Alternative culture is a catch-all phrase used predominately by the media and the marketing industry to refer to a variety of separate sub-cultures – (which are either loosely related or near-totally unrelated) – and are perceived by the general public as being outside or on the edge of so-called accepted mainstream culture. There is a popular yet mistaken belief that the term refers to a singular "alternative culture". Yet whilst the inappropriate use of the term by the media has made this concept common, the actual differences between the various sub-cultures are such that many of them are incompatible with each other or show no logical connection which would give credibility to the idea that there is a single alternative culture. Marketing is the process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. ... In biology, a subculture in a population of a microorganism is when one microbe colony in such a population is transferred onto blank growth medium and allowed to freely reproduce. ...

A true definition of alternative culture is thus debatable and often a sub-culture is mistaken for being an alternative one when it may not truly be such. The interests and concepts used in defining a sub-culture as being an alternative one vary greatly. For these reasons, this article should be seen to be about established media views and what truths went into them and how these views, the assimilation of the mentioned sub-cultures into the mainstream and the commercialisation of them effected those involved in each sub-culture.

The popular concept of an alternative culture

Although a more modern notion of "alternative culture" only came about in the early 1990s - the phrase was often used as a synonym for Generation X, itself a misappropriated term - youth culture, "counter culture" and various aspects of underground culture are rooted in the creation of the teenage marketing demographic in the 1950s. This, in conjunction with the emergence of the teddy boy and the release of the American film Rebel Without A Cause (1955), saw adolescents in North America and Western Europe collectively express a sense of rebellion against the values of their parents and the state authorities. The reasons for this rejection of "normal" social codes and attitudes were usually personal, but at the same time, easier to define when asserted as part of a group. Generation X is a term used in demographics, the social sciences, and more broadly in popular culture. ... Youth culture generally refers to the ways young people (adolescents and teenagers) differentiate themselves from the general culture of their community. ... During the 1960s the term underground acquired a new meaning in that it referred to members of the so-called counterculture, i. ... Underground culture, or just underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different to the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by someone. ... A separate article is about the punk band called The Adolescents. ... The Teddy Boy youth culture first emerged in Britain during the early 1950s, and was strongly associated with American rock and roll music of the period. ... Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 film which tells the story of a rebellious teenager who comes to a new town, meets a girl, defies his parents, and faces the local gang. ... 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... World map showing location of North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere, bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west... Western Europe is distinguished from Eastern Europe by differences of history and culture rather than by geography. ...

It was also the start of a large bias in the media, since the concept has usually referred to the lifestyles and activities of caucasian males in occidental countries, usually just the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. The high-profile exceptions to this have been hip-hop culture and the riot grrrl movement. Although it is also worth noting that while the recreational use of time by both non-caucasians and females has been reported upon, it usually was - and sometimes still is – done with disdain. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began among urban African Americans and Latinos in New York City in the early 1970s, and has since spread around the world. ... redirect [[Riot Grrrl] ...

The development and social dynamics of an "alternative culture"

See: History of subcultures in the 20th century

Sub-cultures which could be seen as "alternative", seem, despite all their differences, to all have similar reasons for their creation, similar stories regarding their development and even several common values. Subcultures The 20th century was a time of social diversity and the rise of the individual. ...

A sub-culture is usually formed by young working class people in a small region or a single city^[1], in response to a generally felt lack of proper fulfillment by the options available to that particular social group. This is in reference to a wide range of things, from acceptable codes of public behaviour to the likelihood of decent long-term employment. The result being a rapid evolution of an externally displayed attitude and an accompanying visual style (regarding art, dress, et cetera) and soundtrack. The factors that necessitate the creation of a sub-culture, often forge the elements that make it unique and give it some form of cultural legacy when looked upon in retrospect. For example, the hippy movement of the 1960s is remembered, although not exclusively for, its championing of the concept of "free love", which was a fairly successful attempt to break away from the perceived social rigidity of the previous two decades. Hip-hop culture allowed poor Afro-Americans to express themselves creatively when they had minimal access to musical instruments and very little chance of having their work displayed in art galleries. It meant that the turntable, normally only used to play music produced by others, was used as an "instrument" in its own right and that public areas became substitute canvasses for a style of art known as wild style. The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... Hippies (singular hippie or sometimes hippy) were members of the 1960s counterculture movement who adopted a communal or nomadic lifestyle, renounced corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and/or Native American religious culture, and were otherwise at odds with traditional middle class Western values. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began among urban African Americans and Latinos in New York City in the early 1970s, and has since spread around the world. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... A turntable is any rotating platform: a phonograph (or the platter of), used to play vinyl records, or by DJs to mix or scratch them (see turntablism) a device used at some railroad facilities to turn a locomotive or other rolling stock around, or onto one of several radially arranged... Wild Style is the first hip hop motion picture. ...

