Toward a theory of subcultural mosaic: Fragmentation into and within subcultures

Abstract

We present an integrated and more nuanced analysis of the observed tendency toward eclectic, fragmented, and paradoxical subcultures in contemporary society. Through a critical ethnographic approach, we investigate the factors contributing to the motives that impel people to seek subcultural membership, which leads to fragmentation. We interview people who are avid participants of music-based subcultures. Findings reveal that subcultural antagonism and identity politics are the two factors guiding fragmentation into subcultures in contemporary society. People seek solace in membership in multiple subcultures since each subculture provides a distinct escape from different oppressions perceived in the mainstream. This cultivates the impetus for fragmentation within subcultures. Subcultural fragmentation is voluntary, resistive, and subversive. The constant fragmentation and the multiplicity and fluidity of subcultural memberships give rise to what we call a radical subcultural mosaic referring to eclectic subcultural affiliation and composite subcultural memberships fermenting presentational discourses of resistance. Members of the radical subcultural mosaic seek agency and collectivity, creativity in heterogeneity, and propose novel alternative modes of living.

Keywords

Subculture fragmentation consumer culture resistance music

Introduction

Fragmentation is recognized as a pervasive phenomenon in contemporary societies (Baudrillard, 1983; Lyotard, 1984). It is a consequence of cultural trends toward postmodernity (Featherstone, 1991; Jameson, 1991) and exploding technologies, mostly in communications, and a reaction to mainstream modern culture that institutionalizes the market and commercialism (Fırat and Venkatesh, 1995; Harvey, 1990). One expression of this fragmentation is found in the exponential increase in the number of subcultures, groups that constitute their own cultures and alternative modes of living and being largely on the basis of personal and collective choices and preferences arising from specific worldviews, lifestyles, musical interests, and ideological orientations (Haenfler, 2006; Hebdige, 1979; Williams, 2011). Furthermore, fragmentation increasingly occurs within subcultures with each subculture giving birth to multiple others (Ulusoy and Fırat, 2011; Weinstein, 2000; Wood, 2006).

Largely a topic of interest in sociology and cultural studies (Gelder and Thornton, 1997; Hall and Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979; Jenks, 2005; Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003), subcultures also get some attention in marketing and consumer research (De Burgh-Woodman and Brace-Govan, 2007; Goulding et al., 2002; Kates, 2002; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995; Ulusoy, 2016) since contemporary subcultures are arguably increasingly formed around consumer lifestyles and tastes (Cova et al., 2007; Muggleton, 2000; Thornton, 1995; VanderMeer and Chambers, 2012). Currently, however, a theory that satisfactorily explains the motivations behind fragmentation into and within subcultures does not exist. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the development of such a theory.

Literature on fragmentation and subcultures

Fragmentation is a phenomenon observed in multiple contexts, including architecture (Copeland, 1983; Jencks, 1991), consumption (Featherstone, 1991; Fırat and Venkatesh, 1995), and culture (Baudrillard, 1998; Jameson, 1991). It is observed as a contemporary phenomenon, but the only explanation has been the growing discontent with modernity and the current state of world affairs (Bauman, 1997; Kaplan, 1988). The discontent with imposing metanarratives in modern culture is specifically recognized (Lyotard, 1984). Why such discontent breeds fragmentation needs further exploration.

The literature on subcultures illustrates that they are not stable, static, and clearly identifiable entities, but constantly in the making (Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003; Ulusoy, 2016). At least four different approaches to the study of subcultures exist in extant literature. The traditional approach defines subculture on the basis of stable and historically clearly demarcated categories found in both traditional and modern lineages, namely, nationality, ethnicity, and religion (Gordon, 1997; Green, 1946). Here, subculture is understood as a grouping of the population under a common culture, but separated by the lineages mentioned.

The Chicago School tradition defines subculture as a grouping of deviant, pathological, and undesirable social elements within the mainstream society, which is perceived to be healthy (Becker, 1963; Cohen, 1955; Irwin, 1970). In this tradition, a subculture poses a degree of threat to the normative structure and cohesive whole of society due to non-conformist and oppositional stances adopted by its members (Bennett and Kahn-Harris, 2004).

The neo-Marxist approach to subculture, largely developed by the Center of Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham School, introduces a different scope by claiming that the origination and maintenance of subcultures rely heavily on class-based orientations and experiences of dominated working-class youth. Experiences of members of the under-class lead them to resist the hegemonic dominant structure through styles and rituals with subversive qualities (Hall and Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979). The contribution of the CCCS approach is its insights into subcultures and the mass culture by largely highlighting not only the political significance of subcultures and their resistant and subversive qualities but also the cultural significance and creative potential of the youth segment. However, this approach methodologically seems to lack the empirical evidence from ethnographic studies wherein members do speak for themselves (Muggleton, 2000; Williams, 2011). Also, this approach theoretically confines the existence of the subcultural phenomenon to a mere class-based experience of subordinated working-class social groups whose agency potential is seen inferior to overcome the dominant social structure.

