We live in a world where reputation can be highly valued and classifications are important to fit in with certain groups. People typically want to fit in with the group that is most popular or those with the best influence. But if you look at the subcultures today, they are often overrated and do not match up to your true values. Consider Hipsters for example who have been around since the 1940s and have transformed to the modern days as an important subculture of our generation. The term was first used by jazz musician Harry Gibson, who called his fans “hipsters” (Gonzalez, n.d.). According to the article “The Origins of the Hipster”, the group protested traditional societal expectations and embraced the style and culture of the lower classes,
The stereotypical person in this subculture is middle or upper class, and highly educated. Urban living, natural and healthy diet choices, and eco-friendly resources typically come to mind when someone says the word “hipster” (Gonzalez, n.d.). They claim to be against anything mainstream in society, wearing vintage clothing and listening to alternative music. Are they really against this or is it just the look that’s intriguing? If you were to walk around my college campus, I can tell you that you would come across a variety of people who fit this description. The style of the modern hipster is now more mainstream than ever before. People are all trying to fit in with the look of the subculture and this is causing a problem of deindividualization. The people who try to perceive this look are simply doing it to fit into a group, and losing the value of their real identity. If you are only trying to fit into some certain criteria, you probably don’t believe in the values you are following. This subculture started to go against mainstream ideas and strove to be unique from others, but media has caused it to be the “cool” culture that everyone wants to be a part of. Consider conserving the environment, for example. Using alternative methods of transportation such as bikes and scooters is an important value of hipsters, against the mainstream transportation of a car. Media has caused this to
Because the image of a hipster has become a trend in which many follow, people do not like to admit that they fall into the category. A poll from the Public Policy Polling showed that “77 percent said they were not hipsters, 10 percent said they were, and 13 percent noted they were not sure” (Petri, 2013). This poll also found the there was “denial of being a hipster” or thinking “highly of hipsters.” Although we cannot view the participants and truly identify them as being a part of this subculture, we see the denial of some people of being called “hipsters.” This shows people rejecting who they are, simply because of the mainstream views of the current culture. Back in the 1940s when the term was created, we saw people opposing important problems in society and people standing out from their common culture. The hipster culture continues to change through the years and more people are beginning to leave the trend. Why are people hopping off the bandwagon? Some may deny it so they don’t seem mainstream and others may realize it is not who they truly are. Either way, media has influenced the way people view themselves and it continues to be a problem within this subculture and many others. If this continues, we will see the constant decrease of people finding their identity and some will even be scared to admit to fitting into their true
The term hipster is a difficult, and contested term with dynamic and often ambiguous connotations. According to Ferrier (2014), what was once an umbrella term for a counter-culture of young creative types morphed into a pejorative term for people who looked, lived and acted a certain way. The Urban Dictionary
These bobos as he called them, were the product of the information age. “The people who thrive in this period are the ones who can turn ideas and emotions into products. These are highly educated folk who have one foot in the bohemian world of creativity and another foot in the bourgeois realm of ambition and worldly success.” By David Brooks’ definition, Bobos are highly educated and highly self-aware. Many have advanced degrees and possess the skills most coveted by today’s organizations. They work in professional occupations and are, for the most part self-motivated and autonomous in their jobs. Bobos came into being as the result of several decades of struggles between the bohemian (hippies) and the bourgeois (old money types). Or more precisely, the values of those two groups. The sixties generation put the final nail in the old regime’s...
Theater dork, nerdy kid, slut, whore, popular girl, jock, druggie, dumb blonde. Have you ever been called one of these names? These stereotypes are used to make a name for outsiders. I know many people who are overlooked and called names that do not actually define them. Teenagers are convinced that when people do things out of the ordinary such as dressing differently that they are considered “weird” or “not cool”. People can be judged on their personality, attitude and friends along with many other superficial components. Instead of putting people down who are different we should be celebrating their differences.
The 1950‘s was a time noted for its high expectations and widespread conformity. The children growing up in the 1950’s were from the baby boomer generation. By the 1960’s some of these children began to migrate away from the ways of their upbringings. These children called themselves the Hippies. Even though the Hippie kids had grown up in the richest economy America had ever seen, they sought an alternative lifestyle to the one their parents led. This trend spread and eventually progressed into a nationwide movement, popularly known as the Hippie Movement. The Movement created its own entirely new sub culture that enthralled the nation. The Hippie Movement of the 1960’s transformed people’s perspectives on cultural matters, moral values, and created a new unique genre of fine arts.
I was the stereotypical "hippie," and my social circle during that year and the four years preceding it (two of those years in middle school and two years in high school) included other hippies. The hippie subculture has often been subject to a stereotyped image over the years. The image identified with the hippie is one of an individual that is generally unclean and unkempt, usually lives in squalor, has a drug habit, and is not very smart. Of course, male members of the hippie subculture all had long hair. Though the conservatives stereotyped me and my friends by what they saw, they did not know a single thing about us.
