Subculture

If I were to try and sum up the American lifestyle, the first thing that comes to mind would be consumerism. By childhood you should be striving to succeed academically, so that you can go to college, and then you can get a good job. That is what Americans do, we work hard so that we can spend big. We spend more than what we work for. We are obsessed with image, we love sports, we value family, and we believe in God. The order that falls in varies depending on the day of the week, on Sundays some would reverse the order.

I know that this is not true for everyone, and it is just a stereotype, but unfortunately it is often what is portrayed. Pop culture is what represents our society on a global level. What the mass media decides to produce speaks for all of us and most of the time this is sex, selfishness, and greed. What most people don't ever see, except every now and then on 20/20 or Wife Swap, are the hundreds of subcultures that are a reality to many of us.

A subculture is a social group within a national culture that have ideas, beliefs, and customs, that differ from the main stream culture. Teenagers are often a breeding ground for these groups. They are bursting at the seams to express themselves and to be an individual, but they don't want to do it alone. I used to be a substitute teacher and was assigned to a gym class once. While the Jr. high kids were doing laps one of the coaches starting talking about a student he described as an emu kid. Another coach asked what that was and the answer was that it was a gang that dye their hair black, wear girl jeans, and listen to depressing music. As someone who went to High School in the era that birthed Emo, I was a little more in touch with the times than they were. The subculture that they were referring to is actually called EMO not emu, and derived from a style of indie rock music, everything else they said was fairly accurate. That's just one example of subculture.

As for me, in someways I am as average as they come. I am married with one child, a college education, a part time job, and some debt that is along for the ride. Then again, as a natural birth, delayed vaccine, buy everything used, charismatic christian I guess that poses the question "what is normal anyway?"