This is a list of subcultures.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Subcultures that emerged under neoliberalism, from hip-hoppers in the US and British chavs to Russian gopniks and, of course, Serbian dizelaši, share many core features.
Fandom is not only a niche subculture but a way of relating to a wide range of aspects of mediatized society
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The fans of the science fiction franchise, Star Trek, are known as 'Trekkies' and are the only fan subculture to have an entry in the OED.
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of music, ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom, and the DIY ethics, the culture originated from punk rock.
A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youth in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in the late 1970s. Motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, skinheads are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain. The movement reached a peak at the end of the 1960s, experienced a revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts worldwide.
Anarcho-punk is an ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcore punk, folk punk, and other styles.
A subculture is a group of people within a cultural society that differentiates itself from the conservative and standard values to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, political, and sexual matters. Subcultures are part of society while keeping their specific characteristics intact. Examples of subcultures include BDSM, hippies, hipsters, goths, steampunks, bikers, punks, skinheads, gopnik, hip-hoppers, metalheads, cosplayers, otaku, otherkin, furries, hackers and more. The concept of subcultures was developed in sociology and cultural studies. Subcultures differ from countercultures.
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs claim to reclaim the original multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".
Rude boy is a subculture that originated from 1960s Jamaican street culture. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations like rudeboy and rudebwoy, being used to describe fans of two-tone and ska. This revival of the subculture and term was partially the result of Jamaican immigration to the UK and the so-called "Windrush" generation. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska punk movement as well. In the UK and especially Jamaica, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie, or badman.
Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant far-left political cells in the United States and Canada. The ARA network originated in the late 1980s to engage in direct action and doxxing against rival political organizations on the hard right to dissuade them from further involvement in political activities. Anti-Racist Action described such groups as racist or fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists, but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.
Mod, from the word modernist, is a subculture that began in late 1950s London and spread throughout Great Britain, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries. It continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men and women in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz. Elements of the mod subculture include fashion ; music and motor scooters. In the mid-1960s when they started to fade out, the subculture listened to rock groups with jazz and blues influences such as the Who and Small Faces. The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night jazz dancing at clubs.
Greasers are a youth subculture that emerged in the 1950s and early 1960s from predominantly working class and lower-class teenagers and young adults in the United States and Canada. The subculture remained prominent into the mid-1960s and was particularly embraced by certain ethnic groups in urban areas, particularly Italian Americans and Hispanic Americans.
The casual subculture is a subset of football culture that is characterised by the wearing of expensive designer clothing and hooliganism. Many participants dislike the term 'casuals', preferring the term ‘dresser’, with regional variations including Perry boys, trendies, and scallies.
White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Eurasia and North America in the 1980–1990s.
A teenybopper is a young teenager who follows adolescent trends in music, fashion, and culture. The term may have been coined by marketing professionals and psychologists, later becoming a subculture of its own. The term was introduced in the 1950s to refer to teenagers who mainly listened to popular music and/or rock and roll and not much else. Teenybopper became widely used again in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following an increase in the marketing of pop music, teen idols and fashions aimed specifically at younger girls, generally 10–15 years old.
Dick Hebdige is an English media theorist and sociologist, and a professor emeritus of art and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught from 2004 to 2021. His work is commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its resistance against the mainstream of society. His current research interests include media topographies, desert studies, and performative criticism.
Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures that show a systematic hostility to the dominant culture are sometimes described as countercultures.
Sarah L. Thornton is a writer, ethnographer and sociologist of culture. Thornton has authored four books and many articles about artists, the art market, bodies, people, culture, technology and design, the history of music technology, dance clubs, raves, cultural hierarchies, subcultures, and ethnographic research methods.
Alternative fashion or alt fashion is fashion that stands apart from mainstream, commercial fashion. It includes both styles which do not conform to the mainstream fashion of their time and the styles of specific subcultures. Some alternative fashion styles are attention-grabbing and more artistic than practical, while some develop from anti-fashion sentiments that focus on simplicity and utilitarianism.
Hardcore skinheads are skinheads who mainly associate with hardcore and sometimes heavy metal instead of Oi!, ska, soul or other music genres associated with the skinhead subculture.
Twink is gay slang for a man who is usually in his late teens to twenties whose traits may include a slim to average physique, a youthful appearance, little or no body hair, and flamboyancy. Twink is used both as a neutral descriptor, which can be compared with bear, and as a pejorative.
A scooterboy is a member of one of several scooter-related subcultures of the 1960s and later decades, alongside rude boys, mods and skinheads. The term is sometimes used as a catch-all designation for any scootering enthusiast who does not fall into the latter three categories.
Subculture: The Meaning of Style is a 1979 book by Dick Hebdige, focusing on Britain's postwar youth subculture styles as symbolic forms of resistance. Drawing from Marxist theorists, literary critics, French structuralists, and American sociologists, Hebdige presents a model for analyzing youth subcultures. While Hebdige argues that each subculture undergoes the same trajectory, he outlines the individual style differences of specific subcultures, such as Teddy boys, mods, rockers, skinheads, and punks. Hebdige emphasizes the historical, class, race, and socioeconomic conditions that surrounded the formation of each subculture. While Subculture: The Meaning of Style is one of the most influential books on the theory of subcultures, it faces a range of critiques.