find and for that reason was very special and life defining/changing and is still something that I'm grateful for to this day. This is one example but a fairly pointed one, I think, having people introduce me to stuff like Dead Kennedys, Momeansno, Black Flag, Bad Brains, the Avengers, the Rezillos, Stiff Little Fingers, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, the Pistols, Butthole Surfers, DOA, Flipper, Fear, rare Devo, Circle Jerks, UK Subs, the Misfits etc was special because the information/material required work to come by and for that it seemed even more special than it already was. The younger generation today has so much access to information, it's all there within a click and for that reason I can see why it's easier to skim over certain things. I feel both sorry and envious of this current situation-
I do hope that there's a need to keep informed and act beyond what is laid in front you because there is usually much more to the story than that. Be well.
There's also the cost. My subculture is the lolita subculture and the greater Kawaii subculture. I think it's freeing to be able to dress up like a princess. But that cost money. Money I don't have. And even if I did to buy one dress the guilt would eat me alive. Even if I sew my own clothes that would cost me not only money but time that I can't give. And I'm a plus sized black girl. So at least with the internet I can see both plus sized girls and black girls wear those clothes. There's probably a lot of people who are only in a subculture because the internet gets rid of the psychical restriant of the subculture.
the documentary AfroPunk came out in 2002, that definitely had a big impact on the resurgence of punk and increased visibility of Black and other POC punks/rockers. (rock is from Black culture anyway but that's another story)
@Lord Laureate false. Guitars didn't originate in Europe, neither did drums. Also that entire idea is faulty and borderline eurocentric because an instrument can be played in infinite ways and the culture is in how it's played.
@Lord Laureate being open to being wrong is one of the most important aspects of learning and growing. So is adjusting your perspective when presented with new information.👍🏾
@Lord Laureate But yeah punk rock and hardcore punk both have huge Black contributions and rock and roll itself comes from Black culture (rock n roll is a southern Black slang for f******) so There isn't really a debate on that.
As a young(ish) punk rocker, I can honestly say that the punk community in particular is more alive than ever by staying underground. Kids from around the world would discover punk from their parents or online and like to get involved in the scene. There’s still tons of young punk bands that play to a small audience that are worth checking out.
I think Punk ,post social media, has changed a lot. Definitely feel the "process" of getting involved, discovering music, and creating a community isn't the same and it feels different when I interact with younger folks. I think part of subculture resisting assimilation into the mainstream is exclusivity. And going trough an organic process of becoming part of a subculture you have to earn it. You gotta listen to bad bands and wear the wrong clothes or be a dork about it until you figure it out. And I think if you cut that out then the subculture might as well be dead. At least to olds like me, I'm sure older punks thought I was doing it wrong. I'd like to add what I thought was an interesting moment in subculture that happened in the mid 10's. Within DIY punk there was a resurgence of interest in Oi. A french band called Rixe got really hot and it seemed like a lot of bands were popping up riding this new Oi wave. The thing is that Oi is a skinhead genre, and a lot of punks started dressing like skins or skin adjacent. Skins have (or had) a very tight community and there's a process to getting "in" (often called getting shaved in and then you're a "fresh cut" for a while). Long story short all these old skins started showing up to shows thinking the old days were back. Some fights broke out and I think a lot of punks stopped thinking it was cute to do this.
I was that punk kid in LA -- very thought provoking piece. I've pondered this topic for years and never put "sacrifice" at the center of the scene. But I get it! Interesting idea, thanks.
I’d agree that subcultures haven’t died but radically changed after the internet’s connectivity. With this idea of in-person participation, or ‘sacrifice,’ I think you can section most subcultures with a social media presence into inner and outer circles. A person might interact with a few subcultures on a marginal, outer level, and commitedly participate in one on an inner level- if only because there’s only so much time in a day. The counterbalance to this is that the internet-marketplace is always incentivized to reduce culture into aestheticized commodities. The subcultures that weather this commodification either do so because there is something inherently distasteful about them to the market (cults, criminals, political extremists), or that they are so remote and small as to be virtually unprofitable (fringe music scenes, private internet communities). This stuff ebbs and flow, but I think the important part is to look into whether a subculture still has the ability to communicate and accomplish things outside of selling its commodities. Take memphis rap and phonk for example, a subcultural strain of hip hop in the 90s and 2000s that influenced plenty of people but didn’t directly experience much marketplace success. There was a massive phonk revival during the SoundCloud era, calling attention to both some of its pioneers and a fresh wave of inspired artists. The phonk sound is bigger than ever. But I think the marketplace has reduced phonk to its most easily recognizable elements, its ‘vibe’ or style, and jettisoned the expressions of this music that originally necessitated its emergence. The new phonk wears the skin of the old, but is a hollow vessel on the inside- a sort of zombie-phonk. This has a retroactive effect too. Phonk pioneer Tommy Wright III’s following is bigger than ever, he’s performing the exact music he made back in the 90s, but I would argue that the way his music is perceived and consumed has fundamentally changed. I don’t want to be too reactionary. I think there’s plenty of opportunity for a subculture to morph, or provide the space for something new, given that it’s animated by a genuine spirit of belief or expression.
THIS! About a subculture being able to morph, the best example ever is breakcore, it starts with techno and evolves to jungle, drum and bass, and is combined with every style imaginable with hyperpop, hardcore, and even phonk itself, you can clearly see it's influence in the latest phase of Von Storm and even an entire sub-genre called Jungle-Phonk being born. All of this makes me think you can't really say what is part of a subculture and what isn't anymore, everything is somehow connected and inspired by something else and the lines that defined a specific style just become hazy, I just don't think people care to research what makes lo-fi house music distinct from dub techno, what makes punk music, punk music, and what makes emo music, emo music, people are into what sounds good to them, and you don't have to share all of the interest of a community to be part of it anymore. This is great in some aspects, I don't think subcultures are dead, they just have become something else, and it's up to the individual if they think that's something good or bad.
@@AnonGZ well if it was not for the internet i would have never got into stuff like breakcore and jungle and just edm as a whole and i would never became a anarcho communist so i thankfull for the internet and no anarchism is not chaos anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is sceptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Anarchism calls for the abolition of the state, which it holds to be unnecessary, undesirable, and harmful
Social media and the recession killed subculture. 2009 was the year sub culture started to die. Music places started to close or got burnt down. Shops that did alternative clothes either disappear, shrunk down, went online or change to geek culture to survive. There was nowhere to hang out. People also had less money to buy clothes or go out anymore. Music dried up, because people got tied of listening to the same 80s or 90s metal music at clubs. There was nothing to replace it with. All we do now is talk about it online or watch people reacting to old music hits from gen z. Got to remember in the 50's and 80's there was economic boom that happened in the West. That's when the big trends happened. With the 70's and 90's shaking things up when the economic dipped a bit. Information was slow to get around and so people had time to develop music tastes and groups. That's all changed now. I don't miss some of the tribal stuff that came with subculture. There was some draw backs too. That I've missed out or if I talked about stuff that I was also into, it was seen as not cool for a goth/metal head shouldn't be into. Kind of feel like I was conforming than being into a stereotype. Anther uniform to wear.
Subcultures have a lot to do with two things: a) spread of information through old style mass media. Makes your brain wonder without the chance to react instantly. b) human to human conversation and actually greeting each other And guess what. Both of these are kinda dead. When was the last time you read paper news or sat down to listen to radio? When was the last time you went to a show and talked to someone new there just because? (because you cant hide behind your phone) When was the last time you saw someone dressed in a cool way and you asked them about it? My first subculture i consciously entered was road cycling as a teenager around 10 years ago. Back then people still greeted each other. You could just catch up to someone and get in a conversation. Even if you saw cycle tourist you would greet them and tell them. Hey good job cycling with all those bags, where you going to. But slowly it all started dying away. I even went to a "mecca" of cycling in the Italian alps. Everybody was dressed like a pro but noone greeted me back once. Made me pretty sad back then. And here is the interesting part. The lack of greeting started from the old heads. The elitism and gatekeeping was one of the bigger causes of this. The lack of commitment and pretending from the newcomers and we have a dangerous sub ending mix. I guess people were/are so caught up with trying to like like a pro cyclist/punk/*subculture* they forgot to be that subculture.
I feel like subcultures cannot not exist, as it is the way to express some sort of rebellion against the norm. That being said i think that subcultures nowadays are more abstract than what they used to be. What i mean by that is the fact that there are many people interested in the same thing but in a different way. Now that i think about it, i think it ties with what bliss said in 0:50 , each person is interested in many subcultures at the same time. So, by bringing what they have “learned” in one, to another, everything gets mixed and it seems to be only one big mainstream culture, or a bunch of non-defined subcultures. Another thing that may help to explain the difficulty to define an specific subculture is gatekeeping. With the internet many subcultures have been brought up to the general public and then ruined, so in order to protect them people hide them. What i have seen from movies, stories, books, etc, is that in the old days, when you were interested in the song your friend is playing, they would introduce you to that culture. For them, an outcast, seeing somebody interested in the same thing as they were, was a relief. But nowadays when you ask for the song, people will give you a long answer in order not to tell you or straight up say, “nah im gatekeeping this shit”. Im no expert, this is just my opinion, i’d love to see other points of view on this subject.
This is a very complicated way of saying that through the internet all subcultures are slowly starting to merge and everything is starting to look the same, and less unique. Great video.
Yeah, most stuff like this is fairly easy to summarize for sure. The complicated part comes with defending the position. I can say something in one or two sentences, but if someone disagrees, then we would just have to agree to disagree. But bc I’m the one making the video, the burden is on me to explain what I mean in detail and provide examples+case studies. I appreciate you, Jackson 💫💫
The number of people commenting who have clearly not watched the whole video has been fun 😆😆
Fortunate to be 43 and experience a real thriving underground independent music scene. That’s why any born after the mid 80’s will never understand participating in a valid underground art scene. Participating from your room through a computer is far from actually going out in the streets and commiserating with others. I feel there is a direct correlation between real valid underground scenes and good art/music. That’s why since the 2000’s there hasn’t been any real substantive music/art that will stand the test of time. Today, kids are so much about labels and other shallow experiences. Kids that grew up in the 80’s of 90’s we fought labeling ourselves and had a totally opposite perspective than todays kids. To them grunge is flannel and nirvana. They know little about riot Grrrl politics and DIY. I can go on and on. I pity kids today cause they have no clue on how much they’ve been robbed of.
Agree on your taking points about sub culture but I disagree that todays sub cultures aren’t good or bad, just different. Today’s subcultures don’t have the vested time or skin as it did in the past. Todays subcultures are shallow stale unoriginal and uninspired. Like you said, you barely need to even have a physical presence to be engaged in subcultures. That’s lame and that’s why kids today or young adults have no clue of what they’ve been robbed of. Instead they love to hold themselves to corny labels like “Cis” “nuerodivergent” “emo” etc. Kids in the past fought labels and found value in having a physical presence in a scene. What’s become of subcultures today is a 3rd rate rip off and only those from Gen X and older are the ones that best understand this.
