The Community of Subcultures - Essay Example

Another factor that takes part in creation of a youth subculture includes the gender of the person. Notable is the fact that a given clique of members of this group will relate to each other according to the unwritten but acceptable ways that this clique adopts. The clique is often formed from a geographical stand point meaning that the system of agreement adopted by one part of the populace defined by a given geographical area will necessarily differ with another from a different geographical area.

I will undertake to discuss the youth subculture as it found early in the American culture. The youth subculture can itself be defined as the way of life found among the youth and its distinctiveness is drawn from their social or ethnic affiliations that revolve around style, fashion, or affiliation to a given music genre. This kind of a subculture is generational with its membership being constantly renewed as the members outgrow the culture while others join the subculture at the adolescent age (Yinger 1999p54).

The youth subculture in America is believed to have had its roots in the 1920's where a new generation of young women known as the flappers emerged. This group of young women believed in liberalism and acted in ways that implied their liberty. They could smoke, drink, use group specific slang, bob their hair, put on short skirts, perceive sex casually and drove automobiles among other things that were considered liberal to do as at that time. Many historical theorists like Marcel Danesi and Steven Mintz believe in the beginnings of the youth subculture in America to be the 1950's.

They believe that children were immediately offered adult duties as soon as their ages matched the adult appropriate ages set prior to the above mentioned date. The media, they believe, played the greatest role in the creation of the youth group through frequently engaging youthful individuals in advertisements. The youths therefore organized themselves around the youthful age group and adopted a characteristic way of living that was specific to them. This trend continued to the subsequent generations.

The youth subculture in America has a number of subcultures within it that deviate to some degree from the mainstream youth subculture(Lieske 2003pp34-36).The youth subculture in America had a distinct identifying factor. The age bracket within which members of this group are found ranges from adolescence to early adulthood giving a considerable overlap into these margins. This group of persons deems itself to be the epitome of style and knowledge. It is often made up of vivacious individuals who occupy almost entirely all spheres of America's living where they show case their talents through engagement into various activities including academics and the career world.

In terms of dressing, this group of young people is trendy preferring to dress in the fashionable attires that flock the market. They are keen to watch the fashion market to ensure that the latest trends in clothing do not escape their attention meaning that their dress codes change as frequently as the market preferences do. The denim jeans clothing for example have been popular with the American youths since the 1990's with the creation of various stylish designs for pieces of clothing. Their hair do is also often stylish and changes as frequently as