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Rave Is More Than a Subculture Jessica Hocking
Hall et al (1976) wanted to
examine why and how youth groups were
formed. Youth only really came into
existence after the second world war when, with the advances in
industrialization and technology, it was no longer necessary for people
to go
straight into a working life at an early age and there was much more
leisure
time available. There was no longer the
immediate jump from childhood to adulthood, but there was a transitory
period
in between when a child became an adult, they may have been continuing
their
studies or just enjoying life. This
period of life between childhood and adulthood became known as youth,
“’Youth’
appeared as an emergent category in post-war There is never just one
culture, society is always split into different
groups and there is always a dominant group.
At the time when members of the C.C.C.S. were
investigating youth
cultures they believed that these different groups are always a result
of different
classes within society, “in modern societies, the most fundamental
groups are
the social classes” (Hall et al, 1976, p 13) and the creation of youth
subcultures was a response to the breaking down of class barriers at
the time. Phil Cohen (1972) argued that,
“when
working-class communities are undergoing change and displacement – when
the
‘parent culture’ is no longer cohesive – youth (and the focus here is
always on
working-class youth) responds by becoming subcultural.
Subcultures thus become a means of expressing
and, for Cohen, also ‘resolving’ the crisis of class” (Gelder, 1997, pp
84-85). This is no longer applicable in
today’s
society as class is no longer such an influential factor in societal
groupings,
but I will examine this further later on in this essay. Hall et al (1976) identify
five specific social changes that caused the
creation of youth cultures. The first
was the increasing affluence of youth, “the increased importance of the
market
and consumption, and the growth of ‘Youth-oriented’ leisure industries”
(p18),
a specific market appeared purely to cater for the youth, supplying,
for
example, youth clothing and youth leisure opportunities as the youth
were
experiencing rising levels of disposable income. Secondly,
the spread of culture due to
increased communications led to, “the arrival of mass communications,
mass entertainment,
mass art and mass culture” (p18). The
most influential of all was the arrival of commercial television. This enabled the youth greater access to
youth culture and “the means of ‘imitation’ and ‘manipulation’ on a
national
scale” (p19). Thirdly, were the
destructive effects of the war, it was felt that the breakdown in
family life,
caused by absent fathers, led to increased levels of youth delinquency. Fourthly, there were changes in
education. “This interpretation
pin-pointed two developments above
all – ‘secondary education for all’ in age-specific schools, and the
massive
extension of higher education” (p20). As
mentioned earlier, the fact that people no longer had to go immediately
to work
at an early age meant that another life stage, between childhood and
adulthood,
was created, “subcultural youth may also replace a lost sense of
working-class
‘community’ with subcultural ‘territory’ – a shift which is symptomatic
of the
relocation of youthful expression to the field of leisure rather than
work”
(Gelder, 1997, p85). Finally, there was
a massive style explosion, a huge varying range of different ways to
dress and
different music to listen to led to the creation of a number of
different
cultures (or subcultures) within the
main youth culture.
So, what were the main causes
behind the development of the rave
subculture? Acid House, as it was then
called, started off in the They returned to a bored and
depressed “Thatcher’s “economic
miracle”, a consumer
boom fuelled by wild spending on credit and a mood of uninhibited
individualism, was entering its final phase before the shuddering stock
market
crash of “Black Monday” heralded a plunge back into recession. Was the emergence of the rave
scene a reaction to the dominant political
ideology of the time? In some ways it
may have been, economic depression was beginning to cause unrest and
the youth
were bored and wanted to have fun.
However, from the reading I have undertaken, I believe the
main cause of
the emergence of the rave subculture was in fact a drug, namely
‘Ecstasy’. Ecstasy made you able to
dance all night and
turned complete strangers into your best friend. Without
Ecstasy, the rave scene probably
would never have happened; Ecstasy was the catalyst that triggered off
probably
the largest subculture in Ecstasy combined with dance
music created a new and highly enjoyable
youth experience. Class, gender, age and
ethnicity were irrelevant; everyone came together on the dance floor
with one
common goal, to have fun. Aaronson
(1999) notes, “there is no hierarchy. Everybody shares the dance floor,
dancing, touching and sweating with somebody they might not otherwise
speak to
… Rave dance floors are public
spaces open to all. Their aim,
together with the quest for pleasure, is to abolish or subvert rules
and
transgress social order and prohibitions”.
Those who were part of the rave culture did not
necessarily have
anything in common, they came from all types of backgrounds, from
university
graduates and white collar workers to high school drop-outs and
travellers all
joined together by music and drugs. This
opposes Hall et al’s view that, “Members of a sub-culture may walk, talk,
act, look
‘different’ from their parents and from some of their peers: but they
belong to
the same families, go to the same schools, work at the same jobs, live
down the
same ‘mean streets’ as their peers and parents.” (1976, p14) To begin with, no one
involved in the rave scene was specifically
rebelling against authority, although it may have appeared that way, as
they
were labelled as deviants by the dominant cultural group.
