Топик: Culture of the youth

- What do you know about Punks?

- As far as I know, Punks appeared in Britain in the 1970s as a reaction to the glamour of the pop star world of the 1960s. Punks, like the Skinheads, are regressive, but inactive and politically indifferent. Their real attraction to the young has been their ability to insult middle-aged opinion, especially among the guardians of social values. They have done it by using vulgar language, wearying green and pink hair, dressing in torn clothes, mutilating their bodies with safety pins. Now Punks are in decline in Britain but are popular in our country. Punks, Skinheads and Rastafairians, each in their own way asserted that they resided in a world, as they understood it, alienated by class and race. Generally they were young people with low self-respect, who did poorly at school. Joining a gang was a means of finding a status. They opposed the traditional world in which they were settled as fiasco elements.

- Are there other cults within urban sub-culture?

- Yes, there are. "Heavy metal" is one of them. This music of failure is widely despised by those who enjoy pop, reggae or soul. Unlike other rebel cults the followers of heavy metal behave them selves as victims. They wear gothic script and grinning sculls, expression of disheartened interests. It is known that cults arise and disappear over periods of a decade or two. Ragga and Gothic arose in the 1980s. Raggas are American-inspired. They are clothed in baseball caps, tracksuits trousers and chunky trainers. Gothic is a blend of 1970s Punk and 1960s Hippies. "Goths" wear their hair very long and dyed black, and dress in cheap, loose clothes. They put on make-up, looking very pale with cosmetics around the eyes. They are not aggressive, and seem to feel nostalgia for the youth culture and music of the 1960s. At the end of the 1980s Acid House was a fashionable sub-culture. It fascinated thousands juveniles who had not earlier belonged to a cult. Acid House guaranteed fun and all-night dancing. It had its own music which was another variation on black music from America ("House Music"). By the 1990s this movement was also in decline. It is interesting to note that sub-cultures follow a cycle. At first they shock then provoke a strong response. As soon as the sub-culture gains momentum it magnetizes youth in search of rebel unity. Many adopt it for fun, and play at rebellion in their leisure time. The sub-culture rapidly ceases to express serious dissent. In the end it becomes another recognized and colourful part of urban culture.