Subcultures. Examples of modern youth subcultures

Today in the world society there are many different subcultures. Representatives of a particular subculture are called informals- they are distinguished by originality, unusualness, brightness. An informal person tries to demonstrate his individuality. We present a list of the main subcultures, and then we will talk about some of them in more detail.

• Alternatives
• anime people
• Bikers
• vanilla
• Glamor
• Gopnik
• grungers
• graffitiers
• Cyber ​​Goth
• Metalworkers
• New Age (New Age)
• Punks
• Pedovki
• Rastafans
• Ravers
• rockers
• rappers
• Skinheads
• dudes
• straight age
• Tolkienists
• Trash Models
• Freaks
• Football fans
• hackers
• Hippie
• hipsters

Alternatives

In the early 90s, an alternative subculture was formed, which included rappers, metalheads and punks. Representatives of this subculture are distinguished by friendliness towards representatives of other directions. It is believed that the subculture was formed thanks to the group Rage Against The Machine.

The appearance of alternatives is catchy, they are quite easy to distinguish from representatives of other subcultures. As a rule, they walk around in piercings and wear wide clothes. Representatives of this subculture do not have any special ideology.

Bikers

The biker subculture originated around the 60s and 70s. Representatives of the current - bearded long-haired men - cannot imagine their life without a motorcycle, beer and rock music. These attributes are the hallmarks of bikers.

As a rule, they ride in groups and each of the bikers is a member of the club. By the stripes on the clothes, they determine which club he is a member of. This is a distinctive sign, thanks to which bikers differ from each other.

The biker subculture adheres to its own value system, which is strikingly different from the generally accepted norms of a “civilized society”.

Gopnik

The gopnik subculture began to exist in the last years before the collapse of the USSR. The ideology and behavior of representatives of this trend are similar to the behavior of hooligans. A distinctive feature of gopniks is a tendency to violence, a low level of intelligence and prison slang, which in terms of complexity of understanding can sometimes be compared with the complex languages ​​of the world.

Gopniks, as a rule, like to listen to music in the style of prison chanson. They are often aggressive towards other subcultures. In particular, such movements as emo, goths, rappers, gopniks do not recognize and conflict with their representatives.

Gopniks cut their hair short and wear tracksuits. These are the main distinguishing features of the adherents of this subculture.

Goths

The formation of the ready subculture originates from music. Distinctive features of the Goths is the predominance of black clothing, girls go with dark makeup. Representatives of the subculture wear accessories symbolizing death - teeth, crosses, pentagrams, etc. The Goths do not have their own ideology.

The mood of the adherents of this trend is dominated by decadence and a gloomy look. The Gothic movement spawned a separate subculture - Satanists.

Metalworkers

The subculture of metalheads originated in the 1960s and spread throughout almost the entire world. The impetus for the emergence of the subculture was music in the style of Heavy Metal. Metalheads, as a rule, are called fans of heavy rock music and all varieties of metal.

In the image of a representative of the subculture there are leather clothes, images of skulls, a lot of metal jewelry on the body (chains, spikes, bracelets, etc.), heavy boots, ear piercings, bandanas. Ideology and philosophy, as such, they do not, all beliefs and views are focused entirely on music.

Punks

The punk subculture began to take shape as early as 1930 in England. The first punks were people from the poorer areas of Wales. They were engaged in robberies, fights, brawls. The ideology and worldview of punks is reduced to anarchy.

Distinctive features of punks are the Mohawk - a symbol of the punk movement, as well as leather jackets worn on the naked body, torn T-shirts, a large number of piercings on the face.

dudes

The subculture of dudes was formed in the second half of the 40s - 50s. At this time, young people dressed in defiant clothes appeared on the streets of cities. Representatives of the movement were distinguished by cynicism in their judgments and indifference to Soviet norms of behavior.

The dudes of those times protested against the standard stereotypes of behavior, uniformity in clothing. The subculture undoubtedly left a bright imprint on the Soviet era.

Stylish men wore tight trousers ("pipes"), long double-breasted jackets, bright shirts combined with colorful ties, pointed boots and dark glasses.

The girls decorated their clothes with sewn bows and lots of jewelry. Stilyagi, as a rule, were the children of high-ranking officials or professors.