In contrast to these orientations that confine subcultures into predetermined and given lineages and relatively static categories, people are observed to have the potential and the vision to generate their own categories, not needing to fit in predetermined and static categories with boundaries (McCracken, 1986; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Subcultures seem to transcend the boundaries of aforementioned categories as globalization becomes more widespread and fosters new trends in societies (Appelbaum and Robinson, 2005; Fırat, 1997; Ritzer, 2007). People construct and structure cultural identities more often on the basis of their personal and collective choices and production and consumption activities, also exhibiting a growing engagement with “craft consumption” (Campbell, 2005) and do-it-yourself practices (Watson and Shove, 2008). Even ethnicities are often found to be constructed rather than born into (Bouchet, 1995; Lamont, 2001). Increasingly, people tend to organize their lives on the basis of their lifestyles, musical interests, and sexual and ideological orientations (Bennett, 1999; Haenfler, 2006; Hebdige, 1979; Kates, 2002; Ulusoy, 2016).

Consequently, according to a fourth, post-subculturalist approach, distinctions of contemporary subcultures from the larger society or other communities are determined on the basis of consumption patterns and objects; thus, the distinctions are increasingly blurred, fluid, ephemeral, and temporal (Muggleton, 2000; Thornton, 1995). Postmodern subculture identities are multiple and fluid and subcultural style is no longer articulated around the relations of class, gender, or ethnicity (Maffesoli, 1996; Muggleton, 2000; Redhead, 1997). This newer approach makes the style-orientation of subcultures the focal point (Muggleton, 2000). A consumer with fragmented existence demands an unrestricted venue to navigate freely without belonging to any unity and commits only temporarily and affectively to a variety of styles (Maffesoli, 1996; Muggleton, 2000; Redhead, 1997). In this “style surfing” (Polhemus, 1996), consumers

move quickly and freely from one style to another as they wish; indeed, this high degree of sartorial mobility becomes a source of playfulness and pleasure. They do not have to worry about contradictions among their selected subcultural identities for there are no rules, there is no authenticity, no ideological commitment, merely a stylistic game to be played. (Muggleton, 2000: 471)

Critical observers of postmodernity argue that consumers retain only the image of fashion, not the idea, which marks the notion that meaning gets lost (Lyotard, 1984) and gives way to spectacle (Baudrillard, 1983). According to these critics, subcultural style represents only appearance without any deeper message. Thus, emphasis is placed on the qualities of the spectacle that do not represent any underlying ideology (Muggleton, 2000) and on individual hedonistic escape rather than on class-based resistance (Anderson, 2009).

Post-subcultural approach’s contribution to subcultural studies is the introduction of fragmented and pluralistic aspects of subcultures by employing ethnographic studies that allow the members to speak for themselves. However, this approach’s consideration of subcultures merely as aesthetic codes and styles that are turned into simulacra (Baudrillard, 1983) may be an oversimplification (Shildrick and MacDonald, 2006). It overemphasizes the hyper-individualized characteristic of contemporary subcultures and defines the phenomenon simply on the basis of de-politicized consumer lifestyles and taste-based communities. It does so by marking the demise of, or at best overlooking, the collective ties and resistance qualities of subcultures and the ideological orientations of subculture members (Blackman, 2005). Individual efforts are not sufficient for a subculture to be constructed. In order for individually promoted life modes to become a subculture, a community is required. Consumers seeking affective expressions of style can achieve meaning and sustained existence through participation in or construction of communities (Fırat and Dholakia, 2006). Therefore, contrary to the claims of most of the post-subcultural theorists, it can be argued that the condition of fragmentation does not simply promote individualism but also collectivities.

In summary, earlier studies of subcultures either adopt a monolithic and modernist perspective assuming subcultures to arise from relatively homogeneous backgrounds and clearly demarcated, received categories, such as social class, ethnicity, nationality, and religion, or they propose subcultures to arise from divisive tendencies: delinquent and deviant marginal social groupings or de-politicized and merely taste-based consumer communities. Although each of these theoretical approaches may account for part of the subcultural phenomenon, there is a need for a more nuanced analysis and approach to understand and explore to a greater extent the tendencies of fragmented, multifaceted, complex, paradoxical, critical, and eclectic subcultures in contemporary society.

Music subcultures as the research context

We chose music subcultures as the context for this research because music is a form of art that holds the potential to create the key symbolic elements for social change and transformation (Adorno, 1997; Debord, 2000; Habermas, 1991). It can disrupt existing power structures (Bradshaw and Shankar, 2008). Music plays a key role in the formation and proliferation of many subcultures (Bennett, 1999; Hebdige, 1979). As Bennett (1999) notes, subcultures most often originate as a combination of ideology, tailored uniqueness, and musical taste. Music is a leisure activity most youth subcultures are formed around and, thus, directs the focus on subcultural identity (Hebdige, 1979). Frith (1996) argues that music is not simply a means of reflecting people but also producing them and creating experience. Music becomes a core component in the creation of subcultures (Williams, 2003). As cultural taste becomes more fragmented (Savage, 2006), music serves as the tie of subcultural phenomena (Williams, 2006). Music is distinguished from other art forms due to its transcendent popularity in everyday life (Savage, 2006). It is a catalyst facilitating entry into a subculture as well as diffusing it to wider audiences. Active participation in the production and consumption of music creates and transforms subcultural identities by cultivating likely extraordinary experiences via subcultural escapades (Ulusoy, 2016). Music has a central status in facilitating subcultural participation and identification (Williams, 2006) because it is a subcultural resource that members utilize easily and draw on its culturally integrative potential for ultimately creating collective identity and memory (Eyerman, 2002).