But! They're still commenting. 😆
@@kckstnd8 what do you think 00's kids are doing wrong, Do you think that there isn't enough research being done or maybe there isn't enough diy. or too much social media??
Hey bro, just wanted to say I watched the whole vid and dig yer writing and editing and narration, I checked out your list of vids and fashion isn't really my thing so none of 'em really caught my eye but if you did some other vids about music and culture and art then I would definitely check those out and if you started a 2nd channel on those topics I'd def subscribe cuz I like yer style
So I had a anthropology class called the practice of everyday life. And in that class, we looked at how subculture starts and dies. And teddy boy is regarded the regarded as the origin of subcultures. In that class my professor said that subculture is originated to rebel against the hegemonic culture, and the way a particular subculture dies is when it becomes to mainstream, and becomes profitable and becomes a part of the hegemonic culture. So I guess the internet just speeded up that process
That’s so interesting, in my class of analysis of fashion and textil my professor said the same thing
I understand that rebellion has historically been a part of many definitions of subculture, but it’s never really resonated with me. I think a subculture can be as disinterested in the hegemon as it can rebellious. Also, I think a lot of the emphasis on ‘rebellion’ might be projection on academic Marxists’ part from the 60s onto different groups of people that may or may not fit that description. Like not everybody is as interested in subverting capitalism as Althusser. Gangs might be ‘rebellious’ in the sense that their interests run counter to the hegemon most of the time, but are ultimately out for their own more than they are any ideological notions of resistance. Neofascists are plenty supportive of the hegemon when it suits their interests, even if their ultimate goal is to replace it. Those are extreme examples to make it easy to see. Rebellion can definitely be a part of subcultures but it shouldn’t be a first principle. Plenty of subcultures today I see as subcultures simply by virtue of being their weird selves, before considering their relationship with the hegemon or rebellious potential.
Ohhh, I loved the definition of subculture and didn't know it
What is there to replace in neoliberal global neocolonial capitalism? It’s the same stuff as facism, just on a lower level. Facism is closer to us than you think, or do you think modern capitalism is just natural and not forced upon us and or other nations? Just by taking a brief look at history shows us how violently capitalism has been forced upon us and still is around the world. We in the west just see the good side of it (over consumption and plenty of everything)
Hello from a fellow Anthropologist! Yes, we had a similar discussion. Completely agreed.
I'm 59 so I have some experience with this pre-internet and post-internet. I was into punk in the late 70's and early 80's. And several other music genres and subcultures after that. When I first got online in 1999 I thought this was a great enhancement to subcultures because a kid who lived out in the boonies that had no scene, nowhere to hang out and exchange information, and no other kids were into the same things as them, could now get online and make friends and meet their tribe from all over the world. Kids who were different would not have to feel ALONE anymore. They could see, there was a wider world out there with lots of people just like you. Eventually that kid could get old enough to travel on their own and go meet the new friends in person. And it did work that way for a while. I went to concerts that had message board meetups of 50 people from all over the world, all age groups. But now it feels like online interaction has replaced real life interaction. There are fewer and fewer physical meetups. Of course a global pandemic affected that too.
I also feel like the original online interactions (basically social media before it was called that) were mostly text based. Not everyone even had a digital camera and image-heavy pages loaded too slow for some people so we had conversations in words. Full sentences even! Social media has transitioned to being mostly images, often highly edited and inauthentic images, and if there are words it's only these small sound bites. Attention span is decreasing. Most people won't make it through this whole paragraph and I am just as guilty. I will watch a 10 minute youtube video before a 30 minute video because who can sit still for 30 whole minutes? So it seems inevitable that the only parts of subculture that people notice now are fashion, makeup, 'aesthetics'. The ideas and philosophy and history are kind of lost because nobody wants to read words. And this leads to young kids believing (for example) that goth is just a fashion style and they have no idea it is a music based subculture.
Well said
I got into subcultures through message boards just like you described. I'm a Millennial . I kind of feel like after millennials That's the end of subcultures but also the end of 'generations' per se
@@lestranged I agree. i'm a millennial and I think im the only one in my friend group who still reads books and watches movies without skipping ahead or binge watching shows straight through. I still like to let things marinate a little before moving on to the next episode or movie. Maybe its because i look at things a little more critically and try to analyze but I do see and feel a dip in peoples ability to conversate about books, movies or experiences theve had without spamming me with their social media. If it is about a place they went to they ask if I saw their post about it and I dont have social media so i say no and they get offended. I miss the days when everything didnt have to be posted, its fun just to do things without needed to document every trip with a photo dump. I miss talking to people without seeing their phone up or them checking stuff while talking. I guess im an old soul but when i do meet people like myself its just that more meaningful convos and experiences. Its sad I have to wait for those but i guess thats life nowadays.
@@demonicmaleficentviciously140 2 weeks ago I met up with some friends I had not seen all during the pandemic, people who are now living in other cities so we don't get much chance to see eachother face to face so this was probably a once-a year opportunity. Every time we hung out, everyone would just be staring at their phones and barely look up if you spoke to them, like you were interrupting them. And then if they did actually speak to anyone AT the table, it was "did u see this post" or showing eachother things on their phones. Maybe it's not subculture that's dead but just culture in general. How did a communication device be the thing to kill genuine communication. The irony!
Almost everyone I grew up who claimed to be "punk" turned out to be the opposite in time. Surprisingly tho many who were follow-the-rules, straight-laced people eventually ended up way punk rock in the end.
The amount of racist scumbags and closet jocks in the punk community was disappointing.
To be fair, when I was that age, I liked the skater kid style & wore that kind of clothes/ hair, despite not being a skater & when I started wearing black shoes & a black hoodie every day, everyone thought I'd gone emo &... I wasn't, nor did I want to be. I had a friend who was & my hair had naturally changed from blonde when I was in kindergarten to jet black by the time I was 13-14, so maybe people thought that I'd dyed it, too? I don't know. Point being, I preferred certain kinds of clothes & music, but never fully committed to a lifestyle choice & was fine leaving it there. I never got it when people called someone a "poser," because I thought that meant that someone was going out of their way to be a part of something without fully committing &, the way I saw it, I wasn't even trying, I just liked what I liked.
100% same
Punk rock did not end, nor will it ever end. Nor did people turned to be opposite. - Problem is that Punk is not understood well. All what it in essence is, is a rebellion against perfection and production. It is ultimate liberating DIY movement. And If you look closely, its present everywhere lately. From Indie gaming to electronic music
And what punk is? Music is just a part. Eff fashion. I'm 44, and punk since my 13-th B Day. It's all in the head.
The switching subcultures thing is so true. subcultures are still around today there's just not any real dominant ones, and i think a lot of people are like me, interested in a lott of different subcultures
It still exists in major cities . Like New York or Chicago . You can still get lost
It happened to me. It was amazing .
And also on a mass scale , there’s still some subcultures. Like the techno scene or trance music scene
@@ci6516 Yeah subcultures obviously still exist, the thing is you just don't have to limit yourself to one. The people who are part of those scenes, feel more comfortable also trying other things because the barrier of entree is lower and there's less gatekeeping. It's not uncommon to see someone be into metal and also listen to hyperpop or drum 'n' bass
you should give negative xp a try,he's one of the few people I've seen that are actually punk and edgy,listen to his music about cops beating hippie scum at democratic national convention.Ignore the people who calls his music incelcore though lol
@@chieludz he’s a neo nazi
I am a member of the vaporwave subculture, a musical style / art movement that was born and exists almost exclusively on the internet. It stayed that way for many years until legendary producer George Clanton started the first vaporwave festival, 100% ElectroniCON, in 2019. There is no doubt a passionate and underground following for this aesthetic, proving that subculture is alive and well in the internet age. And there is a very real (but different) barrier for entry, an appreciation for avant-garde music production techniques that many find annoying, as well as enjoyment of quirky jabs at pop culture / technology, both of which can be an acquired taste. Vaporwave is an interesting case of a subculture with very little real world presence at all, making it a great example of the way subcultures have manifested online.
And this is why I consider the videoman wrong when he says subculture is defined more by fashion than music. Vaporwave is defined by the music-- I have very little idea what Vaporwave 'fashion' would look like.There is certainly an 'aesthetic' but that is quite apart from 'fashion'.
I love the surreal, dream-like feel that vaporwave gives. It's such a mood.
Vaporwave is dope, I actually didn’t know there were concerts now.
@@heinoustentacles5719 and you can't nessicarly define metal or grunge based on its clothing either. It's stupid to say subcultures are defined by their aesthetic when the music is the glue that holds it all together. Now when people want to be part of a subculture they just have to play dress up and take photos on Instagram and not knowing who tf Curt Cobain is.
@@heinoustentacles5719 Vaporwave fashion is dressing in rehashed 80s clothing in a semi-satirical manner.
I have been thinking about this for a long time. I was a part of skateboarding and the rave scene for the majority of the 90’s and both scenes were not big. You had to know people in the scene and be around them or you just weren’t a part of it. It was all word of mouth. Also if you looked at someone, you could pretty much tell if you had the same interests. Nowadays people just dress like every subculture but all in one week. Remember in the early 2010’s when every girl dressed like a “rocker” but none of them were? I do find it weird that every kid dresses like my friends and I did in the 90’s. All on the skater style, blue hair and baggy jeans. I’ve been waiting to hear someone speak on this topic, thx.
i think the scenes then weren't big b/c there was a certain privilege? or persistence or something to actually get involved w/ a scene, i just vaguely wished to be involved w/ anything in the 90s, so i think these days people more actually have an opportunity to try something out & actually participate in it on some level ... as an autistic teen in the 90s i just wasn't present at all & i passively consumed what mainstream culture would give me & a few zines here & there & whatever ...... i think we should view it as a VASTLY LARGER pool of people participating in a yes shallower way but DEEPER THAN they would have been allowed to in the 90s when things were exclusive & just far away from where you were allowed to be in your suburban hell
Well, I don't know how original any of us were back in the 90s. My mom always used to chuckle about how we were all dressed like they did in the seventies. You see pictures of her back when she was a teen or college age, you would swear she was a skater in the 90s (like, just before they started wearing pants that were 20 sizes too big), Converse shoes, baggyish t-shirt and jeans, long straight hair parted in the middle, scowling face, and all.
It's all the same shit anyways. Someone told me about the term hauntology, and yeah. It perfectly describes it.
