Youth Culture Is at Heart Essentially a Culture of Consumption

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Youth Culture Is At Heart Essentially A Culture Of Consumption In order to look at subcultures in terms of consumption, it is important to outline what a subculture is made up of. To participate in a subculture is the notion of living a way of life that shares an interest or involvement in music, style, slang and ritual with other people, ensuring that you present a level of authenticity, by assimilating to the ideologies of an exclusive group. By being active within a subculture, you are separating yourself from the rest of society’s cultures (Clarke, J, Hall, S, Jefferson T, Roberts, B. 2001). Youth based subcultures such as teddy boys, mods, rockers, skinheads and punks have resisted the pressures of mainstream society and dominant culture through the means of active participation in a particular style, music choice and other areas of consumptive practice. The 1950’s were considered to have been the birth of youth as a social category. For those young people who were drawn into labour after the 2nd World War, Britain on the surface seemed as though it was the closest it had ever been to prosperity, a period defined by high productivity growth and the use of cheaper materials and housing redevelopment (Cohen, P 1972). This meant that there was a wealth of new jobs appearing for young people and therefore more money and more leisure time was available to them, which helped distinguish the gap between what youths spent money on and what adults spent money on (Bennet, A, 2000). Age is something that blurs the line of social status, but can however help address someone’s identity. The age of sixteen upwards is a particularly important phase to look at in terms of subcultural study, as it is the time in someone’s life where certain freedoms come into place. For example at this age you are able to leave school, drive a moped, get married with parents consent “for
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