Fragmentation within subcultures

Several “sub-subcultures,” such as hardcore, straightedge, grunge, emo, goth, riot grrrl, ska, hip-hop, black metal, death metal, metalcore, acid jazz, club, house, and techno, have emerged from initial subcultures or from a combination of subcultures. This derivative emergence of further subcultures both manifests and reinforces fragmentation in contemporary society. Since a growing number of consumers now participate in and organize their consumption activities and preferences in and through these subcultures, a more insightful and a broader understanding of contemporary and future consumption patterns will be helped by understanding the development of subcultures.

Methodology

We used critical ethnographic methods to investigate the factors contributing to the motivations of subculture members to advance theoretical insight into the phenomenon of fragmentation into and within subcultures. Specifically, perspectives of consumers who participate in music-based subcultures in their everyday lives are explored. We employed phenomenological interviews (Thompson et al., 1989) to generate varied and rich textual data and “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of subcultural consumers’ first person expressions of everyday experiences with mainstream consumer culture as well as their subcultural activities. We used netnographic research (Kozinets, 2002b) to enhance diversity of data for triangulation. From 2011 to 2014, discussions and threads in several forums, blogs, and social media groups on the Internet that focus on punk, metal, hardcore, straightedge, and alt rock music were observed. We took photographs of subculture members and their scenes and made field notes. Participant observations were made in several hardcore, punk, metal, alternative rock music–related events, shows, video clip shootings, house parties, and rehearsal studios for over 2 years in a South Texas region.

From 2012 to 2013, we recruited and interviewed 25 volunteer informants until we reached a theoretical saturation where nothing of new significance arose as we conducted the last few interviews. In total, 15 interviews were audio-recorded and 10 were recorded in written notes. They were selected for their affiliations with one or more aforementioned music-based subcultures. We contacted music bands, solo artists, and musicians engaging actively in subcultural scenes. The initial informants were found through personal contacts and through attendance at subcultural music scene activities, including concerts, shows, video clip shooting, bars, rehearsal studios, and house parties, as well as through contacts made via their social media networking accounts. For the subsequent informants, and especially those we could not readily reach otherwise, we employed the snowballing technique. We provided gift cards as an incentive to encourage participants for these personal in-depth interviews. Each informant was informed of the purpose of the study and assured anonymity and confidentiality, and her or his consent was obtained. We conducted all the interviews in a convenient and quiet place, such as an office or study room on a university campus or at the informant’s residence.

Interviews began with a set of “grand tour” questions (McCracken, 1988) about informants’ general demographic and background information to set the stage for an open-ended dialogue, then continued with general questions regarding their lifestyles, subjective narratives, and perceptions regarding their subcultural experiences and history of their involvement. We asked informants to elaborate their subcultural experiences and narratives through probing and follow-up questions as well as clarification questions where necessary. In so doing, we paid attention to let the course of the dialogue be set largely by the informants throughout the interview. The discussion points were generated mainly in the course of the dialogue rather than on a predetermined document (Thompson et al., 1989). At the end of each interview, specific demographic information was gathered, including age, sex, education, occupation, and religious affiliation. All informants are US citizens whose ages range from 22 to 42. Currently, they are all residents in South Texas representing different ethnicities, but mostly Hispanic Americans, given that the population in South Texas where research was conducted is predominantly Hispanic. The stories these individuals tell regarding their subcultural membership, worldviews, lifestyles, musical interests, and ideological orientations are reflective of our informants from other ethnicities.

We interpreted and analyzed the textual data to capture and expose the meanings and experiences that subcultural members’ narratives had in common with the broader narrative of subcultures and a mainstream consumer culture. We evaluated each interpretation by referring back to the transcript and revised as we gathered more textual data. As discussed by Thompson et al. (1989), this approach involves continuous iterative part-to-whole process of interpretation and stresses identifying recurring common experiential patterns among transcripts, which are referred to as themes. Finally, we adopted a poststructuralist approach in the subsequent interpretation stage to highlight the dynamic interplay between the subjective lived experiences of subculture members and contemporary sociocultural discourses.

Findings

The narratives by people who opt to become subculture members highlight antagonisms toward institutionalized impositions. These combine with reactions to hegemonic discourses that shape social life. Such comprehensive resistance toward current dominant institutionalizations in society is coupled with growing fragmentation. This seeming paradox is telling regarding the tensions people encounter in contemporary culture and signals the need for a new theory that can account for such paradoxes – a need we attempt to respond to with this research.