Gabber was subculture in the 90's was big in the 90's my parents are gabbers i'm gabber and in 2022 the gabber subculture is huge we don't follow others we have our own gabber style.
gabbers of the 90's are still gabber in 2022 , most than the difference with punk or gothic is that we grow and the rest stands still and our sound is extreme , other people from other subcultures have walk over to gabber .
As someone who happens to be diving into skateboarding and the underground rave scene within the past few years, it is definitely still not easy to distinguish who dresses up as a skater or raver because it is trending and actual participants of those subcultures. But it comes down to how “authentic” and plugged-in they are and a lot of that can be distinguished from their fashion. Of course there are exceptions and looks don’t tell all but you can make out who bought most of their outfit and accessories from Amazon and the mall versus who went and supported stores and creative members that are directly involved in the scene.
I think a big part of subcultures is gatekeeping. The subcultures that were the most difficult to be a "true" part of stayed the longest. So I think the exclusive nature is conducive to subcultures
Definitely, we really need to return to making that the case too.
@@jcg_001 More gatekeeping lol, that's just what fashion & culture need, good take...Edit, this is heavy sarcasm...
Actually no lol. Back in the day if you showed interest in one subculture you just.. hung out with that people that’s it
@@corod-1 There is no "gatekeeping" you can be apart of anything without ever having to go or be invested now. So yes I think that niche groups and modes of expression should protect themselves from being co-opted and diluted.
Great point💚
Subculture isn’t dead, you just can’t identify real subculture by the way people dress anymore. Internet ruined that to some degree.
This is a really interesting discussion. I think I would argue that subculture is dead but in that what our era once defined as subculture (Westwood's definition, 80s Hardcore, etc) no longer can exist. I think the internet, as you mentioned, changed how we interacted with our interests and reduced our need to physically commit to them. However I also remember a time when the internet was the new subculture, early 2000s message boards were a subculture - they ticked all the boxes of being a niche definable community based on interest with its own vernacular, etc etc etc.
So I'm not entirely sure what changed from then until now.
We're definitely more interconnected than ever before and late stage capitalism has certainly commodified everything further. Which I could see leading to communities getting co-opted, diluted and sold before they've had the chance to develop properly into a subculture. I think if we focus on fashion, I feel biggest issue is trend forecasting. Styles and new ideas don't get a chance to develop at all before they're copied and appearing everywhere, and designers and communities don't even get a choice to opt-out. The second something slightly interesting appears it’s immediately swallowed up and on a mood board somewhere.
So I think subculture is dead because our wider society and the way it functions doesn't allow it to be. I think people would still develop subcultures if they were actually given the chance to. Robert Rauschenberg once said that it only takes six weeks of isolation to create a new movement and that’s all it took for Abstract Expressionism to start, and then it got co-opted and destroyed the second it became known. So I would guess it’s more our society has become so corporatised and commodified that it can't - the further march of capitalism killed subculture, our dependence on a highly controlled online playpen is only a facet of that, not the main cause.
Quick aside: I think your mention of black people being unsafe/not welcome in Hardcore Punk is a bit inaccurate and lacked nuance. Black Flag among others would have Reggae bands appear on their sets regularly and Hip-Hop also got its start in live shows, outside of the initial house/street party culture, by playing on punk sets. Yes there were fringe groups that were racist, fascist, etc but the vast majority of punk was not that and the black community were heavily involved.
I think it's fundamentally human to have a minority of people looking for (and creating) an alternative to the mainstream culture. So if you define it that way (as an alternative), there will always be subculture. How subculture is expressed will change and give rise to statements that it is "dead" because it not the same as it was in the past (not recognizable to people comparing it to prior instances).
@Vladimir Jelisavcic I agree but I think that late stage capitalism and western culture have reached a point where there is next to no ability to be alternative or a minority.
I think what fundamentally changed from the early 2000s with regards to online subculture is that there was dedicated smaller social medias and message boards, these were all essentially replaced by big social media companies like Facebook so where as before there were lots of smaller websites people would go to, now these communities all share the same online space being Insta, Reddit or Twitter etc
I think a lot of interesting artists are emerging after the last two years of relative isolation. While the majority of the culture has melded into an internet driven monoculture, I think we’re on the cusp of new subcultures emerging (particularly in the realm of slow fashion). What a thought provoking video.
I think your point about anything new and interesting being commodified and put on mood boards is great. The new and trendable gets immediately swallowed up and shit out into a product. Maybe one way to avoid this in our current climate would be for new ideas and forms of expression to emerge that are un-trendable. What this could look like, I’m not sure. Maybe something is untrendable if it’s too niche or grotesque to be commodified. Or maybe the interest is so time consuming or high skill that it’s very difficult to imitate. I’m not sure, just thinking out loud.
It's me, the EGL/Jgoth person. Not only is subculture and counterculture timeless human nature (I would personally argue that many fringe religions over the past several millennia qualify as subculture-style rebellion), but the kind of pessimistic ideals that say zoomers can't be alternative and subcultures are dead often comes from a very misanthropic place. Just because the world is different from a given person's youth doesn't mean that commitment to rebellion is dead. In fact, the sour grapes idea of the comparative ease of subcultural participation making them less worthy is more reminiscent of the whining against student loan cancellation than any coherent cultural argument.
The fact is, whether the 'punk is dead' crowd accepts it or not, people are still out there, rebelling, having fun, making friends, and screwing with the system. I've spent a third of my life and the vast majority of my disposable income and storage space for elegant gothic lolita: that is in no way normalized or low commitment. If anything, the internet is a boon for subcultures-- it's easier to learn about them, fight misinformation, and stay safe without having to rely on word of mouth. If the entire argument hinges on people not suffering enough, maybe the point of interest there is suffering, not the subculture itself.
Maybe teddyboys were the prototype for subcultures as people want to know them, but it's ridiculous to neglect current subcultures just because they don't fit a 20th century British masculine ideal. So the question is not "are subcultures dead?" but rather "am I willing to expand my definition of subculture to stop centering the boomer-gen X experience?" Limiting subcultures to the past and declaring the youth to inescapable enforced conformity are, in my opinion, about as conformist and anti-punk as you can get.
This! The last time this topic came around on this channel I'd said something along the lines of the definition of what a subculture was no longer feeling current, and I think part of it is that what commitment looks like has changed as so much of it has moved into online spaces. Most things are visible enough now to be understood, and so can be participated in even if it doesn't resonate, so the litmus test is probably something more like prolonged interest and a time/money commitment. Everything changes; it only dies if group participation disappears or, like prep, it becomes the mainstream.
I think that today's subcultures are mostly people who do their own research and don't let themselves fall into the trends as quick as others. Today's communities are different because you can have plenty of likings and interests, but also there's the void of what's popular today which is not bad but sometimes it overshadows the large and interesting things that the internet and people have to offer.
I find myself more troubled today of feeling that I no longer belong to the communities where I used to be active, and finding that niche is harder because everyone likes the same popular things (there's no problem of liking popular things) that, in my opinion, lacks
genuineness or people joining communities jsut because they are the trend.
THANK YOU!
TL:DR: subculture used to have low visibility, be hard to get into, and had a strong sense of individuality; the internet made them visible, easy to access and too huge for someone to have any impact on.
There are tons of subculture that still have these exact requirements in the modern world, and they look invisible in the online world the same way old subculture looked invisible in the real world
By looking at tour video and some comments, it kinda looks like subculture is existing through low visibility and difficulty. Before, the high majority of people didn’t even knew punks or skateboarders existed, finding people like you was hard and difficult, and when you did find some, it created strong connection and a micro universe of style lore attitude taste and all. You could influence the culture and the culture could influence you.
Now that they are commonly known and easy to access, it doesn’t feel like subculture anymore, the numbers of people are way too big, there is no room for individuality, everything start looking repetitive. Your example of the Barcelone club is good, it didn’t felt like it had any individuality, because if it did other clubs will start doing the same to still earn money (does a subculture starts dying when it’s becoming commercial? idk maybe)
Thus id argue that the modern subcultures are the one that are still not that visible/ easy to get into/ appreciated in this internet world, the exact same way « og » subcultures were like this in the real world.
I have a two examples : the parkour and the beatboxing scene. Before the internet it was impossible for them to be a subculture, it’s way to weird and niche for people to actually try to create a community. But years later, while looking at the depth of internet, you come across a video of a beatbox battle in an empty parking space, or people doing parkour on an abandoned building, and the internet was able to connect these people, make them create a community, some events, somme dresscode, some brand, some memes etc. Even on the internet, it was still unknown, niche, hard to get into; you had to talk to people, meet people, go to some events irl or online, know the language, you had to make an effort to come in the community.
Nowadays even though they are fairly popular and tons of people know about them, it’s still under the mainstream eye, you could still become a part of the community and have an impact as an individual and not be just a small part of the mass
Id also argue that the hackers, metaverse, and all these deep internet niche communities are modern examples of subculture, but i can’t really tell because im not a part of them. I highly invite you to take a look at the parkour and beatboxing scene tho, it’s two cultures i became a part of PRECISELY because it felt like the only last subculture in this online world
I don't know man, I think this would mean that 2stroke scooters, motorized bicycles, racing drones, RC drift cars, and a lot of other underground sports like roller-blading or the scooters wheeling scene in east europe and arab countries also become subcultures. It's hard to cross the line between a hobbie and a subculture.
@@AnonGZthis is why I love people that follow rhythm games. It's difficult to involve yourself or relate with the community without getting good at the game, but rhythm games with level editors and community maps/levels get so impossibly difficult that you are forced to put in a large amount of time and commitment into it. I was heavily involved with Geometry Dash for years before I eventually got tired and left because it just wasn't my thing anymore.
As a person within the punk ethos, one must take into account how society as whole has changed, and additionally how the subculture concept has changed. The culture itself has attempted to rid itself of its dirtier aspects such as leather bars, swingers clubs, dive bars and the like. The subcultures of the 70’s-00’s were taking aspects of those logical fallacies of the culture’s they were in to throw them back in the face of that society. Bondage pants, bullet belts, beer tabs, etc were the fashion in order to show society what it was. Also, multiple times punk rock as a music has been co-opted into mass media, and as such most of the music has blended metal into itself in order to remove itself from the Green Day’s of the world. Also, in mass social media you rarely see actual punks doing much more than call outs to bars to hangout, promoting shows, or informing their friends about who has passed. There’s very little in punk rock that hasn’t been updated, and so one has to look harder to find punks in the modern era as they are still against the modern framework of society. Although they are no more difficult to find than they once were, in truth, just seen as more difficult for not being as easy to find on the internet as normal people
I just noticed, that (dont skip it cause you see this name) Tyler, the Creator often speaks about how if you have a hobby or something you love, you should engage into it as much as you can and stick with it, despite the fact if there is a hype or not. Being a geek and this kind of becoming this one person in your friendgroup that you should ask if you want to know anything about a specific topic yk? Like this one person who just knows everything about anime or that one car guy who can tell which model it is just by listening to the exhaust. And thats where I see Subcultures. They've changed to being a way more universal way of living which brings a lot less sacrifices and boundaries with it just as Bliss described. They've become decentraliced by the internet but they still very much exist. Just as in this comment section: They are some people who just managed to randomly find a video but most of us are invested in fashion and art. Isn't that some kind of subculture? (yeah fashion isnt a good example but look under Lego videos or beatboxing tutorials and youll get my point xD)
Fascinating ! This explains why I’ve had trouble getting my English students to write about subcultures recently. I don’t think they understand what subcultures are, or were, or maybe I don’t understand what their subcultures are. Anyway, I wish this video were longer.
