A few weeks ago, one of my roommates shared with us the research topic for her bachelor’s thesis on the alleged end of subcultures, and it truly got me thinking. First of all, I instantly related it to “-core”, a concept that I’ve seen come up more and more often and which I dare to say marks the end of many pop-culture movements that had the main research spotlight for the last couple of decades. It is quite easy to think that both a subculture and a “core” (whatever that even means) are equal, yet in essence, it is not remotely the same.
The “-core” concept, according to Vogue, dates back to ten years ago when an online trend forecaster mentioned something they coincidentally named “normcore”; an incline towards a very simple, average, and non-pretentious style that enhances the wish of not wanting to stand out clothing-wise. After this, the snowball effect followed with endless variations of the concept that got -and keep getting- extremely niche: cottage-core, y2kcore, barbie-core, and yes, there even is a core-core. There is a sense of hyper-specificity that fascinates me because it speaks so much about us, about -and I hate throwing this word- capitalistic consumption patterns, and about how overwhelming and overstimulating the media can be.
Now let’s go back in time to the origins of subcultures which actually are quite far related to trends and style. It was a term that first defined urban gangs given by the Chicago School in the late 1950s, a categorization of values and ideals that ran amongst the youth and was outside the box and precisely, outside the norm. Coincidentally enough, even from their origins, both concepts are polar as one was used (at least initially) to define the “norm” and the other one to highlight the absence of it.
The punk movement is perhaps one of the most relevant Western subcultures from the 20th century. It begins with a shared set of ideals and values that challenge the status quo yet fashion and style, very different from the mainstream, was only another vehicle to express the message to the general public rather than the central point of the movement itself. Among the ideologies of it were the freedom of the people through drastic “destruction” of tradition and separation from the religious, the political system, and whatever was already established. We can attribute the fashion association that we have with it to Viviene Westwood, an activist and renowned fashion designer who shaped the aesthetic side of the punk movement. Yet the values reinforced the clothing, not the other way around as we typically find in the current “-cores”. This type of counterculture is essential for society as it not only gives space for diverse voices to build communities but also provokes and catalyzes the questioning of everything, this is why the disappearance of concise subcultures is problematic.
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