SUBCULTURES

The thing that annoyed me about our topic for this class is that once again we focused on the punk movement. What about the hippies, which was a huge democratic movement in its own, or the many other smaller rebellions which influence a new style. I understand that it is one of the most influential but it would be nice to structure these lessons on a subculture we haven’t yet explored. I guess if i took something away from this lesson it would be that subcultures are not just those who display the most graphic and shocking forms of rebellion, but also those less obvious groups. We all belong to a subculture and conform to that group in a particular way, whether we are aware of it or not.

Subcultures through the years have become far less shocking as we are more accepting to people’s opinions and peoples differences. An example of this is how designers pick up on subculture trends and eventually that style is diluted into mainstream fashion. Think of skinny jeans, they can be linked back to skaters and now almost everyone has a pair. The whole cycle just amuses me; everyone wants to be seen as an individual but not so much that they lose acceptance among society but just enough so that they can be seen as their own person. And then you have the groups that push themselves out of society ‘norm’ only to have their style copied and made ‘normal’ by designers.