Youth Culture (Exercise 10 Part 2)

Who would have guessed, Youth Culture is the culture of the youth! Sarcasm aside, Youth Culture is believed to be the collection of behaviors and trends among adolescents, yet another paradigm so to speak. The way I see it the actual term 'Youth Culture' could very well be an umbrella term  and encompasses all the ever changing sub-cultures. There are plenty of them to choose from and although having many differences, some are just branches or derivatives of previously existing sub cultures. The specifics about youth culture would be very difficult to pin down as young people even in the same age range have been exposed to different factors such as place of birth, religion, school, peers, parents and the media just to name a few. It is believed that youth culture emerged due to compulsory schooling, where previously children and young adults primarily interacted with adults(their parents) now they identified and interacted with people their own age, developing new 'norms' within this adolescent social circle. I don't know if I would call it culture, but certain archetypes have definitely developed due to school. Terms like 'Geek', 'Nerd', 'Jock' surely came from a schooling environment, the adult world just doesn't have that. The same can be said for the adult world where they have developed their own social circles and define their status through a variety of means. On school to be popular often times means that people like you, or even if they don't like you they are forced to show respect because you have a powerful and influential social circle. Cultures and attitudes developed through education vary greatly from the adult world where the majority of the attitudes you learn in school or college fall away when you leave school or college. Going to school or college will have some positive or negative impacts on a person and again depending on the context and variables. Some people get bullied till they commit suicide or bring an arsenal to school and blow away their classmates, others cruise through unnoticed while the popular kids seem to have the time of their life. Youth Culture cannot be pinned down, all of us have different moral standings and beliefs and those are articulated by the context in which we grew up.

Here are some examples of the archetypes from school and college as well as some sub-cultures

Jocks:

Ok thats about enough out of that, here are the opposites in order, Nerds, Emo's , Goths, Metalheads, Otaku

Otaku, followers of japanese anime and all the merchandising that comes with it

Again, these are just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many different 'looks' and sub groups within the sub-cultures it's going to take another ten years to document them all, and by then dozens of new sub cultures would have popped up.

References :  Coleman, J. (1961). The adolescent society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press