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Interesting Subcultures You Would Love to Know About

Posted on by Brook

What is the meaning of subculture and what is its importance?

So subculture means the culture which has differentiated norms and Values from its parent culture. Subculture often maintains the founding principles of the parent culture.

Subcultures create their own norms and values regarding political as well as cultural matters. They keep their specialties as well as specific characteristics intact as they’re a part of the society. Bikers, hippies and Goth are examples of subcultures. The main development of subcultures took place in cultural studies as well as sociology. Counter Culture and subcultures are two different matters of the society’s part.

In the Oxford English dictionary, the meaning of subculture is quite different, it says “the subcultures are cultural groups which exist within the larger cultures, and have interests and beliefs different from the larger culture.” In 1950 David Reisman differentiated between a majority group who “accepted the commercially provided store styles and the meanings associated with them ” and a minority group forming the ‘subculture’ which took part in subversive values and actively sought minority styles.

In the year 1979 Dick Hebdige released his book in which he argued that subcultures are the subversion of normalcy. The name of the book is “Subculture: The Meaning of Style”. According to him subcultures dominated societal standards and were criticized usually thus Perceiving negativity. To Hebdige’s belief subcultures brought like minded people closer who felt neglected by the society of high standard, also it helped them in developing an identity.

In year 1995, Sarah Thornton said that “subcultural capital” is the cultural commodity and knowledge that the minority group had in common and differentiated them from other groups and members. In the year 2007 Ken Gelder differentiated counter cultures from subcultures and it was done on the basis of immersion of these cultures in the society. There are 6 key ways proposed by Gelder in which subcultures can be identified such as:

  1. The relation with work was seen negative, i.e. parasitic or idle, at leisure or at play.)
  2. There was a negative relationship with the class as subcultures don’t conform to a single traditional class definition and thus subcultures are not class conscious.
  3. Association with the territory instead of properties i.e. the hood, the club, the street etc.
  4. There are movements outside home and are indulged in domestic forms of belongings that is they’ve social groups other than families.
  5. Stylistic ties to exaggerations and excess. Well, they do have exceptions.
  6. Refuse to Massification and the banalities associated with the ordinary life.

There are many more personalities who did their research on subcultures and countercultures which mostly had sociologists included.

In year 1979 two sociologists Sheryl Kleinman and Gary Alan Fine argued that subcultures depict a group who motivates many potential members to shoot the behavior, artifacts asking with the values and norms which is the main characteristic of the group.

Interesting subcultures that you’ll love to know about:

So, there are many subcultures which are formed over time by a minority group of people who are said to be like minded. Well, many of these minority groups were able to establish their own identity and independently owned their values and norms.

So, let’s have a look at different kinds of subcultures that you might find interesting.

  • The Parsis

The Parsis are the descendants of the people who were driven out of Iran due to religious persecution. They flew to India during 640 CE. There is widespread community of Parsis in the present scenario and that is mainly due to the immigration of professionals to the USA and Europe who are highly qualified. The Parsis initially were considered as the followers of Zoroastrian religion which dated back to 3000 BCE.

Due wisp is their Central tenet which can also be found in the earlier religions. They keep up with the previous religious tenets even when they tube their lives in the present scenario. Presently Parsis are taking part in politics, cultural activities, philanthropy and businesses very actively and are getting highly educated too. Within the past few decades the community has been dwindling due to less birth ratios and marriages.

  • Real Vampires

Alright, this term “real vampires” must have already got your attention. Many of the people in the present generation are curious about learning more and more about vampires, but to be honest vampires are creatures which have fascinated mankind a lot. Thus, there are secret community which consists of members who firmly believe that they might feed on blood or the psychic power that can be found from other humans. They believe and do so in order to stabilize their physical, mental as well as emotional well-being. Over the past three decades, there’s a group which has got a lot of exposure on social media and is thus growing rapidly. Like many other young subcultures vampire’s community help people to meet online with similar living or psychology. They perform specified vampire centric events and they mostly meet in private. They follow a strict moral code which holds it safe and consent as a paramount concern.

  • Cybergoths

Cybergoths is a subculture which is a mixture of Goth, Raver, cyberpunk and Rivethead fashion. They follow electronic dance music rather than rock music. The cybergoths usually wear black colored attire along with hints of neon colors. Usually the clothing’s are made of huge platform boots, PVC and many reflective materials. Few cyber Goths wear Shiny PVC marks similar to the doctor’s and also gas masks. They get multiple piercing which is a must and they wear glasses more often. Their hair extensions, mostly incorporate bright colors.

Mostly cybergoths are found to be the center of Nightlife and are mainly found in the United Kingdom which provides them with clubs such as the Wendy house in Leeds, slim light Autonomy in Leicester, Nightmare in Nottingham, Tech noir in New Castle, club antichrist in London, chains in velvet in Norwich and Bedlam at Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow, along with the yearly infest festival. Cybergoths in the U.S. connect via the internet on different online platforms. A forum site that maintains and acitve subculture is XMEETS as detailed by https://hookupdatingreviews.com.