Fragmentation into subcultures

Subcultural antagonism

Subcultures that allow likes and lifestyles different from the mainstream provide the means to resist and disassociate from the dominant regime that frustrates and alienates. Generation of such “tribes” (Maffesoli, 1996) produces a new form of fragmentation. In an attempt to avoid subsequent social isolation and seeking to connect against various modes of alienation, our informants are drawn into the subcultures mainly through the passion and emotion the music releases, with its mostly angry and aggressive tones and controversial messages that they can relate to. An emotional connection these individuals feel with the music seems to create a bond with others who also participate:

… just wanting to change the world, wanting a place to call their home, wanting to be affiliated with punk rock because it was a way to empty out this loneliness. (Dave)

I listened to some of those songs so much as a kid because I felt the concept, kind of like, an alienation, being kind of an outcast, being kind of looked at from a distance and kind of laughed at … (Bob)

So the people that I got along with were not like mainstream culture. And that’s why I liked it is ‘cause they [subcultures] accepted me for who I was … But I really just liked rock music ‘cause of the energy. I guess the anger, it captivated me, I could relate with it … The music is why I guess I got along with certain people. (Donna)

With pleasures of sociable consumption, subcultural music scenes are venues of meaning-making activities (Silver et al., 2010). Subcultural consumption involves products, ideas, and experiences that signify a symbolic solution to the problems of everyday life as well as to the structural problems at both the individual and collective levels (Ulusoy, 2016). Subcultural consumption revolving around cultural products and activities are complex and embedded in shared lifestyles that go beyond the act of buying in order to fit into the mainstream consumerist ideology. Yet, active participation in consumer culture still arguably continues through subcultural consumption activities, such as going to concerts and festivals and buying musical instruments, T-shirts, and DVDs:

Because that’s [metal subculture] what – that’s what I grew up with. That was my first real passion … it was just my life revolve around metal. You know I would wear the t-shirts every day, I would watch videos on the internet all day of my favorite bands, I would buy the DVDs, I would – they were like a huge, huge, huge part of my life … (Charles)

Despite consumptive behaviors, discontent with the hegemony of mainstream consumer culture is repeatedly expressed. Activist consumers regard anti-consumption as tactical resistance to address the ills of consumer culture and develop strategies to achieve broader socio-political transformation (Kozinets and Handelman, 2004; Portwood-Stacer, 2012). Similarly, our informants deem consumerism detrimental for people, the environment, and society; antagonism toward the commercial market culture is palpable:

Sometimes people don’t care … They just want more. They want the biggest TV and the biggest house and they want five cars … I have to make that assumption not just because they’re not in the subculture, but from what I’ve seen … If you read enough magazines and you watch enough reality TV, if you watch “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” you’re going to want to be like them … We’re getting drilled into our heads that we can make it, that we’re all going to be rich one day, and you see it everywhere like commercials and TV shows, books and articles. I think that mentality is what’s killing us. (Amy)

Both the acceptance of a vision of capitalist society (Williams, 2011) and the ignorance of negative consequences associated with such vision (Shukaitis et al., 2007) are shunned. Subculture is seen as a relief from the perceived oppressive presence of consumer culture, a space where positive energy can be nurtured, not simply resistance:

Well, the subcultures kind of break away from that [consumer culture] …I feel like sometimes we’re not a part of that world because we’re not materialistic, because we care about issues that need to be taken care of before they eat us alive. (Amy)

Power and greed are often expressed to be the core values in market logic:

The oil industry is … so powerful it’s controlling our government and they have so much money that they are making all kinds of laws now that have basically, that are slowly stripping away our human rights and they’re undermining environmental laws that were put into place by the government. They know that they’re killing us with this GMO and subsidized foods but they also know that they can make a lot of money because there’s money in sick people. (Kate)

Although each complaint seems to be directed at a different target – different corporations, the government, and so on – the antagonism expressed is cohesive around the idea that all ills addressed result from a mainstream market ideology. How such cohesive disgruntlement results in increasingly fragmented subcultural memberships rather than a cohesive activist front is a phenomenon that requires explanation. We attempt this in the following sections, specifically by illustrating the pervasiveness of the postmodern sensibility among informants who exhibit a strong skepticism toward the possibility of a meaningful overarching culture and identity. Instead, they seek multiplicity.

Subcultural identity politics

Traditional identities have been largely defined on the bases of nationality, ethnicity, religion, occupation, and family (Bocock, 1993). With the cultural turn from modern to postmodern, however, people are observed to construct and express identities more often on the basis of their personal and collective choices, constructions, and consumption patterns (Lamont, 2001; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Although subcultures collectively resist consumer culture, individuals consume subcultures to construct and maintain individual and collective identities:

If we identify with a certain subculture, whether it’d be music, we absorb their morals and their thoughts and then we try and incorporate that in our social life. (Donna)

Right now I feel like it [death metal subculture] just kind of exists with me … it’s just become a part of who I am. I guess it’s part of my identity now … (Darrell)

Mainstream consumer identity, considered to reflect the mainstream ideology, constitutes a negative model that subcultural identities ought to avoid in order to protect self-esteem and field-dependent identity investments and to avoid undesired self-association (Ogilvie, 1987), as well as to devalue marketplace myths (Arsel and Thompson, 2011). Discontent with the mainstream culture is displayed using the narrative of the dialectic between mainstream and subcultural music:

Mainstream music is very artificial and very fake … I find it to be extremely corporate … All they want is money. But if you really get into the subculture music and you really listen to the lyrics, there’s, people are still talking about social issues and global issues. Mainstream music is doing it on purpose or something. They’re trying to – I don’t know – make you insensitive or desensitize you from what’s really going on in the world today … (Rob)

Subcultures represent symbolic resistance to hegemony with which they are in a semiotic guerilla warfare (Hebdige, 1979). However, informants find the mainstream market-based commercial culture largely impossible to break, especially since most people have internalized it and have become mainstream consumers:

It has come to that way because the people have let it … So it’s no more for the quality or for what the people want. It’s for money which I think is what is driving mostly all of these were greed. (Edward)

There are echoes of Critical Theory that argued capitalism to be a promoter of artificial culture, using communication media to manipulate the masses (Fromm, 1979; Habermas, 1991; Marcuse, 1969):

It’s so difficult to find bands and music and something that’s legit or authentic …That’s what everybody sees, that’s what’s presented in the media … So let’s say MTV wants to make a band famous, they have the power or any giant corporate person has the power to actually influence society. (Donna)

Yet, contrary to “hopeless dupes” argument of the Frankfurt School scholars, subcultures are found to be venues for those who seek to stand out and be outside the mainstream, even if temporarily, by producing novelty and using presentational modes of discourse – that is, with an emphasis on proposing imagined modes of being instead of representing “what is” already there – offer alternatives to the mainstream (Ulusoy, 2016). Since changing the mainstream culture is unlikely – it has become so powerful and many have internalized it – informants find solace in subcultures that provide an escape from oppressive mainstream, if for temporary moments. Yet, subcultures are seen as grounds to claim genuine democracy and public voice, implying individuals and social groups are active, creative, and participative in the life of the community, feeling at home:

… I guess you could say that genre or culture [metal subculture] is still very close to home. It’s still like my base … Well, I think since metal heads are very – it’s very tight knit community, I made a lot of friendships because of it. You know it was like, oh, you like metal too and instantly you have something in common … the most diehard music fans out there are metal fans. (Charles)

The bonding informants experience with other subcultural members is eminently different from, and are perceived to be more genuine than, the bonding that is built through kinship lineages or blood relations. The power of common feelings of anger and frustration encourages individuals in seeking and reinstating a genuine sense of family and community:

I’ve come to the conclusion now that a family isn’t entirely blood … There’s more to being connected family-wise that you share the same bloodline … if you’re a family member but you don’t take the time to congregate and talk to each other and understand then you’re not family. (Tom)

Subcultures are found to provide their members a genuine sense of what Turner (1969) describes as communitas, referring to a social existence that arises in varied rituals fostering intense and liminal social bonds between idiosyncratic individuals outside of the dominant social structure. This Turnerian theoretical construct of communitas reflects the spirit of community, sense of intimacy, state of equality, modality of human interrelatedness, and the notion of a shared humanity. Subcultures also reinforce members’ individual identities that are in the making by enhancing their self-confidence, intellectual capacity, and social skills in the process:

I was very shy. I was, you know, bury to myself and when I discover this type of music and I discovered other people that were into that type of music, my social skills just exploded … all these songs I was listening to were based off of a historical events or mythology and things like that and I learned a lot from that and also, you know, it would help me spark a conversations because it gave me a lot of like knowledge it’s not mainstream and it would give me something to talk about and give me like that interesting edge to talk to other people about … Also the fact that I was being in a band, you know, standing in front of – on the stage or in front or a crowd, at first I was terrified. Then I started loving it and I started, you know, it gave me energy and that same energy helped me open up more socially to talk to people … so that helped me a lot to open up and be more social. (Charles)

Finding a community based on affective bonds rather than on the basis of preordained lineages promotes postmodern sensibilities of respect for and acceptance of multiplicity and for differences without judgments of superiority and inferiority (Fırat and Dholakia, 2006). Our next informant, who can extensively observe the metal community locally and globally, as a singer in a band as well as wife of a vocalist of a renowned metal band that frequently has local and international performances, is vocal about the acceptance and appreciation of plurality in terms of styles, ideologies, worldviews, sexual orientations, and the like in the metal community:

There are a lot of times we do see that they’re part of our culture because they’re misunderstood as well … So we have the people that are … Like the LGBT … You’re there to be part of that music … It doesn’t really matter how you’re dressed, how you act because you’re just there. And you’re accepted … And I think because they’re a very accepting group of people, all of the other subcultures join in because they feel that acceptance. (Emma)

Subcultures are also critical for experimenting with arbitrary individual and collective identities, and make those alienated, distressed, and frustrated in everyday lives feel empowered (Ulusoy, 2016), providing more room to play and experiment with multiphrenic and fragmented selves and identities (Fırat and Venkatesh, 1995). Individuals are able to stand out, exhibit novelty in a presentational mode, and more freely and arbitrarily form their own sense and forms of community:

… You’re following a genre that empowers people to be different. And you’re following communities that enjoy and accept people that are different. And that community, in turn, becomes more powerful, because everybody brings something new to the table. It’s not like the leader of the pack telling the sheep how to act where the leader is the powerful one … it breeds free-thinkers, and once you start breaking those social chains and you become a free thinker, then you’re allowed to become more aware and more involved in the bigger picture. Not just what the advertisements want you to think about. You can think outside the box, as they say. (Kate)