This is seen as a subculture. Subcultures form by a transition from childhood to adult hood (coming of age), self-discovery, social rejection, and social change; all of these are present during the movie. A subculture is pretty much any group of people that do not precisely conform with the larger culture in which they live but instead conform to their own group. The outcome of these subcultures are stereotyping, social pressure, altered definitions of social norms, and transition. Subcultures in people are seen mainly as stereotypes. The use of stereotypes is used frequently because it enables people who watch them to form an opinion of the characters and their beliefs just from seeing them before they may have even spoken and sometimes just from the way they walk and are spoken to by other people. In this movie there was a jock, the brain, the rebel, the princess, and the basket case. This was how the director conveyed sub cultures across the
However, 1960s was a period when American culture moved from being traditional to new and observant ways of thinking. Moreover, these changes led to the creation of a completely new, strange culture that is known as the hippie culture. In addition, the hippies (which means modern, stylish) made their way into a new sexual revolution that broke the old fashioned boundaries. There are many contradictions and different opinions in regard to clarifying the nature of the hippie movement. Some people believe that it is more cultural than political phenomenon, while others characterize it as entirely religious. However, the hippies are mostly young people between 15 and 25 years old and come from white middle-class family. The style, expression, behavior and appearance adopted by hippies turned upside down the normal norms of the time. Some of the key...
Unlike the society before this movement, the hippie did not try to change America through violence, the hippie tried to change things through peace and love. The Hippie Movement was a moment during the mid 1960s through the early 1070s where sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll, was at the forefront of mainstream society. No one really knows the true definition of a Hippie, but a formal definition describes the hippie as one who does not conform to social standards, advocating a liberal attitude and lifestyle. Phoebe Thompson wrote, “Being a hippie is a choice of philosophy. Hippies are generally antithetical to structured hierarchies, such as church, government, and social castes. The ultimate goal of the hippie movement is peace, attainable only through love and toleration of the earth and each other. Finally, a hippie needs freedom, both physical freedom to experience life and mental freeness to remain open-minded” (Thompson12-13). Many questions are asked when trying to figure out how this movement reached so many of America’s youth, and what qualities defined a hippie as a hippie?
Shenkman, M. (2011). Bourdieu’s Theory and the Hipster in Society . Available: https://www.academia.edu/2007795/Bourdieus_Theory_and_the_Hipster_in_Society. Last accessed 12 April 2014.
The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life. Hippies were often portrayed as criminals, subversive to the morals and best interest of the public. Although misunderstood, the hippie had a great impact throughout the country, still surviving today in American culture. The term “hippie” itself became a universal term in the late sixties. It originated in a 1967 article in Ramparts, entitled “The Social History of the Hippies.” Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement. (Yablonsky 28) Even before this, the word “hip” described someone who was “in” and “down”, wise to what was going on around him. By the 1960s, some of America’s youth created a gap between themselves and their parents. They grew their hair long because it was natural and therefore considered beautiful.
Bourdieu’s theory of distinction, judgement, and taste are rooted in education and then secondly, familial economic class. Through exposure and experiences we develop culture capital, which is all about being in the know. The more exposure an individual has, the more they know about the world and therefore, the more culture capital they consume. As a result of having culture capital one has the ability to decipher different symbolic codes because they are aware of more context. A hipster has a very specific culture capital that diverges from the mainstream and is ever evolving because they constantly have to be in the know and consume the latest trends before it becomes popular. Then only people with certain cultural
In today's society, our natural reaction is to put people into a specific class that we feel they fit into upon our first impression. When we were in high school, they were called clicks. There were your jocks and your cheerleaders, who were usually the most popular students. Along with stoners, nerds, and then the people who really didn't fit into any crowd, they were just there. When we were in high school, all of us wanted to be in the "cool crowd". As described in When I was growing Up by Nellie Wong, "I discovered the rich white girls...imported cotton dresses...and thought that I too should have what these lucky girls had..." In stereotyping people, we perhaps have ruined some great minds.
A subculture is a cultural group within a culture that differs in one or more ways from the culture. This would include differences in interest, behaviour or beliefs, like religion, and social or economic status. For example Christian is related to religion so they have different beliefs to others. Hip Hop has definitely impacted society throughout the years that it has been around. Hip hop has also has changed others thoughts about hip hop. But how? Celebrities? Acceptance? Identification? What are the positives and the negatives?Celebrities are a massive influence on people's thoughts. Hip hop has definitely grown in popularity from the celebrities that have joined them, for instance Jay Z. He has been regarded as the most talented rapper
When people hear the term hippie, they think of men and woman in loose clothing with flowers weaved in their hair. Although these men and women did in fact wear these things, they left a significant impact on society. Hippies were a part of the Counterculture movement, which basic ideals were to reject the ideas of mainstream society. The movement itself began with the protesting of the Vietnam War. Eventually, the movement was more than just protesting the war. Hippies promoted the use of recreational drugs, religious tolerance; they also changed society’s views and attitudes about lifestyle and social behavior. The Counterculture movement was the most influential era in the 20th century because the people of this time changed society’s outlook, and broached the topics of drugs, fashion, and sexual freedom.
The patterned quality of youth subculture builds a discourse of subculture, which the youth and the academics recognize. In the late 1960’s, Punk culture emerged and evolved rapidly astonishing the world. It evolved into a thriving subculture. This subculture was based on the rejection of the established values, norms and the institutions in the society. The established values, norm and institutions were considered insipid and hence, the youth flaunted their non-conforming and anti-government beliefs. Consequently, in the decades since the emergence of punk subculture, punk subculture has become ubiquitous in the realm of society and many changes, albeit slowly, have occurred to make it common part of the mainstream of the society.