Other than UK cybergoths are also found in the US as well as Canada.
In the US there are clubs like Necto in Ann Arbor, Leland city club in Detroit, Tampa, the castle in Ybor City, Das bunkers in Los Angeles and death guild in San Francisco which shows the strong presence of cybergoths. In Canada the cyber goths subculture is found at Toronto club with the event of Toronto’s monthly Dark rave.…

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Subreddits: The Online Subcultures of Reddit

Posted on by Brook

A Brief Intro To Reddit

Reddit is one of the most visited sites in the world and recently it has grabbed sixth place all over the world. It is gaining 542 million visitors every month. You can explain or understand Reddit as an aggregator of content and community-determined.

Reddit is a platform where users submit their posts. Here other users can either upvote or downvote the posts. This is completely based on their likes about the post. If in case a post gets many upvotes, it will to Reddit ranking. When this happens more and more people can see that post. If a post gets more downvotes then it will disappear soon.

Sub-communities (Subreddits)

Reddit platform is split based on sub-communities. These are also known as subreddits. The subreddits can be created by any user and it can be based on any subject. For example a subreddit can be very vast such as technology or it can be based on some joke. Every subreddit will get faded to the full Reddit. So, there is a chance that any post belonging to even a small subreddit can reach the front page. There are a set of rules you need to understand before you submit any post in a subreddit. So, before posting anywhere you need to look at the rules of that subreddit. Reddit is very strict when it comes to rules. So, you have to stick to these rules and stop spammers. In simple words, Reddit can be understood as the biggest forum containing a lot of smaller forums.

Demographics

There are plenty of dedicated users on Reddit and the best part of Reddit which most of the users like is, it is very easy to be anonymous on Reddit. All it asks you is your name and email address. Some research conducted on Reddit shows that 67 percent of the users are men. Over 64 percent of the users are aged between 18 to 29. Another thing observed is over 70 percent of the users are white. Hence the research concluded that Reddit users are male, white, and young essentially.

But, it is not easy to get a clear picture here. Since there are plenty of subreddits, demographic distribution cannot be uniform all over the site. Since there is an option to create subreddits on any topic, it is easy that users may get catered. For example, many subreddits are mainly targeted at women. There are some based on countries, ethnicities, and cities. Reddit brings the highest diversity and it is not easy to understand the type of users here.

Reddit concepts

  • Karma

Karma can be understood as gamification. There is a karma score for every user. Through this, you can gauge the quality of their submissions and comments on Reddit. This is completely based on downvoting and upvoting received by them. If your submissions and comments receive a lot of upvoting, your karma easily goes up. Of course, there is no such value to this and you will not receive any prizes. It is all about understanding you are a good user on Reddit or not.

  • Reddit gold

This is nothing but a premium membership offered by Reddit. Of course gold comes with some benefits to its users. Some of them are turning off ads and the option to create subreddits. You can also create some customer avatars if needed. But there is nothing essential for using the site but these are perks. You can gift the gold to any other user. Through this option you can showcase your linking towards other user’s comments and submissions. A user can gift gold for any reason but it should be followed by a heartfelt story, great joke, or just because you are feeling generous.

  • Ask Me Anything

Even though this option was not created on Reddit, it is very popular on the platform today. AMAs are nothing but opening an opportunity. Through this you are saying that you are ready to answer questions. The questions can be anything and everything from other users. The r/lamA is the subreddit dedicated to these AMAs. These options have gained the highest popularity and even celebrities use them.

  • User profiles

Even though you can easily stay anonymous, Reddit will be behind you and it will keep track of your activities. The activities include your comments, submissions, and your karma score on the site. It will even keep track of gold you have brought, your subreddits, and your trophy case of achievements.

Even though Reddit looks very simple and straightforward, it is a large and complicated ecosystem . Recently they have rolled out some new profiles where you can choose pictures, add a bio, and write posts on your page. Of course there is nothing to worry about this, but the majority of the users are unhappy since Reddit is becoming more like Facebook now. More than anything, the majority of the users are worried about losing anonymity.…

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What is a Subculture?

Posted on by Brook

Subculture can be understood as groups which come with their own norms and values. The most important thing is these rules and norms are way different from that which is followed in our society or by the majority.

Society vs. Culture

Culture is nothing but an expression of society. This expression is made up of beliefs as well as material things in society. Of course everybody knows about their own culture and the examples are already familiar to all. Usually the culture includes the things in society like ideological values, language, social conventions, and gender roles, artistic and realistic expressions such as paintings, films, and books

Before understanding subculture or culture one must also understand the term society. Society is the group of people who are interacting in some defined territory and they are sharing their culture with one another. Society is a bundle of cultures. Every society may include different cultures and these cultures again may come with varieties of subcultures.

Let’s look into some of the terms and theories which are related to subculture.

Subcultures

In societies, you may find small societies that are usually culturally uniform and there are many large industrial societies that are culturally diverse. These industrial large societies usually involve many subcultures. As we defined earlier, subculture is nothing but a set of norms and rules which are usually distinct when compared to the rules followed by the majority. The subculture will be a group of people following different norms and they will be inside a wider society.