Such identity-based manifestations render subcultures venues of struggle for existence and recognition, not venues of struggle for power (Hodkinson and Deicke, 2007):

It doesn’t matter what I look like … the metal community is not like, okay, we’re metal community, we’re going to show you that you’re wrong. We’re not going against your society we just want you to accept ours. (Charles)

Antagonism toward market culture and identity politics are observed to be the two most influential factors guiding fragmentation into subcultures in contemporary society. In the resulting discourses, we observe not only the presence of social and political consciousness, contrary to post-subcultural theories, but also the tendency to focus on positive, presentational orientations toward proposing alternative lifestyles rather than an emphasis on class-based reactionary orientations, contrary to CCCS theories. Contemporary phenomenon of subcultural fragmentation proves to be a product of ideologically conscious yet propositional rather than confrontational discourses of activism.

Fragmentation within subcultures

Subcultural eclecticism and cross-over incognitos

Contrary to many previous music-based subcultural studies, especially those drawing on the CCCS approach that stress monadic and homogeneous subcultural identifications, here we document subcultural eclecticism through subcultural informants’ plural and eclectic subject positions and affiliations with music subcultures. Combining and overlapping two or more different genres and styles, subcultural subjects cross over and navigate multiple subcultures. They stress that they have a multiplicity of interests in music scenes and subcultures in concert with their eclectic selves. For informants, this eclecticism makes labeling their identifications difficult.

For example, one of our informants, Rob, considers himself “a weird mixed breed.” When asked, he couldn’t identify or label himself with any particular name of a single existing subculture. Instead, he made a new hybrid label for himself, “a Goth gangster,” drawing on his two most preferred subcultures – gothic metal and gangster rap. Yet, he was still skeptical and uncomfortable with this label and expressed the complexity, futility, and his disfavor of putting a label on his eclectic subcultural affiliations and identities. Similarly, another informant, Donna, did not want to put a single label on her subcultural identity “as something tiny like the punk or death metal or anything like that.” She preferred a broader and overarching term like “alternative subculture.” Others had similar reactions:

I identify myself to this subculture [crust punk/hardcore] but I can’t say that I’m only from this subculture … I think that I might have one of something from each subculture or what I mostly have from this one. So it’s complicated to say. I will say that I’m from a few, not from only one. (Jason)

Contrary to the emphasis on homologous social groupings with some adversarial attitudes toward each other in previous studies, these instances highlight the growing tolerance for differences and multiplicity without judgments of superiority and inferiority (Fırat and Dholakia, 2006). Rather than excluding the other to assert superiority (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2005), contemporary subcultures foster a desire to experience the social “other” (Tzanelli, 2001; Vicdan and Fırat, 2015) in various contexts such as music, lifestyle, and ideology. Yet, this acceptance of multiplicity, as illustrated consistently in informants’ remarks, does not necessarily result in absence of a frame of reference or preference for subcultures that informants may feel most attached to. Although informants are vocal about their eclectic subcultural positions, they still prioritize one or more subculture(s) over others. One informant, Charles, listens to a wide range of music and has affiliations with multiple subcultures, yet he still considers himself “a metal head.” Similarly,

I consider myself to be pretty eclectic and I therefore can listen to a variety of music, genres … I usually stick to … like older skate punk – I like that stuff. I like metal but only – I don’t know – only certain types, I guess … then there’s a side of me that still likes electronic dance music so I’ll type in a little bit of electro house or dubstep. It honestly just depends on the kind of mood that I’m in … I’m weird … So it’s really hard to narrow it down. (Kate)

For informants, being eclectic is being open-minded. Subcultural informants are willing to consider, accept, and appreciate the alternatives, resulting in a perpetual search for different experiences and meanings pertaining to other music subcultures and life modes. Sticking with just one genre, subculture, or life mode, for them, is a limitation and narrow-mindedness. Metaphorically speaking, it means imprisoning oneself. However, as subcultural eclecticism expands, it draws in more people and more ideas, which is, according to Emma, “a positive thing.” Having plural interests in music scenes is depicted as having and living a multiplicity of life experiences and modes, owing to music’s eminent potential for engendering subcultural experiences and meanings. As the music subculture ages and matures over time, along with its members, single affiliation is likely to give way to multiple affiliations.

Subcultural eclecticism expands also through inter-subjectivity of members from different subcultures and through the influence of the main actors of subcultures – artists, bands, and musicians – on fans. Thus, the eclectic approach toward subcultures becomes more prominent:

… when we’re younger and people are trying to learn how to identify themselves, people are, I would say, – like “Ew! You listen to that kind of shit? Oh, that music sucks! Oh, punks don’t listen to that. Oh, that’s not punk music,” or like I’ll try dance, “EDM sucks.” But after growing up a little bit, maturing and listening to the bands that I like that had matured and … they’ve done blogs and interviews and they discussed their musical interests, they’re extremely eclectic and they have a wide variety of bands that they’re influenced by. Being eclectic is great. … You open up to their music. I think it can lead to becoming a little bit more eclectic. (Kate)