Freaks

The subculture of freaks was formed in the 20th century in North America. Representatives of the current adhere to the main idea - to stand out among the crowd of people around them. For these purposes, not only clothes are used, but also behavior and philosophy. The term "freak" comes from the English word Freak, which means - a strange person. Each follower of the subculture seeks to create his own unique image.

Freaks are ardent adherents of piercing - they massively pierce all sorts of places for themselves, and also cover their bodies with tattoos with images, inscriptions and patterns.

Hippie

The hippie subculture originated in America in the 1960s. In a short period of time, it quickly spread throughout the world, but as a separate movement, it ceased to exist closer to the 1980s. Representatives of the subculture were distinguished by their peacekeeping position (pacifists), they opposed nuclear weapons and any violence.

Hippies were involved in the distribution of drugs among young people, ostensibly to expand their consciousness.

Representatives of the hippies wore loose clothes, a large number of baubles on their hands and long hair.

Subculture- part of a social culture that differs from the prevailing one. In a narrower sense, the term means social groups of people - carriers of the subculture.

Culture refers to the beliefs, values, and expressions that are common to a certain group of people and serve to streamline the experience and regulate the behavior of members of this group. Reproduction and transmission of culture to subsequent generations underlie the process of socialization - the assimilation of values, beliefs, norms, rules and ideals of previous generations.

The system of norms and values ​​that distinguish a group from most societies is called a subculture. It is formed under the influence of factors such as age, ethnicity, religion, social group or place of residence. The values ​​of the subculture do not mean a rejection of the national culture accepted by the majority, they reveal only some deviations from it. However, the majority, as a rule, refers to the subculture with disapproval or distrust.

Sometimes a group actively develops norms or values ​​that are clearly contrary to the dominant culture, its content and forms. On the basis of such norms and values, a counterculture is formed. A well-known example of a counterculture is the hippies of the 60s or the "system" in Russia in the 80s.

Elements of both subculture and counterculture are found in the culture of modern youth in Russia. Under the youth subculture is understood the culture of a certain young generation, which has a common style of life, behavior, group norms, values ​​and stereotypes.

Its defining characteristic in Russia is the phenomenon of subjective "vagueness", uncertainty, alienation from basic normative values ​​(the values ​​of the majority).

So, a considerable number of young people do not have a clearly expressed personal self-identification, behavioral stereotypes are strong, which cause depersonalization of attitudes. The position of alienation in its existential refraction is seen both in relation to society and in intergenerational communication, in the countercultural orientation of youth leisure.

Social alienation manifests itself most often in apathy, indifference to the political life of society, figuratively speaking, in the position of an "outsider".

The opposition of the image of "we" and "they" is traditional, it is enough to recall at least the textbook novel by I. S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". However, today, among the younger generation, it often results in a complete denial of all "daddy's" values, including the history of their own state. This position is especially vulnerable if one bears in mind the apathy of young people, their aversion to participating in solving social problems for society, and not just for themselves. This opposition is especially clear at the level of cultural (in the narrow sense) stereotypes of young people: there is “our” fashion, “our” music, “our” communication, and there is “daddy’s”, which is offered by institutional means of humanitarian socialization. And here the third aspect of the alienation of the youth subculture is revealed - this is cultural alienation.

It is at this level that the subculture of the younger generation acquires noticeable countercultural elements: leisure, especially by youth, is perceived as the main sphere of life, and the general satisfaction with the life of a young person depends on satisfaction with it. General education for a schoolchild and vocational education for a student, as it were, recede into a different plane before the realization of economic (“earning money”) and leisure (“it is interesting to spend free time”) needs.

Along with the communicative (communication with friends), leisure mainly performs a recreational function (about one-third of high school students note that their favorite leisure activity is “doing nothing”), while cognitive, creative and heuristic functions are not implemented at all or are not implemented enough .

The values ​​of national culture, both classical and folk, are being replaced by schematized stereotypes of mass culture, oriented towards the introduction of the values ​​of the "American way of life" in its primitive and lightweight reproduction. Favorite heroes and, to a certain extent, role models are, according to polls, the heroines of the so-called "soap operas" (for girls) and video thrillers like Rambo (for boys). The individual behavior of young people is manifested in such features of social behavior as pragmatism, cruelty, the desire for material well-being to the detriment of professional self-realization. Consumerism manifests itself both in socio-cultural and heuristic aspects. These trends are present in the cultural self-realization of young students, which is indirectly due to the very flow of prevailing cultural information (the values ​​of mass culture), which contributes to background perception and superficial consolidation of it in the mind.

