Youth Culture
The Origins - Youth culture is a particular relationship on the
part of young people with the whole world of fashion, image,
style, music, dance. However youth culture has changed quite
dramatically over the last 20 or 30 years. In the 60`s in
Britain youth culture was something specific, very spectacular,
very noticeable. It was the combined object of social and moral
concern. There was endless moral panics about youth
sub-cultures. Most young people in Br. follow some kind of youth
culture-a way for them to express their individuality. Britain`s
youth cultures are constantly changing, but it is not only the
teenagers themselves who decide what the new culture will
be.politics, economics and technology hall all affected
teenagers` lifestyles. Since the S.W.W., Br.`s youth cultures
have been more and more influenced by the power of the music and
fashion industries which promote and recycle youth cultures
whenever they can. So there`s a relationship bitween music and
fashion and then also drugs have played a continually
significant role in youth sub-cultures again from the late 50`s
onwards. Why do people take drugs? A lot of people take drugs or
smoke and they see that as rebellion. People think `that`s the
thing, I can show i am a rebel, i can show that i`m not going to
go with everybody else by smoking, because i know it`s dangerous
and i can still do it.` Developing a style - One of the postwar
youth culture was the Teddy Boys or Teds. Large numbers of young
Teds collected in coffee houses and cinemas and sometimes there
were fights and acts of vandalism. By 1954 the media begun to
associate the Ted youth culture with something rebellion and
threatening. However it seems that the media made the situation
worse, the bad image presented by the press, discouraged the
young people who were not voilent, leaving the rebellions
teenagers to become the majority. The media have been accused of
doing the same with punks, football supporters and ravers. Why
young people choose a youth culture? ? 14, 15, 16, 17`s want to
know who they are and try out all sorts of options. The way they
dress or the way they look and behave, what the consume will
tell you about the person you need to be.-What gives inspiration
to form a youth culture. The inspiration comes of a combination
of fashion, style and music. And that often it`s the
particularity of the music which then gathers a group and then
extends and develops The arrival of Rock`N`Roll - In the US
after the war, black musicians were much freer to perform for
white audiences. The jazz and gospel music that black musicians
traditionally played was combined with other styles. The
resulting rock`n`roll became extremely popular and white
musicians copied the sound .When rock`n`roll arrived in Britain
in 1950s it had a great effect on youth culture Commerce moves
in - In the 1950s records we produced on plastic and record
players improved because of new technology. Radio became
smaller, music was everywhere combined with new popular music,
the result was changing increase in sales. By 1956 business had
begun to target a distinct new market - teenagers had enough
money to spend on their own interests. The coffee bars were full
of a powerfull youth movement that was becoming far more
independent than before. Into the 60`s - while young people
spend their money on records and clothes, others established an
`intellectual youth culture` influenced by hedonism. These young
people were known as `beatnics` and later as `hippies`.
Teenagers felt freer to have sexual experiences and to
experiment with drugs.Some became travellers and led a gypsy
lifestyle. This wandering existance became popular again in the
1990s when group of so called `New Age Travellers` travelled
around Britain. THE Beatles were one of the first Br. pop groups
to write their own music instead of copying American hits. They
played in small local music clubs and used the same language at
their fans ? the group was part of the same culture as the
audience. Youth Culture began to have more autonomy. The Beatles
remained very popular but many young people preferred the more
rebellions sound of band like Rolling Stone. Youth conflict -
But the middle 60`s teenagers had begun to form different
distinct cultural groupings. One group wore leather clothes and
rode motorbikes - these became known as `rockers`. Rockers
believed in traditional values - they were working class,
against drugs, sex and high fashion and for rock and roll. An
opposing group was `mods`. They wore cheap Italian suits, rode
motorscooters and were perhaps the first youth culture
consistently to use drugs such as amphetamines. The different
lifestyle of the mods and rockers inevitably led to conflict and
fight at the seaside resorts. Later skinheads emerged as
contrast to the hedonistic lifestyle of the hippies. With their
short hair and huge boots, skinheads were essentially
anty-fashion. They were more influenced by football than by
music. By the late 1969s skinheads were causing trouble at
football matches. This was the start of the football hooliganism
so commen in Br. in 70s. Many skinheads were recruited in 70s by
the National Front-an extreem right-wing political group. In Br.
today many people automatically associate skinheads with racism.