As the eclectic approach becomes more prominent, demarcations among subcultures, once discursively constituted and established, become relatively blurred and dissolved and pave the way to fragmentation within subcultures for individuals to experience multiplicity and, thus, broaden their horizons. This also enables them to juxtapose, mix and match, and experiment with alternative schisms in a creative manner. This is alluring and exciting for subcultural informants. An informant, Edward, for instance, states, “I think it’s fabulous. It’s like creating compounds out of chemistry with atoms and molecules.” Thus, fragmentation within subcultures becomes regular:

Well, within the scene itself, there are different genres and because there are different genres, people for some reason they still go ahead and faction it off. Oh, and there was an entire death metal scene on this. So now, the people that I’ve known have, I guess kind of like started branching between the two, bridging them together and throwing his local music shows involving both bands, both genres and multiple genres, not just that. Like he’ll have a hardcore band, a black metal band and death metal band all in the same show, and that’s something that I can get into. I’ll be there. (Bob)

Cross-over experiments break the barriers across various subcultures. As individuals adopt more eclectic affiliations and identifications that are constantly in flux, people become moving targets, what we call “cross-over incognitos.” They cannot be readily identified with distinct characteristics of any single subculture. In addition to the temporal and local emancipation (Kozinets, 2002a), subcultural eclecticism allows consumers to relatively escape from the market logic and authority, making it harder for the market agents – marketers, advertisers, brand managers, and so on – to segment, target, and control them by concentrating on their specific subcultural affiliations or identifications. Being eclectic, however, requires some degree of individual creativity and ability for experimenting with alternative styles and contents, and for mixing, matching, and juxtaposing different heterogeneous subcultural elements. These experiments, relying on a bricolage of assemblages of heterogeneous subcultural elements, generate dynamic and fluid constellations with some sort of coherence or frame of reference:

They’re getting creative and they’re expressing themselves in a different way and in a different light. And I think maybe they’re just bringing their own interests and creativity to the table and experimenting with it and the world is like appeased by it and they’re finding joy in it and they find others that like it, too, and it kinda spurs off on its own. But without individuals being individuals and being creative, I don’t think we’d have those different divergences and we’d be all very straight and it’s all evolution … (Kate)

Informants seek tailored uniqueness even within a subcultural context to express differences to both mainstream and subcultures. Therefore, they perceive and dislike labeling to be threatening to their idiosyncrasies:

If I like something and somebody else likes it, well that’s fine but if they start labelling it … or the whole labelling thing, they’re gonna try and label it as something else, that’s what changes people’s style sometimes … That’s the same thing as the music thing. And that sucks ‘cause then there’s really no true identity. I mean there is but it eventually becomes mainstream. And that does sucks ‘cause it makes it harder to be who you are. (Donna)

Perpetual de-(re)fragmentation

Cross-over incognitos exhibit higher levels of individuality and idiographic compositions at an individual level. On one hand, they represent an extreme form of fragmentation. On the other hand, cross-over scenes and activities exhibit great potential for cultivating opportunities that unite and bring people from different subcultural schisms and sometimes from non-subcultural spheres together into the same overarching subcultural sphere or community by providing them with an alternative collective cultural experience. This simultaneous separation and amalgamation illustrates well the constant process of de-(re)fragmentation:

I think one example of those crossovers are like when they’re doing the hip-hop and back even going to classic with Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. and things like that like that was a mixture of two completely different cultures. … I guess it opens up the opportunity to bring different people into the same culture and enjoy the same … When we saw Disturbed … the mixture that we saw there, we were able to see people that were preppy and metal heads and rockers and just regular random people that didn’t really belong anywhere all in one place … I think Disturbed is a little bit a mix of what’s the new metal. (Emma)

It allows for more people to become involved. It allows us to stand together for that cause. If we’re all for it, we stand together for it. So yeah, it plays a role. Subcultures I think are more like communities now, even though we’re all kind of mixed … We’re all kind of mixed in, but really we all share that connection, so we feel the same about these certain things … I think that sense of community is always good … (Amy)

Subcultural eclecticism exists in many forms and levels of discourse. At the micro level, it exists mainly in an individual’s subcultural subjectivity and positions, as each favors plural affiliations and heterogeneous constellations. At the more macro level, it emerges in various subcultural venues, such as shows, concerts, parties, festivals, events, demonstrations, and online platforms, where members of multiple subcultures converge:

I think if it brings in more people I think it’s very healthy for the scene. When I was a promoter I would throw these shows called Metal and Hard Core United. I would call them The United Shows and I threw four of them and every single time was extremely successful because me as kind of being thrown as it as the scene leader type aspects I would just make it a point to I guess sort of breach things about unity and the music scene and we should all come together as a scene … (Darrell)

Although these individuals are in pursuit of eclectic and heterogeneous subcultural identities, they tend to preserve in part the coherence and distinctive qualities of each subculture as a reference point. This allows them not only to play with, mix and match, and be creative in their experimentations but also to capitalize, maintain, improve, reinforce, and make use of their subcultural capital. In this respect, informants mostly anchor in a single subculture and construe their identities around it. Yet, at the same time, they diversify and enrich their subcultural identities by incorporating different elements from different subcultures. Informants, who tend to anchor in a single subculture, seeking to preserve its relatively distinct features and qualities, are often open to experiencing other subcultures. There are illustrations of a subcultural mosaic being constituted, composed of several heterogeneous and fragmented subcultural narratives, discourses, styles, ideologies, and attitudes:

… they’re [hardcore subculture] bringing their politically correct ideas into the death metal culture … Death metal … fizzled out a lot especially with this hardcore metal that whatever they want they call it and so we had all those ideologies about what they sing because they actually sing about resisting the things. (Darrell)

Our findings suggest that heterogeneous, fragmented, eclectic subcultural identifications and affiliations are present, different from single and homogeneous subcultural commitments as portrayed by most past subcultural studies. Post-subcultural approach did recognize the impulse for fragmentation, but reduced the phenomenon to hyper-individualistic reasons and simply taste-based games of style, without reference to ideological motivations.

Our informants consider themselves subcultural relative to the mainstream in a broad sense; they are not content to confine their complex subcultural identities and subjectivities into a single, homogeneous, and clearly demarcated subculture. Furthermore, their subcultural identifications seem to be in constant flux and change relative to various factors, such as their age, changing environments, and the extent to which they use their subcultural and symbolic capital. Other factors include the changing images of a subculture in regard to its relation with consumer culture and the market logic, commercialization over time, and fluid meanings being ascribed to it. They also link the elements of these ongoing, or becoming, subcultural identities and subject positions that are constantly in the making to the collective identities through overarching systems of subcultural meanings and discourses. Thus, “cross-over incognitos” are a signification of a fragmentation within subcultures and, ultimately, an illustration of a radical subcultural mosaic. This mosaic is forged largely as a result of a growing tolerance for the differences and multiplicity and a growing quest for resistance and for experiencing and experimenting different and alternative identities and modes of lives. These developments not only re-enchant subcultures in contemporary life but also reclaim subcultures’ political, ideological, and resistant qualities that were once said to be eradicated as a result of overt commercialization and co-optation of subcultures by the market.

Discussion

The theoretical implications of our findings are depicted in Figure 1. A radical subcultural mosaic emerges from the dynamics observed in our interviews. The mosaic is the result of constant fragmentation and the multiplicity and fluidity of subcultural memberships. Contrary to Maffesoli’s (1996) claim that there is only a temporary affective attachment to a variety of styles, radical subcultural mosaic contains a radical potential because of the fact that many of the motivations to join and create subcultures tend to have critical ideological foundations. The hegemony of the mainstream market culture, keenly felt by our informants, results in a strategy of immersing in modes of living that are relatively isolated and independent from the mainstream. Preaching tolerance instead of being confrontational against the mainstream, members of the radical subcultural mosaic seek agency and collectivity, creativity in heterogeneity. They propose novel alternatives of living through presentational discourses. This research demonstrates the complexity of how the radical subcultural mosaic represents a sociological theory of homology, referring to the symbiotic interplay among ideology, image, and practice.

Figure 1.

Fragmentation process in emerging radical subcultural mosaic.

We complement past theories of subculture and social fragmentation by illustrating that this phenomenon is not a matter of either ideological, class-based political resistance or hyper-individualistic, taste-based seeking of style, but a matter of both a rejection of the ideology of mainstream culture and a desire to propose and present alternative modes of being. Our findings show that multiple forces, such as the ideological antagonism toward hegemonic institutions and mainstream market culture, disapproved and disliked due to its commercialism and emphasis on consumer culture, and subcultural identity politics that focuses on construction of identities in contrast to the mainstream, are at play in the fragmentation of contemporary late modern society. Within subcultures, fragmentation arises out of a refusal to be pigeonholed into any single mode or identity and a continual seeking of new alternatives resulting in de-(re)fragmentation, both impulses being generally an extension of the original reaction to the mainstream. Subcultural fragmentation is voluntary, resistive, and subversive.

Without confronting the mainstream, the radical subcultural mosaic is a radical call to consider alternatives. Whether the radical potential of this subcultural mosaic in terms of generating transformed life experiences is likely to be realized is currently contentious at best and remains to be seen. Yet, this may be one of the key questions of our time.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Emre Ulusoy is an assistant professor of Marketing at Youngstown State University. His primary research interests revolve around social, cultural, philosophical, and critical issues as they relate to the phenomena of consumption, marketing, and markets. Specifically, his research projects cover studies of subcultures, music consumption, consumer resistance, market co-optation, fragmentation, identity politics, post-structuralism, social movements, ethical consumption, sustainability, and veganism. His articles have been published in journals such as Journal of Business Research, Marketing Theory, Journal of Global Responsibility, and International Journal of Business Research.

A. Fuat Fırat is a professor of Marketing at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. He has won the Journal of Macromarketing Charles Slater Award for best article with co-author N. Dholakia, the Journal of Consumer Research best article award with co-author A. Venkatesh, and the Corporate Communications: An International Journal top ranked paper award with co-authors L.T. Christensen and J. Cornelissen. He has published several books including Consuming People: From Political Economy to Theaters of Consumption, co-authored by N. Dholakia, and is the founding editor of Consumption, Markets & Culture.

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