Cohen (1972) cites Becker (1963) “...deviance
is created by society… social groups create deviance by making the
rules whose
infraction constitutes deviance and by applying those rules to
particular
persons and labelling them as outsiders.
From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the
act the person
commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules
and
sanctions to an ‘offender’” (pp 12-13).
Persons are labelled as deviant if they are behaving in a
way that is
not acceptable to the dominant societal group, whether it be violence,
drug-taking, the way they choose to dress or the music that they listen
to. If those in the dominant societal
group do not approve or understand, those who behave in such a fashion
will be
labelled as deviant. However, once the
government introduced legislation to try and prohibit the subculture,
the
Entertainment’s (Increased Penalties) Act, 1990 and The Criminal
Justice and
Public Order Act, 1994, (Bidder, 2001) then those involved began to
rebel
against the authoritarian regime. Examples
of this include the “60,000 young people,
environmentalists, hunt
saboteurs, unionists, socialists, squatters, travellers and civil
rights
activists, who joined the rally and march here[London] on July 24
[1994]
against the criminal justice bill” (Junankar, 1994). Although at some points during the reign of
the rave subculture there were episodes of what Hal et al described as
‘resistance’ to societal changes, this was not the origin of the
subculture. Hebdige (1979) points to the
importance of ethnicity in the development
of subcultures in his work about punks, “the kind of immigration
patterns which
Cohen had seen as dislocating class structures in East End London are
here
regarded as central to the development of subcultural style”
(Gelder1997, p87). The rise of ethnic
groups led to the punks
adopting a twisted patriotism, for example wearing union jack t-shirts,
but
listening to the likes of the Sex Pistols who sang songs about anarchy
in the
UK, “it was an alien essence, a foreign body which implicitly
threatened
mainstream British culture from within and as such it resonated with
punk’s
adopted values – ‘anarchy’, ‘surrender’ and ‘decline’” (Hebdige, 1979,
p64). As mentioned earlier, within the
rave scene
ethnicity was ignored and people from any kind of ethnic background
were
welcomed. There are, however, definitely
parts of Hebdige’s theory of subculture that fit with the rave culture,
that of
‘bricolage’ for example. Bricolage is described by
Hebdige as taking an object or symbol
belonging to the dominant society and changing its meaning by using it
in such
a way that it becomes an example of the subcultures deviance. Hebdige quotes Clarke (1976), “Together, object and meaning
constitute a
sign, and, within any one culture, such signs are assembled,
repeatedly, into
characteristic forms of discourse.
However when the bricoleur re-locates the significant
object in a
different position within that discourse, using the same overall
repertoire of
signs, or when that object is placed within a different total ensemble,
a new
discourse is constituted, a different message conveyed” (p104). Hebdige gives the example of,
“the motor scooter, originally an
ultra-respectable means of transport, was turned into a menacing symbol
of
group solidarity” (p104). This use of
bricolage can also be seen in the rave subculture, “Bob Holness is
furious at
t-shirts depicting him holding an E against a psychedelic background
with the
caption ‘Can I have an E please Bob?’” (Bussman, 1998, p94). I personally can recall seeing people using
Vick’s nasal inhalers to apparently increase the buzz of the ecstasy
they had
taken. There were flyers using the
‘Smarties’ logo slightly changed so that it said “Smart E’s” and once
or twice
I did actually see people walking round with babies dummies in their
mouths! Glow sticks, which were once only
found in a
hiker’s rucksack, are now sold in many ‘rave’ shops or clubs, to be
waved
around whilst dancing. The rave subculture may have
displayed some of the attributes associated
with the C.C.C.S. notion of ‘subculture’, but there appears to be much
more to
it than just the rebellion of youth against authority and changes in
society. One of the main aspects that sets
rave aside
from previous subcultures is the apparent spirituality of the
experience,
almost to a religious level. Some may
assume that this kind of spirituality was solely due to the amount of
mood
enhancing drugs consumed by those involved in the scene, but to anyone
who was
involved it was much more than just drugs. Rave centres on dancing and
Aaronson (1999) examines the importance of
dancing to human society. She starts by
looking at the physical effects of listening to dance music and dancing. Dance music consists of a rhythmic,
repetitive drum beat, similar to tribal music, “From heartbeats to
African
drums, from the percussive and repetitive quality of Funk to the pulses
of
electronic drums in Techno and Rave, rhythm is
the essential substance of
music and dance” (Aaronson, 1999).
Aaronson says that the rhythmic drumming of tribal music
brings out the animalistic
instinct in humans, which is a good thing as it is this animalistic
instinct
that society tries to suppress, “Funk, Techno and Rave
take us back to our intuitive
level of being. Intuition is the animal in us, a mode of cognition
which
Western civilization has constantly tried to repress” (1999). Listening to music is a very physical
experience;
our bodies feel the music and react to the rhythms.
