- essay about music genre and identity (how genre affects identity basically) *particularly youth identity
- focus n one particular genre that is relevant today and to today's society (seapunk0
- seapunk - tumblr, 2011, net aesthetic, underground, inspired by sea, waves, aquatic aesthetic, 1980;s style
- ultrademon - started as twitter hashtag #seapunk
- utilises elements of cyberpunk, chopping up 90's inspired cover art and designs to create an oceanic feel
- became a meme - members feeling oppresed? and undermined
- album cover designs - coral records internazionale
- *mention other views (articles making it a meme) and perhaps artists using it in a 'wrong' way? - *here maybe add some of the theories from identity and consumption research.
THEORIES?
- "the cycle of production and consumption" now moves. "Fashion and music, they're much cheaper and they're much faster today," she says. "I think it's a lot easier to be promiscuous, subculturally speaking. When I was a teenager, you had to make more commitment to music and fashion, because it took more of a financial investment. I had a pair of gothy stiletto boots, which lasted me for years: I had to make a sort of commitment to looking like that, because I wasn't going to get another pair of alternative shoes any time soon, so I had to think about which ones I wanted. Now, it's all a bit more blurry, the semiotic signs are not quite as hard-edged as they used to be."
- Something has clearly changed, and over the past week, I've listened to a lot of hypotheses as to why, of varying degrees of plausibility. A sociologist at the University of Sussex, Dr Kevin White, tells me he thinks it has something to do with Britain's changing class structure. Elswehere, there's a rather grumpy "tsk-kids-today" theory that teenagers are now so satiated by the plethora of entertainment on offer that they don't feel the need to rebel through dress or ritual – and a deeply depressing one that people are too worried about their futures in the current financial climate to be creative. And I've had a long and fascinating conversation with historian David Fowler, author of the acclaimed book Youth Culture in Modern Britain, who has an intriguing, if controversial, theory that subcultures such as hippy and punk had very little to do with the actual teenagers who participated in them – "They were consumers … they were sort of puppets" – and were instead informed and controlled by a slightly older, university-educated generation. "Youth culture as a kind of transformative, counter-cultural philosophy, it has to be shaped by older people and invariably it's by students," he says. Today, the lack of anything equivalent to the radical student movements of the 60s that fed into both the hippy movement and punk means a lack of ideas trickling down into pop culture.
- But the most straightforward, prosaic theory is that, as with virtually every area of popular culture, it's been radically altered by the advent of the internet: that we now live in a world where teenagers are more interested in constructing an identity online than they are in making an outward show of their allegiances and interests."It's not neccesarily happening on street corners any more, but it's certainly happening online," says Adams. "It's a lot easier to adopt personas online that cost you absolutely nothing apart from demonstrating certain types of arcane knowledge, what Sarah Thornton called subcultural capital. You don't have to invest in a teddy boy's drape suit or a T-shirt from Seditionaries."
- Once you start examining subcultures online, things become blurred and confusing, compounded by the fact that a lot of online subcultures seem to come cloaked in layers of knowing irony. In search of latterday youth subcultures, I'm pointed in various directions by various people, but I invariably can't work out whether what I'm looking at is meant to be serious or a joke: never really a problem in the days when members of different youth cults were prepared to thump each other. There's plenty of stuff that seems weird and striking and creative out there, but there's something oddly self-conscious and non-committal about it: perhaps that's the result of living in a world dominated by social media, where you're under constant surveillance by your peers.*identity and consuption theory
*I feel like because theres such a broad mix of things that can be talked about within this topic - although I am approaching the essay through questioning it within the music field; I will talk about the music genre (subculture that is 'seapunk') as more of a reference and a kind of main example that helps strengthens my points and theories within the essay, rather than actually going on about the subculture itself as I feel like this may lead me to a rabbit hole of talking about topics which are irrelevant to my study. Also, after having a short talk with Pete about the kind of things I should talk about in my essay, choosing a genre more relevant today such as seapunk would be more effective in discussing the points of my essay as it directs more to the modern society today such as today's youth, subculture and trends, all of which I think would be much more appropriate and successful in answering the essay topic that I am doing.
- possible essay structure
- introduction - talk about how music is a big influence in peoples identities especially during adolescents and how it can help shape their personal and social identities.
- talk about the earlier decades and how music and identity was like back then BRIEFLY then slowly ease in to the today's era topic and make it more relevant
- talk about theories of music and identity - 1) trends (cycle of consumption) can cover music design aesthetic in relation to consumer lifestyle and affiliation *make it graphic design relevant 2) media relevance (main stream or not mainstream) 3) the internet
- *maybe do my own survey - people music taste, ask about music aesthetic relevance to their own lifestyle choices, use of internet, how they acquire their music,
How does a music genre’s aesthetic affect a consumer’s personal identity?
Intro - brief explanation about the difference in identity representations in previous decades e.g. punk, goth style more with outward appearance -> also linked to social representation etc.
Quotes to use:
‘Questions of Cultural Identity: SAGE Publications’
Simon Firth
Edited by: Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay
Music seems to be a key to identity because it offers, so intensely, a sense of both self and others, of the subjective in the collective. (p 110)
is not that social groups agree on values which are then expressed in their cultural activities (the assumption of the homology models) but that they only get to know themselves as groups (as a particular organization of individual and social interests, of sameness and difference) through cultural activity, through aesthetic judgement. Making music isn't a way of expressing ideas; it is a way of living them. (p 111)
‘Youth Identity and Music’ 2002
Mark Tarrant, Adrian C. North and David J. Hargreaves https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=u2N7DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA134&dq=music+and+youth+identity&ots=obmKTy8WDH&sig=hA0MjwJI0-s3aykyrSA9bDJYj4I#v=onepage&q=music%20and%20youth%20identity&f=false
a major appeal of music to adolescents lies in its ability to help them form positive social identities. (p 139)
*** can be used when talking about people ma make fun or not like seapunk**
potential identity-serving function of affiliation with music; seen to act as a label, or ‘badge’ of identification’ —> basis for discriminatory behaviour helping to elevate one’s self- esteem and strengthen social identity and feeling of community
stylistic discrimination
statements about music might also act as central qualities by conveying meta-information about the listener , which in turn can be used to make a social judgement. (p 139)
mainstream and non mainstream subcultures?
‘Club Cultures Music, media and Subcultural Capital 1995)
Sarah Thornton
Comparatively little attention, however, has been paid to the hierarchies within popular culture. Although judgements of value are made as a matter of course, few scholars have empirically examined the systems of social and cultural distinction that divide and demarcate contemporary culture, particularly youth cultured. (p 21)
I use the term ‘subcultures’ to identify those taste cultures which are labelled by media as subcultures and the word ‘subcultural’ as a synonym (p 22)
‘SUBCULTURES OR NEO-TRIBES? RETHINKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUTH, STYLE AND MUSICAL TASTE’ Vol. 33 No. 3 1999
Andy Bennett
refers more to a certain ambience, a state of mind, and is preferably to be expressed through lifestyles that favour appearance and form’ (p 605)
aspect of consumer-based youth cultures since the establishment of the post-war youth market. (p 614) **basis for possible counter paragraph which i can lead to introduce main topic of digital age and youth subcultures or today!)
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