Generic research: youth subcultures.

YOUTH SUBCULTURES - are they dying out in a modern consumer society?

Some examples of stereotypical youth subcultures associated with the music scene nowadays.

Speaking from a Marxist dystopian point-of-view...

Since the past few decades, youth subcultures have dramatically changed. Contemporary music audiences have fully integrated themselves into their favourite genre of music, ascertaining that there is no legitimate way to represent their music taste.

Back in the mid-1980s, goths, metalheads and punks populated the early music scene. Punks with their brightly-coloured mohicans and flamboyant hairstyles, complete with body piercings and studded leather jackets. Goths were commonly associated with the colour black, complete with their equally black clothing and hairstyles, with makeup thrown in the subcultural mix. Metalheads constantly listened to heavy metal music - they were committed fans of the genre, wearing T-shirts of their favourite metal band on them (Motörhead provides an example here). Music and subculture interlinked together in a plethora of ways in the 80s: the pinnacle of rhythm.

It is now the 21st century. The idea of the typical youth subculture has changed: sociologist Kevin White, based at the University of Sussex, infers that youth subculture has altered due to British society's changing class structure. Contemporary teenagers are now hooked to technology, constantly pleasuring themselves in the world of distracting entertainment which proved hard for them to rebel against society through the way they dress. Scrap the mohawks and the leather jackets. Make way for the new Google generation, confined to their bedrooms listening to music through Spotify and Apple Music, blatantly consuming pop music all day and not turning to other forms of music, for instance hardcore punk and alternative rock, as well as indie music!

For certain, our generation of teenagers are now informed and controlled by an older university-educated cohort. The rise of the Internet has revolutionised a brave new virtual paradise where people mainly focus on constructing a self-identity online than exposing their allegiances and interests to the outside world. Teens are frequently posting selfies on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, hoping for thousands of likes gartered based on a false impression of a "perfect" physical appearance created using filters courtesy of these social networking juggernauts.

Ultimately, the result is a consumer society where people are passively spoonfed ideas of pop culture.

Fashion and music are quoted by Dr. Ruth Adams of King's College, London as progressively "much cheaper and much faster today." Once you start examining modern subcultures online, lines gradually become blurred and many online instances of such subcultures become buried under layers and layers of hegemonic idea-injecting mirth, the latter becoming passively accepted by digital natives today.

"So, baby, pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover / that I know you can't afford / Bite that tattoo on your shoulder / Pull the sheets right off the corner / of the mattress that you stole / from your roommate back in Boulder / We ain't ever getting older..."

Nope. Just... nope. I just don't know why things change these days.