The choice of certain cultural values ​​is most often associated with group stereotypes of a fairly rigid nature (those who disagree with them easily fall into the category of "outcasts"), as well as with a prestigious hierarchy of values ​​in an informal communication group.

Group stereotypes and a prestigious hierarchy of values ​​are determined by the gender, level of education, place of residence and nationality of the recipient. Cultural conformism within an informal group ranges from milder among student youth to more aggressive among high school students. The extreme direction of this trend of the youth subculture is the so-called "teams" with strict regulation of the roles and statuses of their members.

The youth subculture is created by young people themselves for the young, it is esoteric, its specific variants are understandable only to those who know and are initiated. The youth subculture is an elitist phenomenon, few young people go through it and, deviating from the traditional culture, is actually aimed at including young people in society.

The history of informal organizations in our country can be divided into three peculiar "waves". It all started with the appearance in the 1950s. "dude" - outrageous urban youth who dressed and danced "stylish", for which they received the contemptuous definition of "dude". The main accusation that was brought against them was “admiration for the West”. Musical passions "dudes" - jazz, and then rock and roll. The tough position of the state in relation to dissent in those years led to the fact that after some time of semi-underground existence, the “dudes” disappeared rather quickly.

The "second wave" was determined by both internal and external conditions - the youth movement acquires an important leaving - rock music. It was during this period (late 60s - early 80s) that most youth associations began to acquire the features of "classical informality". Drugs penetrated the youth environment. The movement of the seventies was deeper, wider and longer in time. It was in the 1970s. there is the so-called "System" - the Soviet hippie subculture, which was a whole conglomerate of groups. The "System", updated every two or three years, absorbed both punks and metalheads, and even criminogenic amateurs.

The beginning of the "third wave" of youth movements can be considered 1986: the existence of informal groups was officially recognized, the topic of "informality" becomes a sensation. These associations can also be called "alternative".

Close in many respects to hippies rastamans. Rastafari (Rasta) is the religion of the universal Lord Jah (distorted "Jehovah"). Rastafans- Convinced pacifists, especially protest against racism. Two features have confirmed the worldwide nature of the Rasta movement - marijuana and reggae. Rastaman life also provides for a healthy lifestyle, a ban on tobacco and alcohol, vegetarianism, and art. Their symbols are a red-yellow-green cap "Pacific", stretched over braids-dreadlocks ("dreadlocks"). Rastamans can often be found in the company of hippies. Speaking of Russia, it should be noted that the majority of young rastamans are simply fans of reggae music (this direction of music originated in the 60s of the 20th century in Jamaica).

Punks. The punk movement began in the mid-1970s. XX centuries in England during a severe economic crisis. The main slogan of punks is “There is no future!”. The philosophy of punks is the philosophy of the "lost generation", simple to the limit: in a pigsty it is better to be pigs yourself. They finally decided that it was impossible to change the world for the better, and therefore an end was put to life and career in the old sense of the word. Punks are considered to be anarchists by their political leanings. Hence their main symbol is a stylized letter "A".

The standard punk hairstyle is considered to be the "mohawk" - a strip of long vertically standing hair on a cropped head. Punks prefer torn, dirty clothes. Punks are the most avid party-goers, great "specialists" in drinking, drugs, fights - apparently, from idleness.

Problems of youth subcultures

One of the main problems of youth subcultures is that teenagers who join a particular youth movement see it as a step towards growing up and independence, although later many do not know how to break ties with the subculture and return to generally accepted norms and rules.

Drugs are often spread among youth subcultures.

Some sociologists and researchers of youth movements note the tendency of some representatives of subcultures to commit suicide.

In addition, members of youth subcultures become dependent on the norms and rules adopted in their environment.

The inner loneliness, the need for friends, conflicts at school and at home, distrust of adults, protest against lies prompted young people to "go into the informal". Almost one in eight came to the group because "didn't know how to live on."

The youth subculture is largely surrogate in nature - it is full of artificial substitutes for real values, ghostly participation in the adventures of screen and literary heroes instead of realizing their own aspirations, and finally, flight or rejection of social reality instead of reorganizing and improving it.

Young people are a huge part of the people in our society. She not only differs from both adults and children, but also emphasizes this in every possible way. It is very important for her to be original, difficult, such that people pay attention to her. She creates her own special lifestyles, clothes, organizations, magazines, music.

