An example of Candy Ravers

A candy raver (sometimes "kandy raver", "kandi raver", "Candee Child", "candykid", or "kandi kid") is a rave attendee who exchanges or shares small gifts, primarily beads, necklaces, bracelets, stickers, or candy. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 208 KB) Summary Example of candy ravers for Rave to replace possible copyviolation. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 208 KB) Summary Example of candy ravers for Rave to replace possible copyviolation. ... For other uses, see Rave (disambiguation). ... Beads Cloisonné beads Dichroic beads (10 mm) A bead is a small, decorative object that is pierced for threading or stringing. ... For other senses of this word, see necklace (disambiguation). ... Bead and wire styled Bracelet. ... Sticker has the following meanings: sticker (paper) - a piece of paper that contains a side that is sticky. ... For other uses, see Candy (disambiguation). ...

Candy ravers are most widely known (and sometimes identified) by their brightly coloured, often childish or even cartoony fashions, such as day-glo phat pants, black light reactive or glow-in-the-dark gear, and t-shirts featuring cartoon characters. Almost all can be spotted wearing a large number of homemade bracelets of plastic beads, known as "kandy". The bracelets are often given as gifts to remember past raves and commemorate new friendships. Raver wearing his phat pants Phat pants covered in reflective material. ...

Origins of the culture

Candy ravers can primarily trace their style of fashion to the late 1980s culture and the "Summer of Love" in the United Kingdom. Fashion in clubs at the time were primarily day-glo colored attire, smiley face clothing, and whistles. Image File history File links Smiley. ... For other uses of smiley and smiley face, see Smiley (disambiguation). ...

Many spelling variants occur throughout the rave scene when referring to this subculture, although the actual origins of the term are unknown. Use of the term on Usenet alt.rave shows earliest reference to the spelling "candee"^[1]. With alternates "kandy"^[2], "kandi"^[3], "candi"^[4], "candy" ^[5], following later. Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... The hierarchy is a major class of newsgroups in Usenet, containing all newsgroups whose name begins with , organized hierarchically. ...

Several of the Hyperreal mailing lists have posts predating the use on usenet such as this one by Vladimir Katz dated October 21, 1994: Hyperreal can mean several things: Hyperreal is a Polish web site: Hyperreal web site Hyperreal is a kind of number: Hyperreal number Hyperreal is a term coined by philosopher Albert Borgmann in his Crossing the Postmodern Divide This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages...

Everyone felt free to be themselves do what they want be free with no fear of being looked down on. People came in costumes people gave out candy people introduced themselves to random others!!^[6]

Beadwork

Typical Kandy bracelets

A pile of typical kandi bracelets and necklaces

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The Making Of

Kandy (or "kandi") is generally made of plastic pony beads with various other beads. Heart and star shapes, pom-pom beads, letter beads, and glow-in-the-dark beads are popular choices when making kandy and are generally made with elastic string to stretch. Candy ravers will sometimes hold parties just for the sake of making kandy, generally as gifts for friends.

Kandy has two main functions.

Visual effect

The first is the visual effect that kandy creates. They are usually very bright day-glo colours chosen especially for the purpose of the visual effects created when someone dances wearing them while being illuminated by different types and colours of lights. The sequence of colours chosen will often appear jumbled and somewhat random but the beads are typically chosen to contrast with other beads making them visually jump out. Some beads will also be UV reactive and glow in the dark. Blacklight paint or blacklight-reactive paint is paint that glows under a blacklight. ... Phosphorescence is a radiative transition involving a change in the spin multiplicity of a molecule. ...

Community

The second function of kandy is a gift that a raver will give or swap with new friends, and new ravers they have just met. In the rave culture of certain areas, this exchange will be performed by connecting fingers with the recipient of the gift and sliding it from their own arm to the other's.