Unit 10
radical m usicians such as The Velvet Underground and new th in ke rs like M alcolm McClaren. As
w ith any subculture, the firs t stage m ust be the birth of the subculture which is led by c u ltu ra l
leaders. These leaders inspire the styles and values that w ill become part of the subculture. In
the case of punk, McClaren was very much the stylist of the punk look, selling daring clothes that
the punk cultu re came to embrace.
Punk began in its fu lle s t form in the 1970s, when the daring and a n ti-estab lishm e n t concepts
of these pioneers took a more popular form . Punk sprang up largely as a re su lt of a weakening
economy and high levels of unem ploym ent. Social and politica l problem s are often the reason
behind the next stage of su b cu ltu ra l developm ent; the su b c u ltu ra l embrace. This is when the
subculture is at its m ost dynamic, and is becoming increasingly accepted.
A fte r that the subculture plateaus. This is when it becomes stable and people dem onstrate sub
norm s which include shared ways of dressing, shared values and beliefs, and shared form s of film
or music. In te rm s of punks, this can be seen in such things as Mohawks, a p a rticula rly striking
hairstyle, and piercings. Punks often have many facial piercings which make them stand out from
the norm. This need fo r individualism is quite strong in youth subcultures, yet at the same tim e is
a contradiction because these very people are copying from w ithin th e ir groups. A striking feature
at this stage is the onset of deviant subcultures, which take some characteristics of the main
subculture and d istort these w ith other characteristics. As w e ll as often exhibiting anti-social
behaviour, they distance themselves from the main subculture by m utual dislike. In the culture of
punk, skinheads are an apt example of this, exhibiting a ll the key features of a deviant subculture.
The im portant thing to note now is that whereas the main subculture continues through the cultural
plateau to then suffer from eventual rejection, the deviant subculture continues for much longer.
A youth subculture usually fades away after an amount of tim e as it becomes more and more old-
fashioned; something which young people never like to be associated with. The 'accepted' subcultures
are then replaced by a newer and more cutting-edge subculture, in the case of punk, dance and new
romantic subcultures emerged which saw the end of the established subculture of punk.
