After understanding the prevailing view of youth image within mainstream society, let us further discuss the formation and significance of youth subculture. Join us to learn, how to view youth group through this understanding. When discussing youth-related issues, we usually start from physiology, development and perspectives, or even the vision of psychological. We can also view youth-related issues through the sociological perspective. This course put great emphasis on sociological perspective. Why? Remember that I mentioned in the last lecture, youth is the product of society, in other words, not every country, society, or culture will regard youth as a distinct group. Neither do they include youth in the consideration of some issues. But the strange part is, in terms of physical development, no matter which country or society, everyone will need to spend time through their 12-18 years old, don't they? Why do those countries not discuss youth issue? In other words, the reason why these societies do not discuss youth issues is simply that youth does not exist within them. We certainly don't have to discuss their cultural issues, or even their needs and problems, if the youth doesn't exist within their society. Because of this, I hope to discuss issues about youth subculture in the following lecture. What is subculture? What is culture? Why do we have to discuss subculture? Due to the fact that subculture is an important perspective when discussing youth-related issues. Let's start from culture. What is culture? Culture is the blueprint that human behavior follows within the society and general term of human's lifestyle. So what is mainstream culture? Mainstream culture is the customs, values, beliefs that held by the majority of a society. Subculture, to be honest, is a concept created by the American urban sociologist, Fischer. It refers to cultural values and behavior patterns that shared by a small number of people or a specific group. It can be composed of people with different age, occupation, gender, environment, ethnicity, or religious. Within every society, different types of subculture exist. As for the subculture of youth? Obviously, it is distinct by age, that is to say, values and behavior that specifically belongs to the youth. Before we start to discuss the intention of youth subculture, let us brainstorm first! I believe many of you get it right! Conservatism and obedience are definitely not a part of the youth subculture. What everyone should pay attention is that the prefix "sub-" doesn't mean "secondary" It just means "different from mainstream" Similarly, "subculture" contains no negative meaning. It just represents the difference from mainstream society. However, youth subculture contains some negative perception within most of the mainstream societies. Wondering the reason? Let me give you an interesting example: This is a transformer box which can be found everywhere in Taiwan. Quite ugly, right? It's green and dirty. So a Taiwanese youth rights organization came up with an idea. They hoped the youth could draw some graffiti on these green dirty covers to beautify transformer boxes. Then they submitted the application to the relevant department. After the application, it was interesting that the department replied that they could paint transformer boxes, but not draw graffiti and never use that word. It also asked whether they could change the word into "paint". If they did, the application could be approved. And using the word graffiti was not appropriate. Why? I'm sure that everyone understands, for most people, painting is representative of a kind of beauty and an expression of art. As for graffiti? We often connect it with deviance and youth subculture. But can drawing graffiti be always considered violation? Is graffiti always illegal? Isn't it a genre of art? If you carefully study relevant text, you will find that not all graffiti is illegal except it is prohibited. But don't forget the organization submitted an formal application in this example. But even in the formal application, the adults in the relevant department still considered inappropriate using the word graffiti. Nevertheless, there is still a strong stigma of anti-culture attached to graffiti in our society. Although there are many discussions assume that graffiti can be a way of public art performance in the past few years, However, this kind of public art performance is more acceptable to youths rather than adults. In fact, the prejudice that adults have on youth also cause negative impression on the acceptance of youth to those behavior and image. On the other hand, in addition to our misunderstanding of the word "subculture", I think we misunderstand the subculture which we confuse it with what so-called counterculture. What is counterculture? When some subculture completely oppose the value, belief, attitude or convention of the mainstream culture. and build an alternative standard system. We call this kind of subculture counterculture. Like gangs, indeed in many societies, is a counterculture. However, not all youths are involved in gangs, so we have to remind everyone that subculture is not the same as the counterculture. Even though counterculture may be a form of subculture. Well, then why should we have to understand youths have the phenomenon of subculture? And why youths are particularly easy to form the subculture. Remember the previous lecture, we mentioned that youths are a product of industrial development. Rapid industrialization and urbanization make many youths in the position of the border. What is the border? It's neither adults nor children. Adults have the responsibility while children are protected. But how about youths? It is embarrassing. Thus, youths are pushed to the position of the border and it causes the possibility of the formation of subculture in youths' group. We'd like to take today's topic to let everybody know how youths affirm their existence through subculture and clarify their role expectations. We should notice that the more highly developed, or more economically developed of the country, it is more probable to form the so-called sub-cultural phenomenon. On the previous lecture, I also mentioned about forty or fifty years ago in Taiwan and many ethnic Chinese worlds, shouldn't be the existence of youths' subculture. No one would discuss them. No goods were regarded them as the target audience to do marketing. So the existence of youths' subculture, obviously has its special meaning and function. Then what meanings and functions are they? I want everybody to know that subculture provides our youths common values and norms. We find that youths are rather less courteous and hypocritical. But adults say those aren't less courteous and hypocritical but impolite. Youths create their own language which is concise, abbreviating and to avoid red tape through subculture. But in our points of views, it's terrible. Text-speak, emoji, and a lot of abbreviating and incoherent terms appeared. Sub-culture also provides a specific form of media. The Internet we know is only for youth. We always say they abuse the Internet, but they think they are making good use of it. Moreover, subculture also reminds us that youths are always at the forefront of the trend. They have fashionable clothing, hairstyle, and makeup. But many people will call them weird dress and be unconventional. Are they quite similar? And subculture helps youths build up a sense of identity. Become us, but not the unique way they establish their position. In other words, most of the teenagers don't like to define one's value by wealth and power. They are non-utilitarian. But many adults will blame them for being so unrealistic. Youth subculture also provides social support. Buddies, sisters, let's have fun together, but adults regard them as "a pack of rogues": why you guys always gather together? Can you guys do some serious stuff? Similarly, youth subculture recognizes their special internal needs. Within youth subculture, some behaviors that are not allowed by adults are actually not a big deal. For example, wandering outside in the midnight will be regarded as just playing, in youth perspective. In such a concept, we found that youth subculture actually provide themselves a new way to bring in creativity and identity in order to help teenagers recognize their existence, complete development, and provide themselves a comfortable haven. However, adults' understanding to youth subculture will make teenagers feel alienated to them. If adults try their best to understand the view of youth and recognize the significance of subculture in teenagers perspective, they will find that what a creative generation the youth are! Youth's ability to innovate is truly what adults should learn from!