Hipsters

Hipster, hipsters (indie kids) - a term that appeared in the United States in the 1940s, derived from the slang "to be hip", which translates approximately as "to be in the subject" (hence the "hippie"). This word originally meant a representative of a special subculture formed among fans of jazz music; nowadays it is usually used in the sense of "wealthy urban youth interested in elite foreign culture and art, fashion, alternative music and indie rock, art house cinema, modern literature, etc."

Ideology:

Some call hipsters "anti-capitalists", liberals with a socialist philosophy. The representatives of this subculture themselves do not openly promote anything, they are in every possible way for the external and internal freedom of a person, and therefore support the movements for women's and gay rights. Hipsters, as a rule, do not belong to any religious denominations - most often they are agnostics or atheists.

Origin:

Hipsters are the most controversial subculture in terminology. There is still fierce controversy about its appearance. Usually it is attributed to the end of the forties. Based on the composition of the people drawn into this subculture, we can say with confidence: for hipsterism there were no racial boundaries or social restrictions.

Burroughs wrote in "Junky": "The hipster is the one who understands and speaks jive, cuts through the chip, who has and who with it."

It is now known for certain that this subculture originated in New York. Moreover, like the original concept, so is the modern one.

Hipster only listens to trendy music. In the 40s he was turned to jazz, in the 60s to psychedelic rock. The hipsters of the 90s were the first to know what trip hop was. The modern hipster listens to the American Clap Hands Say Yeah and Arcade Fire, etc. Some are seriously interested in collecting records and discs of certain styles: jazz, noise or indie rock.

Attributes:

Skinny jeans.

T-shirt with print. The T-shirt usually features funny phrases, animals, sneakers, cars, chairs, moleskins, lomographs and London.

Glasses with thick plastic frames. They often have glasses without diopters.

Lomograph.

iPod/iPhone/Macbook.

Blog on the Internet.

Football hooligans

Football hooligans are representatives of one of the youth subcultures, characterized by the fact that they consider belonging to the category of football fans of a certain team (club) as a symbol of their association in some groups within the subculture. Like any other subculture, football fanaticism has certain features that characterize it: “professional” slang, a certain fashion in clothing, stereotypes of behavior, hierarchical societies, opposing oneself to “opponents”, etc.

Origin:

Football hooliganism, in the form in which it exists today, began to emerge in the UK in the late 1950s.

In Russia, the process of the birth of a new subculture is directly related to the beginning of the outing activities of a certain part of the fans of Soviet clubs. Fans of Spartak were the first to attend guest games of their club in the early 1970s, soon they were joined by fans of other Moscow teams, as well as fans of Dynamo Kiev and Zenit Leningrad.

Currently:

At present, the Russian "near-football" can be called an established social phenomenon with pronounced features of the English style of supporting the club both at home and away matches. Almost all clubs of the Russian national football championship up to the teams of the second league have their own gangs (in slang - "firms"). The ideas of Russian nationalism are very strong among Russian hooligans.

It is worth distinguishing between football hooligans and an organization such as ultras. Ultras are highly organized fans of a particular club. The Ultras group is, as a rule, an officially registered structure that unites from ten to several thousand of the most active fans involved in all kinds of informational promotion and support for their team - promotional paraphernalia, popularization of their movement, distribution and sale of tickets, organization of special shows in the stands, organizing trips to away matches of your favorite team.

Signs:

· Lack of paraphernalia inherent in ordinary fans (t-shirts, club-colored scarves and pipes).

· Jackets, T-shirts, polos, sweaters from Lonsdale, Stone Island, Burberry, Fred Perry, Lacoste, Ben Sherman and more.

· White sneakers with velcro and straight soles.

· Rectangular shoulder bags pulled higher to the back or kangaroo bags worn over the shoulder and pulled closer to the neck.

Football hooligans have their own style and their own brands, their own pubs, musical groups, their own feature films.

Some bully slang words:

Amktion - an operation carried out by one group of fans against another

Argument - a stone, a bottle, a stick, an iron buckle, etc.