During the point that all these sub-cultures enjoyed their "peak", they were simultaneously the subject of much negative "reporting" by the media. This was often due to objections to the sub-cultures’ disregard for the legality of their activities, the physical appearance of their members, their anti-establishment and/or anti-consumerist values and their frequent indulgences in sex and drug use. (Not all these points apply to all sub-cultures, the best example being the fact that members of the "straight-edge" hardcore punk scene were completely teetotal). However, it is this publicity which often drew more young people into each sub-culture, usually, but not always because, they were attracted by its apparent dissident nature. Hardcore punk (or hardcore) is an intensified version of punk rock usually characterized by short, loud, and often angry songs with exceptionally fast tempos and chord changes. ...

There is often a period that is considered to be ‘pure’ in terms of what defined each sub-culture in various ways. This is the point between the complete development of its unique characteristics - where it has a philosophy, a style of dress, a new genre of music to call its own, et cetera - and the point where publicity has caused a large influx of new members into the community and various business interests have begun to co-opt its unique aspects. Grunge culture – (although according to its original members, it wasn’t a culture as such, but rather a fan base for alternative rock) - is a particularly interesting case, as its conception was to some extent deliberately self-conscious^[2] of the factors that could skew its original intents. Grunge was a regional off-shoot of DIY culture, which focused more on its members being cynical "slackers" – an outlook publicly exemplified best by the band Dinosaur Jr - and, as the popular phrase was at the time, over-educated and under-paid. (This phrase was, in fact, lifted from Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture (1991)). Although these were all myths that originated from the media, of which participants in the grunge scene treated with some suspicion. Still, in the wake of the massive success of the album Nevermind (also 1991) by Nirvana, the media and the marketing industry popularised and mass-marketed "grunge" clothes, music and such. Although, to those "in the know", it was possible to determine how "genuine" anything on sale was. However, the nature of the culture meant it resisted glamorisation and it was soon abandoned by the media, leaving the entire culture to wither away as a result. Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... The terms alternative rock and alternative music were coined in the early 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired music genres which didnt fit into the mainstream genres of the time. ... DIY (or Do It Yourself) Culture is a broad term used to refer to a wide range of grassroots political activism. ... For the Richard Linklater movie, see Slacker (movie) The term slacker, in contemporary western culture, applies generally to young people who underachieve at school, work or both. ... Dinosaur Jr. ... Douglas Coupland (born December 30, 1961) is a Canadian author and cultural commentator, raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... ‹The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... Nirvana was a popular American rock band founded in 1987 in Aberdeen, Washington. ...

The current state of "alternative culture"

"Alternative culture", in the sense that it is featured here, has stalled somewhat since the mid 1990s. There are two major factors behind this, the first being prevalence of "top-down" culture, which is where young people tend to have taken to consumerism as a source of identity and recreational facilities. This runs counter to alternative cultures' tradition of innovation, geographical diversity and communal self-sufficiency, as opposed to following trends for products marketed to the left-field demographic, leading to wide-spread homogenization and such. It has been suggested that this is aggrevated by the mental environment that members of Generation Y - (people born roughly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s) - have been surrounded by. Previous values which formed alternative thought having been drowned out by marketing ideals about what is considered alternative, et cetera. Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption. ... Homogenization is a term used both in agricultural science and in cell biology. ... Generation Y, sometimes called Generation Why?, the Echo Boom, the Byte Block, or the Millennial Generation, are terms used in demographics to describe a particular generational cohort in Western societies, specifically the United States. ...

Conclusion

From the above article it would appear that the concept of an alternative culture was nothing more than a collection of clichés that were propagated by the media until they became accepted as the truth, similar in many ways to what happened with the counter culture of the 1960s. In part this cannot be denied, but it is import to remember that all of those clichés were at least based in some truth. Regardless of whether or not alternative culture is truly "alternative", the sub-cultures that have existed and could be called "alternative" were often created as a response to perceived negative qualities in society. However, all to often, what is associated with each sub-culture are products rather than "culture". For example, hippies stated a belief in the shedding of material possessions, but the Volkswagen van is inseparably associated with them. During the 1960s the term underground acquired a new meaning in that it referred to members of the so-called counterculture, i. ... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ...

Notes

1. ^ New York City in the United States and Manchester in England are both notable for being the home of several sub-cultures during the second half of the twentieth century. Both are also the two major cities outside the capitals of their respective countries, with areas that were greatly impoverished.
2. ^ In other respects grunge was not self-conscious at all. An example being that its style of dress came about through the practical needs and financial considerations of its members, rather than a desire by its members to distinguish themselves.