I think we have been realizing that subculture was very illusory and amorphous all along. When people start to describe a past subculture they tend to all start with the same reference points (various touchstones like music, fashion, political ideas) but the more detail an individual adds the more the description diverges from other peoples descriptions. Now since we don't have the cultural narrative funnel and everything is accelerated so much you just get little influencer fiefdoms that may or may not overlap, depending on the perception of the individual partaking in it.
do you think there's any credence to the idea that global consumerism contributes to the lack of subculture? possibly more so than the Internet itself? so often a gentrification-like process happens to new "cool" subcultures. shifting focus to profit on a subculture's aesthetic is kind of like investing in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood. and oftentimes that consumerist approach kills off the soul of the actual movement
i think so, like things can exist on the internet just generally, but as soon as it falls into your preferred fast fashion outlet it is usually a sign that the end it very near.
I think this actually might be true. I live in Bali, Indonesia where most of the locals don't have access to fast fashion at all. I love to see the different subcultures that have developed here, despite the predominantly traditional way of life. The internet has given them access to subcultures like Rastafarian, biker, and skater aesthetics and points of view. But these subcultures actually take root in the physical world and they put in the time to grow them. I've lived in big cities in Asia and Europe and I haven't seen subcultures take root as I've seen in Bali. Another thought is that Indonesia is very group-based and the West is becoming more and more individualistic. I wonder if that plays a part in the death of subcultures too.
@@MarisseReyes I agree, I think people are more likely to view themselves as individuals (shaped by their own unique combination of interests) rather than identify as belonging to one group. People have always found comfort in belonging to something larger than themselves, but I think nowadays they build their own communities to match their interests (i.e. having friends that belong to separate subcultures) rather than find an existing one they can fit in.
i remember a tutor of mine discussed this with me once in regards to what 'era' of art we currently are in and how do we identify it and he called it an era of 'pluralism', essentially meaning what you said about how so much looks the same. and this is in massive part to being in the age of the internet and it allowing us to cherry pick references from anywhere without context. subculture I can imagine is less defined because how we find them and how we identify them is different from before
Pluralism!
Yes I was thinking about art in a contemporary global manner too.
But if you look closely at the details you’ll find some differences too.
I know this video sort of focuses on punk subculture but I feel that there are other subcultures that adhere more closely to the traditional definition of the word for that aren’t talked about that much because the haven’t really been absorbed into the mainstream like punk has. Some examples I can think of would be kawaii culture(like Lolita) and furry culture. Both of these things are still very niche and have specific gathering places both online and in person. I also feel that the people that identify themselves as being a part of these subcultures are a lot more dedicated to it than the average person who would identify themselves as punk.
This really sort of hit home for me.
I saw a comment that said that aesthetics could replace subculture and thinking along those lines it makes sense.
The access to internet makes it easy for us to learn about what a ‘goth’ or a ‘mod’ does. It shows how everything in this modern age feels watered down, we don’t have initiation rituals, no actual commitments in terms of how far you had to go to find and alter your clothes to fit an aesthetic. We just hop from one things to another.
I agree that perhaps aesthetics are the new subs. From a stylist pov, a small percentage of people are still really linking their identity to aesthetics. It speaks for them, shapes their world or is an expression of who they are or what has been brewing inside of them and now they have found their 'tribe' they won't hold back. Some do it as a trend, others live it .
The difference to me is that the social gap isn't as big as it used to be. I'm from London UK and I'm not old enough to speak on early punk stuff but for me I don't remember back in the day,the punks and goths of Camden market hanging with the hip hop/rappers of South London. Where I lived was even more divided by looks,music etc. There was no event, no space that would bring them together. It was clear who belonged where in London. Yet today at the same event, same area can be an Instagram baddie, a cottage core princess a Maximilist, a street wear advocate and what we call a classic hipster. The worlds collide easier now. I can go on Reddit and be part of all of these groups and not actually be part of their world, if I wanted I could recreate their 'looks' without the beliefs, struggles, the actual world's that go with them. I can create Pinterest boards for all of them as If I know them first hand and people can cycle through my boards and find what eventually 'speaks to them'. I find that it means aesthetics don't always last or mean anything to the majority of people. Dark acedmia for example isn't as strong as it once was. I've seen People tap into it when life seemed tough and completely reverse when it got better. Is that a subculture?
That said each true aesthetic has its own rules in it's own world, true Instagram Baddies only go to certain bars, listen to certain music and dress a certain way, make up and hairstyles are specific. They use the same/similar words, have their nails done in the same way and I might be able to guess their wall art affirmations. The real Cottage Core fans romanticise life, they have similar layout's in their homes or basic requirements to qualify even if the details are slightly different. I can guess what journal they will buy ,what books they may read and events they go to. Even the young ones long for a life that once was and not as modern as it really is and they will continue even after they have had kids because the world of the past is deep in them.
Punks had more than the fashion that related them, experiences, taste's, likes and dislike of the establishments, poverty meant creativity in garment structure and getting a bargain on secound hand clothes , an attitude of 'all in this together, doing what we have to do' and forget anyone who stands in our way' kind of thing.
Not sure if this community spirit works with aesthetics.
People who share the same aesthetics don't necessarily think the same way at all. They can have completly different world views, different value on living life , because it's just aesthetics. Can that be a subculture?
@@thechronicreative I think you're completely spot on in your assessment. All the points you've listed show why aesthetics can't be a subculture, it needs to be more a commitment/lifestyle than something anyone can put on or imitate.
I think the fact that people can switch between subcultures and merge them into their own personal identities makes subcultures less gatekept than before but much more true to individuals rather than a scene itself, it’s very cool and an amazing thing
It’s just not the same now. Like today gothic means nothing besides wearing dark clothes , it means nothing for musical interests , emotional perspectives, political views , like it used to.
@@ci6516 lmfao so gatekeeping.
@@ci6516 i think goth stuff developed a lot into the mainstream, punk still has the same weight it had before
@@slimeforest Nope. not gatekeeping, just standards. Goth is about the music.
@@xavier4519 Goth music hasnt, the fashion has. Therefore the subculture hasnt
The punk scene has always been friendly to me some of my favorite people I have ever met they opened up my musical taste so much
The idea of things getting closer and more interrelated over time because of advancements in transportation and communication is called space-time compression btw if anybody was wondering. This is why a club in Barcelona felt the same as a club in America. Because people at each could communicate so freely many things were the same. (Also if I said anything wrong feel free to correct me i’m not an expert)
space time compression feels real until you do 3 min planks exercices.
@@Habib_Osman That’s exactly what i said? Idk if i’m reading your comment wrong or if you misunderstood mine. Connectedness makes there be less diversity. That is what you meant right?
Culture and subculture are a binary. Today, culture exists on a continuum, and everyone is a subculture of one.
The absolutely most concise way to express that thought that is awesome
this deserves a pin tbh
Welcome to the Brave New World
If that’s true. There is no culture.
because of the internet there is no need to physically signal yourself to others, so there is a detachment between fashion and subculture, there is no more commitment, you no longer need to "fit in" and there is no real threat of being deemed a poser so people can kind of identify with many things at once without any effort on their end besides time. Tons of young girls have goth outfits in their closets nowadays, but its just an identity that they can put on and take off whenever they want
See this is why nobody takes alternative fashion seriously anymore. Normies ruined it.
Thank you for making this video. Your ability to communicate things like this is really something I admire and look up to. As a teenager who has felt alienated by the rapidly changing aesthetics and trends of my generation, I never actually knew this was a conversation at all. I genuinely thought I would just constantly feel alienated and simply try my best to navigate through the rest of my life feeling that way.
The fact that I now know I'm not actually crazy and that there is a lack of commitment to identity within my generation opens up so many more opportunities for thought and idea. I also think there is something to be said about how because of the internet and subsequently, the everchanging and rapidfire trends it brings about, the idea of subculture-- of maintaining ideology and wholly representing what you believe in --is inherently and easily destroyed because every visual aspect of it (which is sometimes really the only thing you can go on since you're online) is immediately identified as some "aesthetic" and called "xyz-core" and then mass-produced so that it does become a trend and you can buy products related to it until eventually another aesthetic takes over and that becomes the trend.
The thing is, I do believe in the reality of community on the internet because I have experienced it before and I know it exists. But the general consensus of the internet is that trend is more important (and more profitable) than committed idea.
I used to be a part of the early Dark Academia tumblr community where literally all we did was talk about the books which were under the Dark Academia GENRE of media, and posted photographs, literature, and ideas relevant to that concept. But because of tiktok and the internet generally turning it into an aesthetic trend, DA became this criticized clusterfuck of "problematic" ideas and philosophies. This is where it gets tricky. The community I was a part of never actually adopted the darker ideas in the books; DA was legit just this niche little genre of stories which we found interesting and found we could build upon in terms of idea, concept, and aesthetic (in its literal sense). Now, I don’t deny that DA has been for the most part eurocentric and elitist, but I’ve always considered that to be one of its main originating points: the inevitable downfall of academic pride and prowess. (Of course, this can still and should include stories from all over the world. I’m Filipino. I would also love to see diversity in this genre but that is up to you and me to contribute to that.) This is like criticizing somebody who loves horror movies because they support death, violence, and trauma. And the reason why people got this idea of how dArK acAdeMiA is proBlemATIC is precisely because it was mass-produced and turned into a trend and it lost all of its actual essence. It lost all of its complex ideas as a genre and was reduced to turtlenecks and male, white books. DA HAS gotten more diverse in recent years. But people constantly perpetuating the idea that it isn’t diverse and is exclusive, will only destroy all the progress POC HAVE made.
Of course, I do realize that subculture was born because the mainstream culture at that time was far more demanding and restrictive than it is now. I think less people are choosing to put themselves in a specific box because we as a generation are trying our best to emancipate from the concept of there needing to be a box at all. A person is meant to be more than just a single set of concepts and ideas. My truest concern is that because of the fast-paced and borderline thoughtless consumption of media that is brought on by the internet, people may not participate in any concept or idea at all. People may only choose to stick to whatever other people are currently saying on twitter and instagram, and wait until the next new thing to think, say, or do. It also doesn’t help that my generation reflexively communicates under irony. This matter simply has too many layers for me to tackle in a single youtube comment, but I’m genuinely glad this conversation exists and people actually care. Thank you.