Bamnner - a banner (usually with the emblem of the club or fan group) placed by fans during the match in the stands. - As a rule, contains a concise, topical statement that is directly related to the topic of the match

Departure - the trip of fans to another city/region/country for the match of their team

Endure - win a fight with fans of the other team

Glumam - active support of the team on the podium

Demrby (English Derby) - 1. meeting of two teams from the same city; 2. meeting of two teams that are on the first lines of the standings

Zaryamd - speech

Lemvy - fans who are not related to official fan associations

Ball - football match

Promvody - an attack during the departure for the departure of one fan group to another

Romza - scarf with club attributes

Skamut - scout

Trophy - removed scarf, taken away harness or flag

Rastafans

Rastafarians in the world are traditionally called followers of Rastafarianism.

Rastafarianism is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion that arose in the Christian culture in Jamaica in the 1930s on the basis of a mixture of Christianity, local Caribbean beliefs, the beliefs of blacks - the descendants of slaves from West Africa and the teachings of a number of religious and social preachers (primarily Marcus Garvey ), which led to the formation of the reggae musical style in the 1960s.

The emergence of rastamanism in Russia:

In Russia, this youth subculture was formed in the post-Soviet space in the early 1990s. At the same time, its representatives are not true adherents of the original religious and political doctrine of African supremacy, but identify themselves with this group primarily on the basis of the use of marijuana and hashish. Many people listen to Bob Marley and reggae music in general, use green-yellow-red color combinations (for example, in clothes) for identification, some wear dreadlocks.

One of the first representatives of the rastaman movement in Russia is the reggae musical group Ja Division, which appeared in 1989.

Now in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities there are quite large Rastaman communities that hold cultural events (usually concerts or festivals), maintain websites, and publish media materials. Almost all Russian reggae bands consider themselves Rastafans - at least they use characteristic symbols and revere Bob Marley.

Ideology:

Rastamans usually advocate the legalization of marijuana, which is reflected in songs and paraphernalia.

Rastafans have a positive attitude towards Jah and a negative attitude towards the so-called "Babylon" as a pragmatic socio-political system based on Western material culture.

Many rastamans also have a negative attitude towards taking opiates, amphetamines and alcohol, as well as negatively towards taking psychedelics, which does not at all make them related to the hippie subculture, as is commonly believed, but rather repels them.

o Far-right. NS skinheads

Far right, extreme right, radical right - a term for the carriers of the extreme right political views. In the modern world, it is mainly used to refer to racial supremacists, neo-fascists, neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists.

NS skinheads (Nazi skinheads or National Socialist skinheads) are a youth ultra-right subculture whose representatives adhere to the National Socialist ideology, one of the directions of the skinhead subculture. The activities of NS skinheads are usually of an extremist nature.

Origin:

Initially, the skinhead subculture originated in the UK in the late 60s of the XX century. It was apolitical in nature and was closely associated with the English subculture of this period - mods, as well as with black Jamaican immigrant youth and the music of that time popular among them - reggae and, to a lesser extent, ska.

NS skinheads appeared towards the end of 1982, as a result of political agitation by the leader of the rock band Skrewdriver (which later became a cult for NS skinheads). Then for the first time the Celtic cross was borrowed as a symbol of their movement, and the image of the NS skinheads (in the image of the crusaders) was formed - a soldier of the Holy Race War who fights against - all not Aryans, mainly numerous immigrants from third world countries, but also homosexuals, drug addicts and leftist youth.

At the turn of the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, the NS skinhead subculture penetrated into Russia.

Ideology

NS skinheads position themselves as a national liberation movement and fight for the ideas of the superiority of the white, Aryan race, while striving for racial separatism.

NS skinheads are extreme racists, anti-Semites and xenophobes, opponents of illegal immigration, mixed marriages and sexual deviations, especially homosexuality.

NS skinheads consider themselves defenders of the interests of the working class, in some cases citing the fact that newcomers take jobs

A special cult among the NS skinheads exists around the personality of Hitler and some other leaders of the Nazi movement.

Many NS skinheads are agnostics or even atheists. In Russia, there are groups of NS-skinheads who profess Orthodoxy, while the rest are extreme opponents of Christianity and Orthodoxy in particular, since Jesus Christ is a Jew, and Christianity originated in the context of the messianic movements of Judaism.

Being members of right-wing radical movements, NS skinheads are supporters of extreme measures with the use of violence, which is usually interpreted as extremism. Many of them are close to the idea of ​​revolution, that is, a coup d'état in order to establish the National Socialist regime.

