Introduction
The current paper will delve into a unique brand of creation, the young and foreign subculture. The young generation is forever a subculture, no matter what and how they dress, how they speak and react with society, and how they want to be regarded as “new” members of an ever changing world.
The subject for the photo under consideration is the young generation with its unique brand of dressing and interacting; the young who live in a foreign land, who, along with their kindred, have migrated into a changing and sophisticated society such as England.
Research
Our research uses as basis Hebdige’s findings whose work Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) is a classics that should be a part of any cultural studies. As Pitre says, One cannot fully grasp Hebdige’s ideas and arguments without at least a basic understanding of the schools of thought in which he was educated. Cultural Studies, also known as the Birmingham School, was conceived in a Britain emerging from the industrial revolution. The School drew on a combination of anthropology, history, literary criticism and theory, Marxism, media studies, semiotics, structuralism, as well as sociology, especially the Chicago and Frankfurt Schools. (Pitre, 2003 p. 9)
Hebdige is not the only author who provided a broad study of different subjects. In his work Subculture: The Fragmentation of the Social (2005) Jenks defines subculture as ‘a group, an enclave, a cult or a distraction of antithetical values that are expressions of either frustrations with or interventions into the dominant structure of legitimation and control within society’ (p. 7) This author also investigates concepts of subculture, the history of this phenomenon, and summarizes the achievements of different researchers.
The works mentioned above confirm that every society has a subculture. We usually have this particular group because this phenomenon is an expression of a group of people, especially the young, who want to rebel or express their feelings against the established norms of the society they live in. Young people express their views and feelings in a very emotional way that differs throughout generations.
The young and the fashionists, the in thing, the lifestyle, are among a few of our present day subculture. They are distinct, easily recognized by the way they dress, act, and mingle with society. They are different but not separate from the rest of society.
According to Pitre, Hebdige defined subculture as “equated with cultivation, refinement and a standard of excellence… and the other notion of culture is more generally based on it being a ‘whole way of life.’” (Pitre, 2003 p. 11)
Hebdige (1979) carefully described fashion and the young generation of the late 1980s.
The chick thing is to dress in expensive tailor-made rags and all the queens are camping about in wild-boy drag. There are Bowery suits that appear to be stained with urine and vomit which on closer inspection turn out to be intricate embroideries of fine gold thread. There are clochard suits of the finest linen, shabby gentility suits… felt hats seasoned by old junkies … loud cheap pimp suits that turn out to be not so cheap the loudness is a subtle harmony of colours only the very best Poor Boy shops can turn out… It is the bouble take and many carry it much further to as many as six takes. (p. 23)
Hebdige’s work suggests that the ideas are similar in any times since nowadays a boom of subculture phenomenon can also be observed. In our every day life some “chick thing dressed in expensive tailor-made rags” can be seen here and there. Surely, we see that it changes with the times but still it doesn’t fade away completely which proves once more that a subculture never dies.
Hebdige (1979) described in fantastic detail a generation that seemed not to fade: “With predictable regularity, ‘bright young things’ were shown flouncing along Oxford Street in harem bags and beach shorts, bikini tops and polaroids in that last uplifting item for the News at Ten.” (p. 24)
But Hebdige also spoke of postwar England which became ‘a hotbed of immigration from former colonies’. Those migrant workers became an intrinsic part of the British workforce.
Indeed, it is one reviewer’s opinion that “what makes [Hebdige’s] study important is the way it highlights the increasing vulnerability of the ‘West’ to ideological currents once easily dismissed as distant illusions belonging to foreign lands and peoples. (Pitre, 2003 p. 211)
One more issue that attracted my attention is the “regularity” of the behavior patterns of young generation. How come they always display, in any time of history, such way of dress, thinking, actions, movement, or whatever they want to do? Is it because they always want to rebel? Or to experiment on the way they have lived? When we see this group of young people, we think of them as weird, very different, unworldly. But they are a part of us; they will always be with us. Yes, you will always have people like we are. They will always try to examine and ask why and how they have lived. The existentialist ideas are in them – in us. We remain curious and full of new thoughts and ideas that can never be interpreted correctly by the older generation.
The thoughts of the kind encouraged me to explore the meaning of the photograph of young Asians. The latter constitute a subculture simply because they have their own culture in the frames of a dominant trends and traditions of another culture (and so on, and so forth). Nevertheless, all I wanted was an original work, for this is what identity is all about. Identity is always original because it is always changing, forever and ever. And since I belong to this group, I know what we think and want in our changing and, rather, unique world at present.
There is still the punk, the colored horse-like hair, but along with these are the hip-hop and its unique kind of music, the technology generation where you see the young with all the new gadgets we can imagine – cell phones, video games, MP3, MP4, and all the other high-tech gadgets. And they are equipped with the new kind of lingo – text language. This is a new lifestyle of the young who, sad to say, can not be said as aware of the world around them.
I have thought of my own genre. I am different but some things do not change in me, no matter what subculture you can define and think of.
As Hebdige (1979) says, Style in subculture is, then, pregnant with significance. Its transformations go ‘against nature’, interrupting the process of ‘normalization’. As such, they are gestures, movements towards a speech which offends the ‘silent majority’, which challenges the principle of unity and cohesion, which contradicts the myth of consensus. (p. 18)
What do all these mean? I am in the best position to answer this question because I belong to it. For me, there is always my purpose why I do it, or why we do it. There are “hidden meanings” – in the words of Hebdige – that you should try to decipher. These hidden meanings make this subculture a very interesting subject for study which the “older” generation should be able to do in their life time.
Pitre (2003) says that, Simply put, subcultures fight fire with fire. Other useful features of Hebdige’s study include his historical summary of postwar styles, fads, and fashions in Britain. As well, his assessment that expressive forms such as style are semiotically permeated with a plethora of cultural information are now generally accepted as a truism. (p. 46)
This makes Hebdige’s book a classic. And to make the young generation, especially Asians in a far-away land, a subject in our study of subcultures, is a true classics, too.
We can see in the photo the unique style of the young with their own brand of clothes and accessories, but more revealing are the gadgets and electronic things they wear and handle, as part of their psyche. New Asians (or the young Asians), before they came to England, have always been mesmerized by the so-called gadget things, the digital and electronic paraphernalia, that are already a part of their psyche, so to speak.
The text lingo or text speak is a special kind of language employed into their way of communication. This language defies spelling and has a special meaning only the members of this young generation understand. If you are young but are not a member of this subculture, you may not understand it. You have to be a part of it. Examples of this language are shortened words that have special meanings.
The young Asians – a new subculture and a new generation in an England setting – gradually become a part of mainstream of the English society and workforce. With the migration of this new group of people, we can see a distinct people but not separate to the English society. They bring along with them their identity and culture, influenced much by the technology craze – cellular phones and other electronic gadgets. They want to be declared friends and normal people amidst a new environment.
They may be an assortment of different nationalities – Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Indonesians, Thais, and Filipinos. All in all, they are influenced by the English culture, likewise they influence the dominant culture they are in, in the form of music, food, fashion, and so forth.
With the migration of Asians in Great Britain, we expect some changes in both cultures, but more so, a new identity emerges.
Bibliography
Hebdige, D. (1979) Subculture: The Meaning of Style (New Accents). London: Routledge.
Jenks, C. (2005) Subculture: The Fragmentation of Social. London: Thousand Oaks, SAGE.
Pitre, S. (2003) Cultural Studies & Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style [Internet] Prof. Philip Tagg, PhD personal website. Web.