I feel JUST like you. I never thought the lack of commitmment and overall alienation related to identity was an actual topic to discuss. I've been trying new aesthetics and subcultures that might interest me, but some questions come to mind: "it's so easy to join and be part of those groups ONLINE, but am I truly belonging or even worthy of that?" "is this who I really am? should I let myself be defined by those specific aesthetics?"
And just like you said, maybe all of this modern thinking of not fitting in boxes or stereotypes may lead to people not participate in any concept at all, just kinda "go with the flow" because it's what everyone's doing and you don't wanna be left out.
but yeah, I guess we should follow what our interests are and be glad that nowadays we have easy access to everything we want to consume, about music, books, movies and culture in general. everyday new subcultures emerge with specific contents. and even though maybe the original "punk" has died, there are plenty of other different movements that refer to it, so at the same time it's not present in the modern days there are still vestiges and traces of what once was.
in summary, I liked the way you discussed this topic! there's still many layers to talk about this, though. but hey, thank you for reading until here.
I've been interested in the metal sub culture for the past 3 years (I'm 18 now) I do have a metalhead friend, so I'm not alone with it. Only recently I got to go to an actual metal event (Megadeth Concert, with the friend I mentioned) and the amount of people with battle vests, band t shirts and long hair was amazing to see. It really gives you a sense of belonging when you see other people just like you, and I wish there was more stuff like this in my town.
I personally feel like there is a lot less elitism when it comes to subculture now and it's great. I'm too young to have been part of the original punk scene but one of my moms was and I grew up with old hard-core punk as a result. That didn't stop people from trying to gatekeep me on the basis of me being a weird nerd who doesn't dress the part. I'm glad that younger people seem to have more of a, "let people enjoy things," kind of attitude.
Most things you don't have to dress up for. It's always the music that is more important than the style itself. I could be wearing some basic ass t shirt and I'll still listen to the cure when I can.
Subculture became a subreddit
It's cause these scenes in person were really cliquey with a heavy hierarchical structure in certain ways.
Love this topic. I feel the aesthetics and the identity are changing everyday. I don't think subculture and contraculture is dying it's metamorphosing in something we'll be able to understand in a couple of years
Putting it this way gives me hope, growing up with the internet has really made me wish I knew what growing up in the 80’s /90’s was like when these subcultures were more “exclusive.” I’m tired of getting into things I like and then a year or two later it’s milked and ruined by boring people who just wanna use it for a trend, whether that be clothes, music, etc. Usually I can tune it out and I don’t get bothered but when it’s in my face everyday on social media it definitely ruins it. It seems with the introduction of the internet things get popular at such a rapid rate. Fads have existed long before the web but the internet has made it way too easy now for trends to come and go. Look at something like Arc’teryx, after being an exclusive brand only a select amount of people in the hardcore outdoor enthusiast world knew about for decades it became a hypebeast/tiktok brand in under 2 years just from one guy being seen in a jacket.
@@ouzsnfouaenxfgfgsgsuhoauvdjd I don't really like the term subculture, because that implies that there is a superior culture and in reality there's not a superior culture. I would adopt the term counterculture vs massive culture. Counterculture seeks alternative ways of experiencing subjectivity. The media and the internet show only a part of what youth culture was or is right now, it only exposes the part that can be commercialized or what can be put as an internal enemy so a system can prevail , build an internal enemy to justify restrictive and oppressive measures. I believe that we can find our local counterculture gang that manages itself outside massive culture, creating new means of expression.
If the identity of a subculture is changing constantly than it isnt a subculture? Just a trend
What you said between 0:50 and 1:28 makes so much sense. I have grown up with the internet. And it’s been my way of accessing so many passions and cultures. But I’ve never truly felt like a part of any of them. Always looking in from the outside, never truly living them in the real world, because I wasn’t surrounded by people who shared those interests. Grateful to have seen so much but wish I could have been a part of something
I'm mid-level employee at a multi-national business by day and my passions are punk rock, piercings/tattoos, and science fiction. My partner is African-American and we have two adopted children. By day, I've got to speak with people who may not approve of portions of my lifestyle. But I can go home, immerse myself in my record collection and occasionally go to concerts where people don't care whether i've got on slacks and short hair...i'm there for the same reason they are.
Punk rock made me who i am, probably saved my life. I am forever grateful.
Counter culture is disappearing, there are so many subcultures and sub sub cultures the world over. But the “if your parents hate it, it must be cool” way of thinking has just left us with so many tired and hackneyed cultures of rebellion where people are challenging status quos that never even existed. What people see as edgy and rebellious is ironically the status quo
I wonder if being normal is diverting from the status qou in the modern era now that goth and punk are practically mainstream now. Not to say that these subcultures becoming mainstream is a bad thing I actually think it's kinda cool that these cultures are now accepted into the majority. But it makes you think ya know.
If I say I'm a goth today it certainly wouldn't be as special or unique as it was when it first emerged. But I don't think I'll ever stop dressing goth or listening to the music. Because its a genuine thing that makes me happy. Whether it be special or not. I just like it for what it is. And I don't think anyone should stop liking a certain thing just because it's not as QuIRkY as it once was.
@@coffintears5821 I’m actually going through the same thing. I always had this kind of conversation with my few goth friends how the fashion has become overhyped and now a days a real goth wouldn’t even wear that stuff anymore which isn’t true, it just depends on the mood of the day personally. But when I do go out as full goth it isn’t as shocking as it was like 20 to 30 years ago, although it doesn’t matter as long as there’s goth music to be made and heard.
@@AiRbaL2000 exactly. As long as there's music the culture is still alive.
The sub kulture nowadays is mumble rap and instead of parents hating it it's just ppl like u
Because the anti-establishment became the establishment
Switching between personalities (which can be subculture influenced) based on the outfit youre wearing that day, is the new wave
Peterson's living hell, I'm kinda fine with it hehe. But seriously, on an optimistic note I'd like to see this translate into more emotional intelligence across the board.
Back in the day, being a member of a subculture might carry a physical risk when you were on your way out to link up with your fellow members. Some of the other subcultures wore lace up boots and might object to your particular look. Truth be told, that was all part of the fun!
With the internet, subcultural aesthetics can be co-opted easier than ever before. Subcultural art can be accessed easier than ever before. Just because you can be plugged into a scene via the internet doesnt make you part of it, but rather a spectator. A voyeur into a world you watch from afar. But, for me, what will make subculture real is the physical community meeting up and coming together. Real subculture never dies...
For me, there is a distinction to be made between Subculture vs. Internet Subculture
Because internet subcultures are often designed to never meet up in the physical world, its a totally different approach to the phenomenon in my opinion
@@Joe-ol5bq were you talking with someone who deleted their comments?
@@OfficialROZWBRAZEL No, just elaborating on my point
@@Joe-ol5bq oh ok
Interesting topic. I’m a Black American, so I don’t have the luxury of not making everything about race🤪 Thankfully, subculture is not dead. I was born into many subcultures that are successfully thriving off of the internet today. Some legal and illegal.
A few Subcultures I was raised in (Rap/Hiphop, Ballroom, walked my 1st ball @ 14 in Harlem) are experiencing what the PUNK movement and House music went thru.
Once White Americans get involved, things get repackaged for the white gaze. And then Re-branded as something else to further distance itself from blackness in an attempt to manipulate history. It’s some kind of strange obsession. Rock n Roll, Country music, Techno, Jazz, we’re all apart of Black subcultures that mysteriously became synonymous with whiteness 🤔 I even saw a white “Wiccan” lady buy a Santeria book the other day😂😂😂
this. I also think to say subculture is dead, it a bit difficult to parse out when most subcultures have youth movements. I.e Punk in the Bay and Drill in NYC / England. In SF subcultures are very here... and somewhat underground.
I'm Cuban with Canarian ancestry so oops I look white. Many santeros in my family. And yeah, white punx got the shit kicked out of them everywhere too so my white gaze is on Bad Brains. I know my roots and I ain't blind
@@jabnewmedia corny 😂
i think aesthetics have taken the place of subcultures
I think they are the same thing honestly
@@AnonGZ No theyre not. ur woefully misinformed.
@@FreeStuff11TakeItBy12 i had to take this as a joke your vocabulary victimized my humor
@@Rogi8me ?
most people are trendy posers now.
I love watching your videos because you address thoughts that have passed through my mind but I haven't actually vocalized. This content really causes people to analyze human behavior and psyche. I always finish your videos with more to contemplate than I did prior to watching. Keep creating the dialogue, Bliss.
Im a thrasher / heavy metal fan since i was 12, and back in those days (late 2000s) the tribalism was still pretty real, none of us angry young teens where alive when Metallica or Sodom came into existence, but we loved the music and that feeling of "being part of something unique" so much that we despised other metalheads for listening to Metalcore o other forms of mainstream metal. That feeling is gone, nowadays younger dudes don't care if what they like is Thrash or Djent or Doom Metal, they just vibe with what they like, thats pretty good for musicians and people who plays in bands, but dillute the feeling of "being part of a scene" a lot.
Also, the fact that you don't need to go outside to get new music is a big factor for music-based subcultures, when i was a kid you need to make a net of contact and friends to even get some mp3 or someones older brother cassetes. Subcultures needs the physical world.
Metalcore was the best metal genre in the early 2000's with a bunch of breakdowns and fry screams even if there were corny bands. But i miss grunge the most
I think subcultures have become more nebulous since the ubiquity of the internet. There’s definitely still something there at their core, but they’ve become so wide-reaching and ill-defined at the edges. There’s an ebb and a flow as the waves of revival and aesthetic adoption by fashion come and go. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Punk as a specific genre and sub-culture indeed is “dead”. However, punk rock was just an incarnation of a timeless phenomenon/world view/attitude, and THAT has ALWAYS been with us, and will never die.
Disco died and now punk died too. Guess the only thing that changed are the trends but the ideologys have always remained the same.
Indie rock is really successful today ngl
There's actually a substantial punk scene where I am. There's restaurants and coffeeshops that are known punk hangout spots; you can recognize them by the vegan options and weird handwritten menus. There's probably also a corkboard with local events/businesses/etc that has the local punk show calendar, also in the weird handwriting. The shows are typically at either one of a few known proper venues or one of the many punk houses that the city would like to demolish. I lived in one of those for awhile, in one of the utility rooms in the basement. I paid $80 and learned very quickly why people turn to opiates. That house was my intro to the punk world, though specifically they called themselves crustpunks. I don't think the scene at large calls itself crustpunk, but I've heard random friends of coworkers talk about the "crusties" specifically.