Appearance:

o Shaved head or very short hair

o Lonsdale and Thor Steinar brand clothing

o Heavy high boots (Dr. Martens, Grinders, Steels, Camelot)

o Light blue jeans (Levi's, Wrangler) or wash jeans

o White T-shirts, black or brown shirts, polo shirts and t-shirts (Fred Perry, Ben Sherman)

o Short, black and dark green jackets with a zipper without a collar - "bombers", or with a collar - "navigators"

o Nazi symbols

o Tattoos

· Hip-hop. Rappers

Hip-hop (English hip hop) is a cultural trend that originated among the working class of New York. November 12, 1974. DJ Afrika Bambaataa was the first to identify the five pillars of hip-hop culture: eMseeing, DJing, breaking, graffiti, and knowledge (a certain philosophy). Other elements include beatboxing, hip hop fashion, and slang.

Origin:

Originating in the South Bronx, in the 1980s, hip-hop became part of the youth culture in many countries around the world. Since the late 1990s, from a street underground with a sharply social orientation, hip-hop has gradually turned into a part of the music industry, and by the middle of the first decade of this century, the subculture has become "fashionable", "mainstream". However, despite this, many figures within hip-hop still continue its "main line" - a protest against inequality and injustice, opposition to those in power.

Aesthetics of the subculture:

Despite the hip-hop fashion changing every year, in general, it has a number of characteristic features. Clothing is usually loose, sporty style: sneakers and baseball caps (usually with straight peaks) of famous brands (e.g. KIX, New Era, Joker, Tribal, Reebok, Roca Wear, FUBU, Wu-Wear, Sean John, AKADEMIKS , ECKO, Nike, Adidas) T-shirts and basketball jerseys, jackets and sweatshirts with hoods, sock-like caps pulled over the eyes, baggy pants. Hairstyles are short, although short dreadlocks are also popular. Massive jewelry (chains, medallions, key rings) are popular among rappers themselves, but wearing jewelry is more common among African Americans.

As examples, I considered the most popular, in my opinion, youth subcultures in Russia today. But along with them there is still a lot of other diverse youth subcultures and movements.

Any civilized society presupposes the existence, implementation and organization of joint activities by people. The methods of its organization can be both formal and informal; they do not replace each other and proceed according to significantly different laws.

For example, in formal groups, relations are, as it were, impersonal: people act according to prescribed laws or rules. In informal relationships, people or groups of people communicate and communicate through public opinion or a system of interpersonal relations.

In other words, “formals” are members of society who adhere to the norms and laws of this society, and “informals” do not comply with these norms, “go beyond” social stereotypes and patterns.

Teenagers are informal

At the heart of any informal movement is the idea of ​​a free community of like-minded people, preserving emotional warmth and at the same time providing each member with a certain individual freedom.

Informals are those who break out of the formalized structures of our lives. They do not fit into the usual rules of conduct. Destroys all patterns and stereotypes, not only in appearance, but also in relationships. They strive to live in accordance with their own interests, and not those of others, imposed from outside.

In the 1980s, with the first impulses of freedom, the so-called "System" gained strength - a youth association mainly of punk rockers and hippies. It existed as a protest or rebellion against the communist system.

The informal youth subculture and its Sistema movement collapsed along with the collapse of the USSR, but a new way of life for people, the desire for a better life and gradual disillusionment formed a large number of other informal youth and adolescent groups.

Features of youth subculture

In the modern world, whether we notice it or not, a fairly stable youth subculture has already formed. It has its own internal and external features. Firstly, this is a common interest and one ideological program for all participants in an informal youth organization. Secondly, the fact that non-formals have a desire to assert themselves, along with competition in a group of the same.

At the same time, each informal youth group has a weakly expressed internal structure and internal connections.

Modern youth subcultures

Another important feature and feature of all youth movements is their external distinguishing features. Each group has its own name, its own informal status and the so-called dress-code (clothing code). Those. a form of clothing or an attribute that indicates that a teenager or young man belongs to one or another informal model of youth subculture.

Let's understand the classification of modern youth subcultures

So, for starters, all informal associations are divided into groups, and those, in turn, into micro groups. When dividing, they are guided purely by likes and dislikes.

There are also exclusively informal teenage movements, informal youth and mixed groups. There are anti-social informals and positive-minded.

General classification of informal youth organizations and types of youth subcultures

Sports directed informals

These are the so-called sports fans. Their movement is characterized by clear discipline and organization. Young people and teenagers who are well versed in a particular sport know its history. Promote a healthy lifestyle. Their appearance is recognizable - sports scarves, caps, T-shirts, etc.