The boom generation - The teenage market really boomed in the
1960s, a time of great economic growth in Br.. In 1969,
18-yearolds were given the vote Popculture was examined by
academics and pop art became fashionable. The availability on
the contraceptive pills and the 1967 Abortion Act changed the
sexual habits of Br. teenagers. Super groups of the 70s - Pink
Floyd, Led Zeppelin became larger and more spectacular. Mean
while the music industry was dictating a new sound, which often
used the latest synthesisers. Youth fashion was ilean, safe and
massproduced. In the 1970 Britain was in economic recession.
Unemployment was high, especially for the young .If punks wore
`swastikas`,it was not because they are Nazis, but because they
nwantwd to outrage the war generation that ran the country.
Youth cultures are now a lot more commercial than was years ago.
Raves - young people at Br. are often frustrated at the lack of
places to go at night.In the late 1980s warehouses or empty
buildings were young people could dance at night. Soon the media
were saying the parties were full of drug. These ravers were
called `acid houses parties` by the media. Teenagers in 80s got
bored with beeing expected to wear the uniforms of gang such as
mods, and punks.Instead they mixed up musical styles and
developed this `rave pop dance culture`. No gang rivalery, lack
of violence, no alchohol. New styles have been introduced such
as Rastafarianism, reggea and rap. Rap ? rap music came from USA
and is a form of poetry which involves chanting to a strong
beat. The culture has been influential - it is now common to
hear rap on TV commercial as well on the radio. Raggamuffin - is
currently very popular amongst black Britains. It combines
reggae music and hip hop with scruffy look, cheap to wear but
striking and immaginative. Asians - the new influence. Most of
Br.`s Asians teenagera were born in Br. and therefore felt both
Asian and British. Bhangra music seems to have helped many young
Asians to find their own cultural identity by taking the
traditional music of Asia and adding a British style. Regional
cultures - Young Scottish and Irish people like black Asians
have also combined their traditional Gealic or Celtic music with
modern sounds as rejecting of the English and American intrusion
on their culture. The influences of black culture in Br. - Black
youth culture I Br. has a kind of similar hostory to white youth
sub-cultures. By the end of 80`s what you got was black youth
culture. A lot of white youth culture now, rave cultures, a good
ex., is a borrowing from black music it came black gay clubs in
Chicago and New York. Black sub-culture are still in existance
whereas white sub-culture are a lot more fragmented. Ragga is a
style which continues to kind of break style, rules renwins very
visible on the street. Everything in ragga is kind of
exaggerated. It combines very baggy trousers, veryint. Use of
colours, very exclusive lablel jackets, very sharp haircuts.
Bhangra is music from India where around the harvest time people
pullet out a massive drum colled a dhol used to dance around the
dhol rhythm. When they emigrated to E., they brought that music
with them. Mod - mods are young men and women who wore special
kinds of clothes { suits and jackets } ,ride motor scooters and
like a particular type of pop music.Many young people are mods
in 60`s. Beatnik - young people in late 1950`s who wore strange
clothes and had inconventional beliefs. New Age Traveller - name
given in 90`s to somebody who lives on the move, travelling from
place to place. Hippie is someone who rejected conventional
ideas and wants to live a life based on peace and love. The
hippie movement started and was most popular in 1960`s Punk/Punk
Rocker - a young person who likes punk music and fashion and
dressed in a deliberately shocking way by having brightly
coloured hair and wearing metal chains. Punk music was popular
in the late 70`s and was bold and aggressive. Home boy/Home girl
- originally a black English term to someone from your home
town. It was later also adopted by white teenagers to mean
someone who is in your gang - in particulary for people who like
hip-hope. Rocker - is someone who belonged to the group of
people in the 60`s, who wore leather jackets, rode motocycles
and listened to rock`n`roll music. Raver - a rave was originally
a 60`s term which meant `party` - the people who went to them
were ravers. In the 80`s and 90`s the new ravers go to clubs or
old warehouses, a building for storing goods. Raggamuffin
(ragga) - the follower of this black youth culture have very
short hair, black baggy jeans, expensive jackets and trainers.
Ragga music is a modern energetic form `reggae`. Reggae - music
which originated in West Indies with a strong, rhytmic beat. It
was imported into Br. in middle 60`s. Skinheads - a young person
whose hair is cut very short. Most sk. in Br. wore tight
trousers and heavy boots and usually regard as violent and
aggressive.
Source: Youth
Culture