@@carriefernandez8705 HEY, we are the 90's punks only much more extreme the gabber we are in everything more extreme our gabber scene is heaven .
My parents are gabber i'm gabber , plus we gabbers and punks are friends there are also some punks to gabber partys our subculture is forever .
Another thing this video made me think of is the concept of people who go into subcultures and only stay in it for a few years(it being young person phase) vs the amount of people who stayed in that subculture forever basically. The amount of old and middle aged punks metal heads and goths walking around from when those subcultures first started is very interesting. I think the internet has increased the amount of folks jumping around to different subcultures and it being only a phase, rather then a true core part of their personality, and simply has to be because its so much more accessible now.
This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time, and I'm glad your video came across my reccomendations. So, as a Millennial (currently 30) who grew up in that kind of middle era of internet culture, and seeing how it interacted with and connected existing subcultures, what I've witnessed is that the internet kind of over time choked down and restricted what one would consider pertaining to a certain subculture, while simultaneously opening access to that subculture. So, where I'm from in Southern California, there was(and may still be, I've been gone for a while) a pretty big overlap between punk, skater, gang, and hip hop culture. Like, you could walk into a backyard show, and people from all these subcultures would be enjoying one aspect of one respective scene, right? And there's no, "well you dress like an extra in an NWA video, but I look like the costume designers from SLC Punk picked my wardrobe, so we're not gonna hang out. It was like, agreed upon that we were into what we were into for a lot of the same reasons: poverty, abusive parents, anti establishment views, a need to belong, or of course, we just thought that shit was dope; and we found that in all those things, so we were able to share our interests and crossover in a lot of really cool ways.
And back then, a lot of stuff was really still word of mouth. So if there was a show or something, you found out about it from someone at school, they'd pick you up or text you the address, and you'd go. A lot of secret shows, underground skate seshes, whatever, happened because people handed out flyers or maybe there was that one kid who knew what was up, so it was like, "oh talk to Jimmy, he's got the hookup"
What social media did, as infantile as it was back then, was sort of dissolve that "in crowd" kind of thing that existed around those meetups.
It also made it easier to host bigger shows, or more people made your open mic set, or first headlining punk show. Which was cool. The downside was that instead of the agreed upon crossover, where we all have common ground and are enjoying this thing together, people that might not have been welcome were showing up, and kind of ripping off or shouldering their way into our thing. So some preppy kid from uptown comes by, maybe just to see the freak show, and either finds out he likes what he sees/hears, or for the first time in his life, he's not the center of attention, so next week he has a mohawk and is wearing a Dead Kennedys t shirt, Docs and a leather. And he posts pics on his Myspace or Facebook or whatever, and his friends see that and go, "oh, so Jason's a Punk now" And then, the scope of what was considered "Punk" or "Street" or "Goth" or whatever, has now narrowed, because it's being shown through a lens that is outside looking in, without the experience.
It used to be, if you didn't listen to the music, or live the lifestyle, chances were you weren't into that subculture. Social media has allowed access into these subcultures without the work.
You don't have to order the albums from the back if magazines, or dig endlessly through record store crates, or make your own shirts, because it's all justa click away.
The underground has broken the surface. Is it neccesarily a bad thing? No, I don't think so. I think it's kind of cool. But the downside is that this constant exposure makes people think they immediately know what you're about, and then they miss the mark, because what is shown online is really just surface level. If I say I'm into Hip Hop, and only listen to Top 40, I'm not really into Hip Hop, I'm probably just into the aesthetic. And for me, that's the double edged sword. That effort you're talking about, it still has to be done. You can find everything you energy wanted to know about what you're into or curious about, and if you want the good shit, you still gotta dig. I love in a town now where the Punk and Metal scene still exists, and a lot of the shows or band I discover are through word of mouth, but instead of tearing a flyer off a telephone post, someone just sends me a link. Instead of having to be at the show to buy the album or the shirt, I can just go to the BandCamp, or whatever. But for people that are REALLY into what they're into, they still gotta go out and look for it.
Because (Pandemic not withstanding) I don't think anyone wants to experience a show or a Lowrider Meetup, or a skate comp through a screen. If they wanna experience something, they're gonna go out and experience it.
All the internet did was make it easier to be a poser, but what it also did was give the diehard acolytes of whatever thing more access, more ways to hear, see, connect, and that's beautiful. Without online culture, I wouldn't have been able to travel the country and meet al kinds of badass people and see all kinds of bands, artists, and creators in the way that I have in the past 10 years. I probably would've stayed in my hometown, got tired of the local scene by 20, and moved on with my life. But through technology, I have been able to keep digging, keep learning, keep listening. It's like having an endless record store bin, and it's fuckin sick.
So yeah, people are gonna float from trend to trend, as they always have. Kids switching up interests is nothing new. But for those who are really about it, the gems, the REALLY good stuff, is still hidden. We still have our underground. All it takes is a little digging, and for people just floating through a trend, or maybe trying something new, whether they truly experience the fullness of that underground filly depends on just how much digging they are willing to do.
This take ! 💯 appreciate u taking time to write this
@@divergent0042 thank you. I'm glad someone actually took the time to read it lol
Just trying to share my experience to the best of my ability, one of the rare times an opportunity appears for me to do so.
Glad you liked it
Fun fact: During the late 70's/early 80's, rap was still a subculture, as the mainstream black culture was Disco, Punk was just emerging, so in New York, you'd have a lot of Punk people rubbing shoulders with Hip Hop people
This connection between hip hop and punk / hardcore scenes is really apparent in the american graffiti scene back then and now
I agree how in today’s scenes one doesn’t have to physically commit to every subculture in existence. If I tell others that I’m a goth with barely any black clothes on and they’ll believe me unlike back then you would have to literally be at the shows in full goth wear. I kinda envy that experience since it’s become difficult meeting genuine people of the subcultures I wish to participate in but it doesn’t matter now what you wear. The internet made it all too accessible and confused everyone in a way, but it’s also a good thing to be more exposed, a double edged sword if you will.
I agree.
Used to be way into fashion and archive and used to watch a lot of fashion UA-cam (including this channel), but have fallen out of fashion in general and have gotten more into car enthusiasm, basically trading 1 expensive hobby for a more expensive one. Just wanted to say that coming across this channel again took me back to the fashion days, and this was a great thought-provoking video.
Somewhat reminded me of my experience as a car guy so far, cause I used to always found it weird that as much as I liked sports cars, I hated having to use a car daily both due to the stress of the commute and environmental reasons. So that put me on to biking culture. And through the internet, I found out that quite a few other car enthusiasts felt the same. So through the internet I feel that it’s much easier for people to get into other subcultures.
I think the a negative about subcultures back then was how difficult it was to actually build an array of different interests; like you were either a hippie or a punk etc. you could never be a hippie who went to a punk concert. That obviously had a lot to do with the fact that there was no internet back then or way of having connections on a larger scale.
Nowadays, we discover that people actually have way more interests than before because of how exposed we are to them and I think that is a good thing; people are quite complex and can't really be boxed into one thing, life can become really monotonous if that's the case. I think in postmodern society the 'original' subcultures have been slightly watered down and commodified so anyone can just 'buy' into it.
Subcultures may also just be different, as mentioned in the video. Newer scenes and cultures have developed from previous subcultures to fit the way of the world now.
I really agree with this! I don't think it's watering down the experience if you aren't 100% dedicated to a subculture, I feel that's kind of elitist.
Westwood played a big part in UK punk fashion at the time, but the underground here in the US was coming up in a much different way at the same time. So I don’t give her as much credit as being a “founder” for punk, or anything of that kind as others like to.
Sad to hear about the spider's death. These guys are usually pretty kind.
Everyone deserves a chance for happiness. RIP SPIDY 😭
Yeah man, don’t kill spiders. They’re our bros.
The French “Zazou” movement of the 40s was a fascinating early subculture.
I wonder how fandom fits in with subculture. I don't know if it's emerged as some sort of replacement or maybe it is, in itself, a smaller more specific facet of subculture. Musically, I feel like more people associate themselves with specific artists first, and the subcultures they belong to second. But maybe as the lines between musical genres have become blurred over the years, so too have subcultures.
I think one huge thing is being left out when it comes to the type of sacrifice people endured because they were punk rock, or gay, or hip-hop, or ravers. During the 70s through the 90s-society in general was much more conservative. In the 90's I volunteered at a convalescent home with a friend who had ear piercings, old folks would call him homophobic slurs but he was straight, and eventually stopped volunteering because of the harassment. If you had green hair in the 90s, forget it, people would be staring at you everywhere you went. You have to consider that all of this was happening for the first time and it was really freaking people out. The phrase “I feel like society's judging me“ was never more true, despite what these crybaby conservatives are saying now about people taking away their freedoms. Ironically those conservatives of the past created the conditions that have spawned the activists of today.
@Spitch Grizwald oh shit what part of the country where are you at?
@@Habib_Osman I don’t know much about the Netherlands but yeah, in many ways there’s a resurgence of the right wing, like we see in the Philippines and Brazil etc. our Chito head former president helped popularize right wing extremism globally while he was in office. These world leaders love wanking each other off.
@Spitch Grizwald Wow you should write a book or do a vlog, I'm not joking, would love to hear your story.
I think it's fair to say your Discord is a subculure.
I agree. Is a subculture as much about people with similar values as it is about identity?
Scrolling through the comments, i was starting to think about the same thing. And i believe a big part of why subcultures are struggling to stay subcultures is because identity is so fickle and everyone, especially teenagers resonate with so many different things and are not bound by space, as Bliss pointed out, that everyone is the receptacle for a big soup of ideals and aesthetics and music taste. The commodification of all of these (ideals included) has led to a fragmentation, the immediate result of which is this acceleration of the lifespan of subcultures, the end of which i personally cannot predict. I hope someone who sees this the same as me could elaborate but this is all I've got for now. I hope i find an answer someday because it bugs me a lot. As someone who was a teen in the 2010s, internet subcultures were around for way longer and people's allegiance to those subcultures were more pronounced. I don't know if this acceleration process is good in any way but it sure is scary. This is a new phase in human history that is so drastically different from before that previsions and analyses are hard to make. Uff i need to end this comment, I'm getting really worked up about this 😅
By fragmentation i meant of identity. It is so broad and some aspects of one clash with the other and it's hard to stick to one thing. Is that good? Is it bad? I don't know. I'm very confused and conflicted about this (obviously)
I 100% agree with the idea that punk has an increasing appeal in bipoc communities, I've been noticing that amongst my friends and coworkers, but I didn't think about it being because historically they really weren't afforded the same social opportunities. Really appreciate you saying that and connecting more dots for me. I think that they way people can try on different aesthetics and people inherently assume there is less substance to it might also make it safer for communities where appearance was always used as a justification to oppress/harm them. Historically, its dangerous for bipoc individuals to stand out, blending in is a survival tactic. Maybe as fashion becomes fast and generally less divisive, it becomes safer for individuals to make alternative fashion choices.
no one cares about your white guilt essay.