Politically oriented youth subcultures

The most socially oriented youth subculture and informal grouping. They are distinguished by social activity, participation in various rallies and have a clear political position. These include: pacifists, Nazis (skinheads), punks, etc.

• a youth subculture of pacifists who oppose war and approve of the struggle for peace.
• youth subculture "skinheads" (from the English. Skin - skin, Head - head) spontaneously emerged marginal organization, which is characterized by nationalist views and willingness to defend them. Skins are easy to distinguish from others: shaven-headed, black and green jackets, nationalist T-shirts, jeans with suspenders.
• the youth subculture of punks is basically an extremist informal teenage movement, whose behavior is distinguished by shocking and unbridled desire to attract the attention of others.

Philosophizing youth subcultures

Among them, such a youth subculture as hippies stand out. Sloppy clothes, blue jeans, embroidered shirts, T-shirts with inscriptions and symbols, amulets, bracelets, chains are the hallmarks of hippies. Informal youth is in the eternal search for the meaning of life, knowledge of themselves and the world around them.

Musically directed informal movement

The youth subculture of rappers, rockers, breakers, parkour (street acrobatics), etc. Informals of this youth subculture are united by a steady interest in music or dance. And this interest is most often transformed into a lifestyle.

Other modern youth subcultures

• Goths (they popularize the cult of death in every possible way, they look very similar to vampires);
• emo (short for the word "emotions"). Their youth subculture is based on the idea that the life of a teenager is a very severe test, and therefore an emo informal person is sad and sad. This is evidenced by the black color in the clothes of a teenager, combined with pink, which is a symbol of love and friendship.
• The youth subculture of anarchists is distinguished by their demonstrative straightforwardness in their views and aggressive behavior. Black color in clothes, and a mandatory metal accessory.

Psychology of informality

Informal adolescents have their own psychological characteristics, primarily a desire and a tendency to imitate. This is understandable, since teenagers “do not yet know how” to be themselves, they are in search of the meaning of “I” and their purpose in life. Another characteristic of any informal youth subculture is the desire to stand out, the craving for autonomy and independence.

The realization of this aspiration is quite real in a group of people like himself. But in fact, a teenager dissolves in a crowd of his own kind. “The vast majority of informal groupings of the youth subculture do not rest on conscious unity, which rarely happens among adolescents, but on the sameness of the loneliness of its members.”

One of the conditions for the existence of teenage informal groups is the presence or creation of opponents, ill-wishers, etc. Most often, the world of adults becomes enemy number one. A teenager informal expresses disagreement, dissatisfaction with the system and extends this protest to all informals in the group.

Behavior, clothing and other aspects. There are subcultures that are formed on national, demographic, professional, geographical and other bases. In particular, subcultures are formed by ethnic communities that differ in their dialect from the language norm. Another famous example is youth subcultures.

History of the term

In 1950, the American sociologist David Riesman, in his research, developed the concept of a subculture as a group of people who deliberately choose the style and values ​​​​preferred by a minority. A more thorough analysis of the phenomenon and concept of subculture was carried out by a British sociologist and media expert Dick Habdige in his book Subculture: The Meaning of Style. In his opinion, subcultures attract people with similar tastes who are not satisfied with generally accepted standards and values.

Fandom and the emergence of youth subcultures

In the 1970s and 80s, following new genres in rock music, metalheads and punks formed. The former cultivated personal freedom and independence. The latter, however, had a pronounced either apolitical position or a pronounced political position; for politicized punk rock, the motto is idealized anarchy (but not always). With the rise of gothic rock, the goth subculture emerged in the 1980s. Its characteristic features are gloominess, the cult of melancholy, the aesthetics of horror films and gothic novels. In New York, thanks to immigrants from Jamaica, hip-hop culture appeared with its own music, appearance and lifestyle.

In the 1990s and 2000s, emo kids and cyberpunks became common youth subcultures. The emo subculture is one of the youngest (many of its representatives are minors), it promotes vivid feelings and expressiveness of emotions. Cybers, as an offshoot of industrial rock, are passionate about the ideas of an imminent man-made apocalypse.

Art subcultures

Most youth subcultures that are not associated with musical genres have their origins in a particular art form or hobby, such as graffiti.