Our experience of sound is not affected by
our positionality, “Whereas sight is
conditioned by
social and cultural formations, sound waves have nervous and organic
effects on
human beings, independent of their cultural formation” (Aaronson, 1999). This is an important fact to note as this is
the main way that dancing to rave can break down social barriers. On the dance-floor everyone is part of the
same community, reacting to the same stimuli and a bond is formed
between those
sharing the experience. On the
dance-floor there is no class, gender, age or ethnicity, everyone is
united by
the music that they are listening to, “When individuals come together
in
groups, they are transformed. This is the most basic psychological
effect of
the crowd. The conscious personality of each individual disappears. It
is as if
all the dancers were part of the same body. Not only do people dance
and touch
one another, but also there is no more race, culture
or things forbidden” (Aaronson,
1999). This kind of community
experience, where there are no cultural barriers, does not seem to be
part of
other subcultures. There may be some
feeling of community within other subcultures, but there are specific
codes of
conduct or codes of dress that one must adhere to in order to be part
of the
community. There are no such strict
rules that must be obeyed in order to be part of the rave subculture,
anyone,
no matter what their background, their age, gender or even the ways
they dress,
can be part of the rave community by just being there and enjoying the
music
and the dancing. Aaronson highlights the
necessity of recognising the importance of the dance-floor in society,
“That is
why the dance floor is so important in our society to recapture, if
only
temporarily, the instinctual forces of our existence, the only forces
that can
reconnect us to earth. A society that does not recognize the
therapeutic value
of public dance floors and abstract dance threatens its own mental and
physical
health” (1999). We are continuously told
how we must behave in social situations and on the dance-floor we are
free,
through dancing we break out of our social and cultural confines. Aaronson
highlighted the connection between rave culture and
that of ancient tribal culture through the use of rhythmic drumming,
however
there are other ways in which rave can be linked to tribal culture. Bennett (1999) wrote an article entitled
“Subcultures
or neo-tribes? Rethinking the
relationship between youth, style and musical taste”, in which he
shares his
thoughts that the creation of subcultures is due to people wanting to
form
families or tribes, due to the breakdown of family life, as opposed to
just a
reaction to structural changes in society.
From what I
have read, there were no major structural
changes taking place in society to cause the emergence of the rave
subculture. However, it appears a great
deal more likely
that many of those who were part of the rave subculture were looking
for
somewhere to belong. At the time when
the C.C.C.S. was investigating the formation of subcultures, the family
unit
was large and still relatively stable.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, when the rave subculture was
being formed,
the family unit had become a lot smaller and contact with the extended
family
had lessened, one parent families and one child families were becoming
more frequent. This led to a large
proportion of the youth
at that time to want to belong to a larger social group or tribe. Authors
such as Brewster et al (1999) note the comparisons between the tribal
leader or
shaman and the DJ, ““More often than not, there was
somebody at the centre of all this [tribal rituals].
Somebody who handed out the party plants,
somebody who started the action, somebody who controlled the music. This figure – the witch doctor, the shaman,
and the priest – was a little bit special, he had a certain power. Today it is the DJ who fills this role” (p10). The DJ is central to the rave scene, they
play music in order to create an atmosphere and build a community
feeling. Without the DJ there would be no
experience, Hutson
(2000) discusses the concept of “Technoshamanism” the term was coined
by Fraser
Clark (Rushkoff, 1994, p121 cited in Hutson,
2000) and describes the DJ as a modern shaman “in charge of the group
mood/mind. The DJ "senses when it's time to lift the mood, take it
down,
etc., just as the shaman did in the good ol' tribal days" (Clark, 1995
cited in Hutson, 2000). Hopefully, I have managed to
show that the rave subculture is more than just a subculture, a
reaction by
working class youth to structural changes in society, and more of a
religious
or tribal experience. I have shown how
the dance-floor is such an important part of today’s society helping to
break
down social and cultural barriers and the feeling of community created
by a
crowd of people, all in the same place, having the same experiences all
brought
together by music. The experiences that
people have had being part of the rave subculture carry on into all
parts of
their lives and will continue to influence them as their lives progress. The lack of importance placed on social and
cultural differences within the rave scene is helping today’s society
to become
more cohesive and tolerant towards others of all backgrounds and
cultures, if
you can do it on the dance-floor then it is easy to behave in the same
way in
other areas of life. We have seen how
dance music is the only youth music ever to have had government
legislation to
try and prohibit it and the massive impact that the subculture has had
on
mainstream society, dance music can be heard almost anywhere and the
style of
dress adopted by those who are part of dance culture has become high
street
fashion. Although there are many ways in
which the dance scene is a ‘subculture’ there are also many ways in
which it is
more than just a passing youth craze.
Subcultures studied by the C.C.C.S. were seen as a
reaction to the
breaking down of class barriers at the time, the rave subculture can be
seen as
actually contributing to the breaking down of cultural barriers as
opposed to
being a reaction to it. Although there
are many ways in which the dance scene is a ‘subculture’ we have also
seen many
ways in which it is more than just a passing youth craze.
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