Look, punk can’t die because punk is the simple act of non compliance and being yourself, punk in music and the art form may evolve and dissolve away becoming something new but punk as an idea will never die
Punk can't die,because punk was born dead.
The internet and social media really blew up the western otaku subculture over the last 20 years. Anime and otaku is basically mainstream in the west. A lot of those old subcultures that were considered fringe/nerdy are now mainstream. It's a mixed bag now for me because I can remember the dark days before it became more mainstream, but it felt special and exclusive. Now you can find whatever you want, watch whatever you want, buy whatever you want, and supposedly be part of the subculture...
I personally don't think Punk or many subcultures are dead, they just have returned to the underground where they belong, in the mainstream media is no longer profiting on it. But of course that is just my and my friends opinions, I go to punk shows, and there seems to me to be plenty of punks who are like the old school Punks, and not the posers we have now in the mainstream
love hearing you talk about such topics. Wouldn't mind if it was longer!
In the 80s I went to a large high school that had many subcultures. Burnouts, jocks, punks, preppys, etc. and we would all fight one another. There was no line crossing.
i just finished my college project where I made a zine on how music influence fashion (i started at 70 punk and progressed through to modern day, and how all the different eras and subcultures are still held strong nowadays, but in its own way). and this video woulda been hella useful for my research if i’d seen it earlier aha but we move. anyways i think you hit the nail exactly on the head man. amazing content, love it!
I would love to read this zine!
Im 20 y/o and I've been going to punk shows for a couple years, somewhat interrupted in 2020/21 by the global events. But as of late, there have been plenty of fresh bands playing. In fact, lots of them started forming as the lockdowns lifted, just friend groups that grabbed some instruments and got noisy. My reason why, from my perspective, is that you've got a choice between partying at someone's parents house, listening to drake, or you can go to the shows. Its either drake over a bluetooth speaker, the bar, the club, or the punk show. Nobody talks about how it used to be, nobody really cares about stuff like that. Just jam out and stop worrying about it, and if your town doesn't have a scene, go grab a guitar and some friends so you can save your local dissatisfied youth from bluetooth drake.
I like how you briefly explained what you do on the channel after the cold open actually made me click into the channel
I actually count 1920’s flappers as a subculture.
Also, the Bohemian movement etc.
Subcultures are probably part of human nature as you say.
I was a bit Goth and Britpop light in the 90’s.
We also had a nice subculture called ”Pandas”, think 1960’s aestethics but all black and white ( including hair).
Damn people looked good!
Yeah! I was looking for a comment that mentioned the Bohemians, one of my fav historical subcultures.
80s punk guy here. Good video. I think subcultures have always been around as long as there were groups of people who didn't fit in who were able to find each other. I think we will never know about a lot of them simply because they weren't documented. I think it's fair to say that the fashion and language surrounding Jazz music was a definite subculture. We still use a lot of their slang to this day ("cool?") Hobos during the depression were a subculture. Men returning from WW2 who formed the motorcycle clubs which became the Hells Angels and others were absolutely a subculture. Beatniks, Bohemians, all subcultures. The thing that I think is really interesting is that we used to see major societal shifts in culture every 8 to 10 years. Look at footage from 1958 compared to 1968 compared to 1978... such major differences both culturally and subculturally. I feel like these shifts have greatly slowed with the advent of the Internet. Which is weird because you'd think unlimited access to information would be speeding things up. But since the Millenium it seems like we've been in a cultural mulligan's stew -- with bits and bobs from lots of the past. Maybe it's just hard to see because we're in it. I feel like what some people describe as "woke" is some kind of cultural shift as well as whatever you call all those weirdo Trump worshippers. Those are pretty unique-to-our-time cultural shifts, but oddly I don't feel like those idealogical shifts are as tied to fashion, music, and the arts as in the past. There isn't as much of a sense of needing to find a tribe as there was "back in the day." I'm not sure why this is. Part of it might be that "back in my day" you basically had 3 TV stations giving you your information on the world (maybe 30 if you had cable). You generally had one radio station in your area that played the kind of music you liked. You had to pay money to try out a new record, often just judging by the cover art. Because there was access to so much less input, you often felt like you had to commit to your choices. If I paid $10 for a record because it had a cool skull on it, I'm going to listen to it until I like it kind of mentality. I'm rambling here. Things are really different now and it's difficult to put my finger on the reasons why. But I do think there will always be groups of people who feel like they don't fit in with the status quo. I think there will always be some form of subculture and counterculture. Maybe it's just going to become more disparate and harder to define. Good job on the video.
Question: Was the subculture of hyperviolence in Clockwork Orange based on the teddy boys?? Never actually seen the movie, but their style also has edwardian/victorian influences and they love violence.
No YouTubing person ever said „leave a comment below” this way 😅 great job
I've read a few interesting articles on this. I remember one suggested that late-capitalism created a need for subcultures, with less people being brought up in tight communities, such as a local church, people had to look elsewhere to receive camaraderie and build connections. The fashion production capabilities of late-capitalism also broke the restrictions of fashion being tied to one's social class, and with this, fashion could be used by all to advertise their interests and subculture.
So this lead to fashion being used by people to identify with a subculture, which is important in providing one with a sense of belonging; A sense that late-capitalism and globalisation took away from by negatively impacting the connections within small, local communities.
Jazz by black musicians in the 1920s were the original subculture. The jazz subculture had fashion, music, language and dance that was a subculture to mainstream popular music and culture of the time. That definitely predated the Teddy Boys.
Subcultures evolved into different movements so in a way Punk did die out in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Punk evolved into SKA, The New Romantics, the Goths, Post Punk, Grunge, Riot Girl and the Cyber Punk movement. I thought Punk had died out. Ow dear.
"i encourage me to stop multitasking and stay with me"
not me closing a bunch of tabs just now
Super interesting topic. I've been deep into punk music and style for many years, that's how I first recognized clothes as a way to express myself and communicate my belonging to a community and I've also been the guy saying that "things are not as good as they were before" but I finally came to a similar conclusion as Bliss' in his analysis.
I personally think a subculture really starts to exist (culturally) the moment it is recognized as something "other" by external observers, and when this happens it inevitably becomes codified into esthetic patterns. The internet have certainly made such patterns more difficult to be identified because of the speed and multiplicity of the information we have access to but I don't believe that means subcultures are dead, we probably just cannot put them in focus as easily as before. Well some of us can (winks at Demna).
And if that implies new subcultures have a better chance to stay authentic and not be exploited, then I'm all in!
speaking as someone whos a teen right now, subcultures switch too quick, i think it used to be that one subculture would be popular then it would become too mainstream and die out, yknow, teddy boys, greasers, hippies, skinheads, punks, metalheads, emos, whatever but now with tiktok and youtube and pinterest everyone feels like they need to curate their entire aesthetic with ten different words they've tacked core onto the end of so that they can feel unique, I guess i'm punk, i mean I have a mohawk, listen to black flag, smoke weed, go to protests and read the socialist worker but I feel like most punks would call me a poser and kids at school keep coming up to me and being like "are u a goff" so i don't really say i'm part of any subculture other than making the occasional "i'm emo cause i like my chemical romance" joke
another point, not to be one of those people but punk is about the ideology, then the music, then the fashion, in that order
I would like to direct you to the italian subculture of "scapigliatura", which was by all means a subculture which developed in the 800s and encompassed everything that can be defined as that. As you can see it predates the teddies by a lot but I know that one isn't even the first. I'm not sure yet we can say a sub begins because it wants to rebel against a determined force, I myself believe the birthplace of many concepts of social structures is school, and it would be interesting to investigate on how some forms of community could arise in that specific environment, or rather why it doesn't happen at all, what I can say is that we had this very specific idea of rebellion taht we have carried with us for a long time and, although in they're own distinct ways in history, perhaps we can start looking for them in medieval times too when we look at alchemy, very secretive, spoke through coded arts, and way more gatekeeper than anything we got today, the fact music and style has little to do with them doesn't take away the fact that it's yet another sub, they were just harder to reconcile within the meaning of the word as history and media changes and the aforementioned goods were not exactly a common good back then
One thing that i’ve been thinking about a lot is the connection between developments in queer discourse and the movement away from the necessity of in-person contact with the subculture that you mentioned. The queer bars I frequent are filled with older leather queers, trans lesbians, all these groups that are being discussed online by fellow (younger) queer folks who clearly haven’t been in touch with offline queer community and the associated subculture, and thus more frequently misunderstand and vilify them. I know we tell people to touch grass jokingly, and I do believe that there’s immense value in the decentralized presence of subculture through online spaces, but I’m afraid that there’s a loss of connection that can only be really counteracted through in-person interaction in shared spaces.
you can only have subculture if you have a mono culture
which we dont have anymore
Good point.
Exactly.
Crazy video timing, I’ve just submitted my university dissertation on the link between British working-class subcultures and luxury fashion haha
Oh, and I love this. Someone took a punk club in Minneapolis when I was 18 and fresh off the boat and I felt so out of place (I'm black); wish I could relive it now that I know what I know.
This is really interesting. As someone growing up in the 70s and 80s I can see how the internet (well digital communication in general) has changed things creatively.
I feel like the big difference is digital life’s ability to clone something exactly. There used to be a sort of distortion of ideas between people. If you went to Brazil and listened to their music back in the day when you came back to London you would recreate what you remember. It would inevitably be slightly different to Brazilian music as your memory of things won’t be exact.
Nowadays you can just get on the internet and get an exact replication of the things you saw, the things you heard etc. the distortion doesn’t happen so much. Everyone can be into and recreate the exact same thing at the same time all being thousands of miles apart.
There’s very little that can diverge from its origin anymore and cause the natural creation of a sub group. The more access you have to digital communication the less different you can be.
Basically all subcultures are distortions of previous cultures because of the inability / lack of resource to recreate the original thing. Hip hop music evolved through sampling because technology allowed people to play music they physically couldn’t. But that created a distortion (rigid 16th note drums for example) that we now see as it’s own genre.
It’s worth noting that poorer nations and villages where they lack digital communication develop their own cultures in a vacuum and even when foreign elements are added, the uniqueness remains.
It’s really the digital vs analog debate in some ways. Distortion is actually interesting, which is why we crave it. Does society always need the ability to exactly replicate any one thing? Is fidelity overrated?
I think Sub-culture is anything a group of people are passionate about and express themselves with each other. This can be in person or online.