Internet Community and Internet Cultures

Since the mid-1990s, with the ubiquity of Internet technologies, interactive subcultures began to appear. The very first can be considered Fido-community. Hackers are often referred to as a subculture.

Industrial and sports subcultures

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the romanticization of the urban lifestyle and the inability of some young people to live outside the city, industrial (urban) subcultures arose. Part of the industrial subcultures came out of industrial music fans, but computer games (for example, Fallout) had the greatest influence on these subcultures.

Popular sports subcultures include:

• Subculture of football and near football - football clubs, football fans and cheerleading.
• Athletes, or "jocks" (eng. sportsman - "competitive person", "player for the entertainment of the crowd"), including enthusiastic and practicing fans of power and combat sports (bodybuilding, powerlifting, workout, various martial arts, etc.). In the late USSR and Russia in the first half of the 1990s, "athletes" were used by pro-political movements in the fight against "informals", they were known as "lubers". In the future, left out of work, they were used by the criminal world as cannon fodder in criminal wars, remembered in the folklore of the 1990s as "brothers", "bulls", "gopniks" in tracksuits.

Countercultures

The oldest is the underworld counterculture. Its appearance was caused by the natural isolation of persons who violate the law (exiles to remote places, imprisonment, "gatherings") from the mainstream culture. As a result of this, a very rigid subculture was formed with a clear hierarchical ladder and its own laws. In different countries, this subculture has its own distinctive features.

In Russia after the 1990s, many elements of this subculture found their way into popular culture: elements of thieves' jargon, thieves' song, and tattoos. Gopniks are often referred to as representatives of the criminal subculture. However, the gopniks ("hooligans") themselves do not distinguish themselves as a special subculture, and this definition can be considered nominal.

Another striking example of a counterculture is the radical part of the skinhead subculture. Originating as a musical, this subculture has long been associated with reggae and ska music, but later part of the skinheads joined radical political movements. One should not confuse the subculture itself, which is generally apolitical (such as traditional skinheads) and the radical part of the subculture (counterculture), which is associated with neo-Nazis, anti-communists and other political beliefs.

Milleu

Milieu (fr. milieu - environment, environment) can be considered one of the types of subcultures - a set of human living conditions and the everyday social environment of a certain social group or social stratum. Sociologists describe milieu as groups of people characterized by special features of behavior, culture, clothing, and so on. Lifestyle, values ​​and behavioral norms in miles are formed in the process of human socialization.

Relationships of subcultures

Subcultures, like any cultural phenomenon, did not arise in a cultural vacuum, but in a culturally saturated environment. The society of the 20th century is oversaturated with various ideas, philosophical currents and other cultural elements. Therefore, one cannot say that subcultures are isolated and antagonistic to mass culture, they have complex relationships both with mass culture and with other subcultures.

Genetic connections of subcultures

Family ties between cultures make it possible to trace the movement of peoples, language changes and the technological development of man. Family ties between subcultures also help to keep track of changing attitudes and developments in the 20th century. Perhaps the most striking example of related subcultures is the Punk subculture and its descendants: Goths and others.

Conflicts

There is antagonism between some types of subcultures. This concerns musical subcultures and conflicts based on different musical tastes. For example, punks and rappers, thrashers and grunge fans.

see also

Notes

Literature

• Belyaev, I. A. Culture, subculture, counterculture / I. A. Belyaev, N. A. Belyaeva // Spirituality and statehood. Collection of scientific articles. Issue 3; ed. I. A. Belyaeva. - Orenburg: Branch of URAGS in Orenburg, 2002. - S. 5-18.
• Glushkova O. M. Theoretical aspects of the analysis of subculture // Architecton: news of universities. - 2009. - No. 26.
• Subculture // Encyclopedia of Sociology / Comp. A. A. Gritsanov, V. L. Abushenko, G. M. Evelkin, G. N. Sokolova, O. V. Tereshchenko .. - Minsk: Book House, 2003. - 1312 p.
• Dolnik V.R."The Naughty Child of the Biosphere", Chapter 4, "Rock of Rock".
• Kravchenko A.I. Culturology: Textbook for universities. - 3rd. - Moscow: Academic project, 2001.
• Levikova S. I. Youth subculture: Textbook. - M.: FAIR-PRESS.2004.
• Matskevich I. M. Doctor of Law sciences, prof. departments of criminology, psychology and penitentiary law