For example, if we consider United States, some of the subcultures present here are Goths, hippies, hip hop fans, fans of heavy metal, and even bikers. We can give many examples, especially in wider society. There are unlimited subcultures found in United States. There will be one area that represents particular interest and that becomes the deviant subculture inside a wide society.

Subcultures are no longer limited to location or geography thanks to the internet. A strong example of this is hookup culture. In certain countries and societies female and sexual liberation is very limited, but via the internet with fuck buddy websites, hookup culture has spread to more traditional and conservative groups around the world.

A Deeper Look

Subculture will be present inside the main culture. But important thing is there will be some characteristics present in the subculture which differentiation from the parent culture wherein it belongs. One thing to note here is always the subculture will have founding principles that are completely based on the parent culture. Even though it evolves and carries many other unique norms, it will continue to maintain the principles carried from parent culture.

Later stages, subcultures develop their own values as well as norms that are related to political, cultural, and even sexual matters. So, understand subcultures as part of society which always carries its own, specific characteristics. This concept of subculture was earlier developed in cultural studies and in sociology. Subcultures are completely different from counter cultures.

If you look into the dictionary definition of subculture, it is defined as a culture within a wide or large culture that carries interests and beliefs which are different from the larger or parent culture. Subculture is the style of the minority inside a majority culture. The values believed by subcultures are known as subversive values.

The best definition of subculture can be it is a subversion of a large, parent, and dominant normalcy. In most of the cases, subcultures receive criticism and they are perceived in a negative way. This is mainly because of their nature since they are way different from parent culture which is followed by the majority in the society.

Subcultures are usually brought or developed by a group of people who are completely neglected in the larger society. This is a group of individuals who are like-minded and have interest in developing a sense of identity.

Subcultural capital

This is the most important term used in the subculture. This can be understood as cultural commodities and cultural knowledge which are acquired by the members in a subculture. The subcultural capital helps them in raising their status and it also supports them in differentiating their culture from the majority and other subcultures.

A subculture is a group that serves and motivates the individuals in the group in adopting behaviors, artifacts, values, and norms which are characteristics of that group. Subcultures are also interpreted as forms of delinquency and deviance. Subcultures emerge from particular sector which lacked socialization with parent culture and mainstream. Later they become a group and started following the norms of the subculture and their own normative models.

The subculture never accepts the objectives or the means of actions that are offered by the parent culture. They will start proposing different norms and follow the same. But this will definitely depend on the rebels, innovations, and circumstances. Subcultures are more than the alternative strategies and they are considered to be the labeling processes. But slowly the parent culture or the mainstream society will treat them as outsiders.

Subculture comes with its own language and image and these will become their recognition trait.

Even though the subcultures are different from the parent culture, they are still treated as part of the main culture. …

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cultural anthropology

What is Cultural Anthropology?

Posted on by Brook

Humans are social animals. We all have come across this line once in our lifetime. Human behavior and practices vary depending upon different factors like religion, geographical location, ecosystem, classes of society, colonialism, language, and many more. Human tends to live in structures restricted under the above mentioned factors.

Anthropology is derived from the Greek word, which means the study of humans. Cultural anthropology implies the study of humans as an individual as a product of the society based on kinship, mass media, religion, art, gender, nations and states, race, relations, science, fashion, and many more such topics.

Importance of cultural anthropology

In today’s age, where everything is globalized and turbulent, people come from different backgrounds, with differences and opinions and many other things; in very unprecedented and unexpected ways. They come from a vast multitude of settings starting from tourism, education, professional work, trade, migration to organizational practice. In such a scenario, the knowledge of cultural anthropology is invaluable and has the utmost importance.

People have been traveling from developed to developing to less developed countries and vice versa because of various reasons. This cultural exchange has piqued the interest of people around the world, and now an urgent need to understand and deal sensibly with these cultural differences has come.

The cultural changes are getting more and more rapid than ever before. The changes in trends of fashion, music food habits are changing before our eyes. People have started learning more about the culture and lifestyle of other parts of the globe, thanks to the exponential growth in digital media where communication and gaining knowledge has become easier than ever.

People are intrigued by a different question asking about the meaning of the culture they belong to and what they are. This increasing interest in cultural identity can be only satisfied by studying cultural anthropology. It is for the reason that it teaches people about the world, the whirl of cultural mixing and contact between different cultures that is taking place rapidly.

How to study cultural anthropology?

If someone is interested in humankind and society and how it behaves through the physical evolution of body to cultural, linguistic practices and modern societies; then getting a degree in anthropology may allow you to do so.

There are various sets of skill which one can attain from studying anthropology from excellent and reputed colleges such as:

  • Data analysis and experience of working with statistics.
  • Presentation of well-supported and coherent arguments
  • General research and IT skills, along with critical evaluation.

It covers subjects like economics and sociology, which helps in a better understanding of the behavior of an individual and practice in a group by application of scientific methods. One can apply to various courses available under anthropology according to the interest of the individual.

The final overview of cultural anthropology

The cultural changes and acceptance of new beliefs and ideas are rapid in today’s world, where they are quickly getting access to know and understand new people. In such a scenario, it is crucial to have an idea of cultural anthropology to understand people and their behavior quickly.…

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