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