NASCAR talks about westwood in his music A literal SHIT ton
This was an interesting watch. I have been invested in subculture (or have I?) all my life. Recently I have started questioning a lot of it. I feel like it failed to have a profound effect on my surroundings, or myself. I have also struggled trying to grasp what’s going on with my “tribe” recently. Maybe it just transformed into something I can’t grasp anymore. I guess it’s normal when you get older, but I feel the changes you described add a lot to it. Sorry for rambling. Thanks for an interesting channel!
So happy I found you. Love your house commentary as former ghetto house producer
Anyone who says subculture is dead is just admitting they're out of touch.
Without sounding like someone who is talking down people that have only grown up with the internet what I can see after seeing both is something like punk rock (which I was lucky to find at an early) was very hard to find and for that reason was very special and life defining/changing and is still something that I'm grateful for to this day. This is one example but a fairly pointed one, I think, having people introduce me to stuff like Dead Kennedys, Momeansno, Black Flag, Bad Brains, the Avengers, the Rezillos, Stiff Little Fingers, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, the Pistols, Butthole Surfers, DOA, Flipper, Fear, rare Devo, Circle Jerks, UK Subs, the Misfits etc was special because the information/material required work to come by and for that it seemed even more special than it already was. The younger generation today has so much access to information, it's all there within a click and for that reason I can see why it's easier to skim over certain things. I feel both sorry and envious of this current situation-
I do hope that there's a need to keep informed and act beyond what is laid in front you because there is usually much more to the story than that. Be well.
There's also the cost. My subculture is the lolita subculture and the greater Kawaii subculture. I think it's freeing to be able to dress up like a princess. But that cost money. Money I don't have. And even if I did to buy one dress the guilt would eat me alive.
Even if I sew my own clothes that would cost me not only money but time that I can't give. And I'm a plus sized black girl. So at least with the internet I can see both plus sized girls and black girls wear those clothes. There's probably a lot of people who are only in a subculture because the internet gets rid of the psychical restriant of the subculture.
the documentary AfroPunk came out in 2002, that definitely had a big impact on the resurgence of punk and increased visibility of Black and other POC punks/rockers. (rock is from Black culture anyway but that's another story)
@Lord Laureate false. Guitars didn't originate in Europe, neither did drums. Also that entire idea is faulty and borderline eurocentric because an instrument can be played in infinite ways and the culture is in how it's played.
@Lord Laureate lol you have the most ironic username Lord Laureate. 👍🏾
@Lord Laureate being open to being wrong is one of the most important aspects of learning and growing. So is adjusting your perspective when presented with new information.👍🏾
@Lord Laureate But yeah punk rock and hardcore punk both have huge Black contributions and rock and roll itself comes from Black culture (rock n roll is a southern Black slang for f******) so There isn't really a debate on that.
As a young(ish) punk rocker, I can honestly say that the punk community in particular is more alive than ever by staying underground. Kids from around the world would discover punk from their parents or online and like to get involved in the scene. There’s still tons of young punk bands that play to a small audience that are worth checking out.
I think Punk ,post social media, has changed a lot. Definitely feel the "process" of getting involved, discovering music, and creating a community isn't the same and it feels different when I interact with younger folks. I think part of subculture resisting assimilation into the mainstream is exclusivity. And going trough an organic process of becoming part of a subculture you have to earn it. You gotta listen to bad bands and wear the wrong clothes or be a dork about it until you figure it out. And I think if you cut that out then the subculture might as well be dead. At least to olds like me, I'm sure older punks thought I was doing it wrong.
I'd like to add what I thought was an interesting moment in subculture that happened in the mid 10's. Within DIY punk there was a resurgence of interest in Oi. A french band called Rixe got really hot and it seemed like a lot of bands were popping up riding this new Oi wave. The thing is that Oi is a skinhead genre, and a lot of punks started dressing like skins or skin adjacent. Skins have (or had) a very tight community and there's a process to getting "in" (often called getting shaved in and then you're a "fresh cut" for a while). Long story short all these old skins started showing up to shows thinking the old days were back. Some fights broke out and I think a lot of punks stopped thinking it was cute to do this.
I was that punk kid in LA -- very thought provoking piece. I've pondered this topic for years and never put "sacrifice" at the center of the scene. But I get it! Interesting idea, thanks.
Punk is alive. Just not as popular as it used to be
I am obsessed with house music too. Listening to all the tracks you showed now.
I’d agree that subcultures haven’t died but radically changed after the internet’s connectivity. With this idea of in-person participation, or ‘sacrifice,’ I think you can section most subcultures with a social media presence into inner and outer circles. A person might interact with a few subcultures on a marginal, outer level, and commitedly participate in one on an inner level- if only because there’s only so much time in a day.
The counterbalance to this is that the internet-marketplace is always incentivized to reduce culture into aestheticized commodities. The subcultures that weather this commodification either do so because there is something inherently distasteful about them to the market (cults, criminals, political extremists), or that they are so remote and small as to be virtually unprofitable (fringe music scenes, private internet communities). This stuff ebbs and flow, but I think the important part is to look into whether a subculture still has the ability to communicate and accomplish things outside of selling its commodities.
Take memphis rap and phonk for example, a subcultural strain of hip hop in the 90s and 2000s that influenced plenty of people but didn’t directly experience much marketplace success. There was a massive phonk revival during the SoundCloud era, calling attention to both some of its pioneers and a fresh wave of inspired artists. The phonk sound is bigger than ever. But I think the marketplace has reduced phonk to its most easily recognizable elements, its ‘vibe’ or style, and jettisoned the expressions of this music that originally necessitated its emergence. The new phonk wears the skin of the old, but is a hollow vessel on the inside- a sort of zombie-phonk. This has a retroactive effect too. Phonk pioneer Tommy Wright III’s following is bigger than ever, he’s performing the exact music he made back in the 90s, but I would argue that the way his music is perceived and consumed has fundamentally changed. I don’t want to be too reactionary. I think there’s plenty of opportunity for a subculture to morph, or provide the space for something new, given that it’s animated by a genuine spirit of belief or expression.
THIS!
About a subculture being able to morph, the best example ever is breakcore, it starts with techno and evolves to jungle, drum and bass, and is combined with every style imaginable with hyperpop, hardcore, and even phonk itself, you can clearly see it's influence in the latest phase of Von Storm and even an entire sub-genre called Jungle-Phonk being born.
All of this makes me think you can't really say what is part of a subculture and what isn't anymore, everything is somehow connected and inspired by something else and the lines that defined a specific style just become hazy, I just don't think people care to research what makes lo-fi house music distinct from dub techno, what makes punk music, punk music, and what makes emo music, emo music, people are into what sounds good to them, and you don't have to share all of the interest of a community to be part of it anymore. This is great in some aspects, I don't think subcultures are dead, they just have become something else, and it's up to the individual if they think that's something good or bad.
@@AnonGZ well if it was not for the internet i would have never got into stuff like breakcore and jungle and just edm as a whole and i would never became a anarcho communist so i thankfull for the internet and no anarchism is not chaos anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is sceptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Anarchism calls for the abolition of the state, which it holds to be unnecessary, undesirable, and harmful
Social media and the recession killed subculture. 2009 was the year sub culture started to die. Music places started to close or got burnt down. Shops that did alternative clothes either disappear, shrunk down, went online or change to geek culture to survive. There was nowhere to hang out.
People also had less money to buy clothes or go out anymore. Music dried up, because people got tied of listening to the same 80s or 90s metal music at clubs. There was nothing to replace it with.
All we do now is talk about it online or watch people reacting to old music hits from gen z.
Got to remember in the 50's and 80's there was economic boom that happened in the West. That's when the big trends happened. With the 70's and 90's shaking things up when the economic dipped a bit.
Information was slow to get around and so people had time to develop music tastes and groups. That's all changed now.
I don't miss some of the tribal stuff that came with subculture. There was some draw backs too. That I've missed out or if I talked about stuff that I was also into, it was seen as not cool for a goth/metal head shouldn't be into. Kind of feel like I was conforming than being into a stereotype. Anther uniform to wear.
Felt called out when he mentioned people who are multitasking.
Yesss, im glad u mentioned Death as one of the OG punk bands.
Subcultures have a lot to do with two things:
a) spread of information through old style mass media. Makes your brain wonder without the chance to react instantly.
b) human to human conversation and actually greeting each other
And guess what. Both of these are kinda dead.
When was the last time you read paper news or sat down to listen to radio?
When was the last time you went to a show and talked to someone new there just because? (because you cant hide behind your phone)
When was the last time you saw someone dressed in a cool way and you asked them about it?
My first subculture i consciously entered was road cycling as a teenager around 10 years ago. Back then people still greeted each other. You could just catch up to someone and get in a conversation. Even if you saw cycle tourist you would greet them and tell them. Hey good job cycling with all those bags, where you going to.
But slowly it all started dying away. I even went to a "mecca" of cycling in the Italian alps. Everybody was dressed like a pro but noone greeted me back once. Made me pretty sad back then.
And here is the interesting part. The lack of greeting started from the old heads. The elitism and gatekeeping was one of the bigger causes of this. The lack of commitment and pretending from the newcomers and we have a dangerous sub ending mix.
I guess people were/are so caught up with trying to like like a pro cyclist/punk/*subculture* they forgot to be that subculture.
I once told a friend this “you could know everything there is to know about taking photos, but that still doesn’t make you a photographer.”
Sub culture is alive and well in the car community. The whole thing is basically made of sub cultures and groups
after watching this in full it is a very informative and well thought out. good work
I feel like subcultures cannot not exist, as it is the way to express some sort of rebellion against the norm.
That being said i think that subcultures nowadays are more abstract than what they used to be. What i mean by that is the fact that there are many people interested in the same thing but in a different way. Now that i think about it, i think it ties with what bliss said in 0:50 , each person is interested in many subcultures at the same time. So, by bringing what they have “learned” in one, to another, everything gets mixed and it seems to be only one big mainstream culture, or a bunch of non-defined subcultures.
Another thing that may help to explain the difficulty to define an specific subculture is gatekeeping. With the internet many subcultures have been brought up to the general public and then ruined, so in order to protect them people hide them. What i have seen from movies, stories, books, etc, is that in the old days, when you were interested in the song your friend is playing, they would introduce you to that culture. For them, an outcast, seeing somebody interested in the same thing as they were, was a relief. But nowadays when you ask for the song, people will give you a long answer in order not to tell you or straight up say, “nah im gatekeeping this shit”.
Im no expert, this is just my opinion, i’d love to see other points of view on this subject.
This is a very complicated way of saying that through the internet all subcultures are slowly starting to merge and everything is starting to look the same, and less unique. Great video.
Yeah, most stuff like this is fairly easy to summarize for sure. The complicated part comes with defending the position.
I can say something in one or two sentences, but if someone disagrees, then we would just have to agree to disagree. But bc I’m the one making the video, the burden is on me to explain what I mean in detail and provide examples+case studies.
I appreciate you, Jackson
💫💫