Subcultures are a significant part of society. They certainly play an important role in any individual life and help to explain how each person develops a frame of reference. Subcultures are simply a world within the larger world of a dominant culture. They are any corner in life in which peoples’ experiences lead them to have their own unique perceptions on the world. Everybody has their own perceptions on society, values, and life in general. Values, attitudes, gestures, and sanctions tend to stem from the dominant culture in one’s life.
Throughout the dominant culture that a person spends his or her time in learning and changing through different experiences many subcultures have developed. People have a variety of interests, careers, hobbies, values, and identities. Subcultures allow people who share similar interests to assimilate, socialize, gives them a sense of belonging and fellowship among peers. Countercultures have their own unique role in society. Countercultures are simply subcultures whose values or activities and goals are opposed or run counter to that of the mainstream or dominant culture.
Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior deviates from the societal norm. Countercultures can be both negative and positive. They can also become larger when more people are involved and assimilate into the mainstream just as subcultures in general have this potential. Biker Gangs, drug users, career criminals, prisoners, and terrorists have in common that they all have negative perceptions from society and are countercultures. The March on Wall Street group of people can be considered a counterculture and can be viewed as both positive and negative.
Members of the Underground Railroad who fought for freedom during times of slavery can be a counterculture viewed as positive today but at the time had a negative view by most of society. Today, society believes everybody is equal and has the same rights in America which is the mainstream culture. The colonists during the American Revolution were a counterculture to Great Britain. Personally, I was involved in the March on Orlando counterculture and have no problem admitting it.
Conspiracy theorists are a part of countercultures as well and are viewed by mainstream society or culture in a negative connotation and therefore usually would not discusss this type of thing unless they were with other conspiracy theorists. Doctors, factory workers, electricians, basketball players, college students, etc are all subcultures. I am a part of the college student subculture, musician subculture, modern art, theatre, Greek, and French subculture. Depending on which society or culture referred to depends on the positive or negative perception on these things.
My family is fairly conservative and I am fairly liberal, so we are in different political subcultures. I am a huge sports fan, so that would put me in that subculture. Within that subculture, my favorite football team is the Chicago Bears because I am originally from the Chicago area. Florida culture is different than the culture of Montana. Central FL culture is different than the culture in the FL Keys. I am apart of the Central Florida subculture. I work for a tree company and have attended 12 step fellowships and motivational speakers which have their own subcultures.
I’ve traveled to many places and embrace cultural relativism. I certainly do not believe my way of looking at things is the only way of looking at things. I don’t hold my own culture as a standard of judging ways of others. I am interested in Indian culture, Japanese culture, and European specifically French culture. I am looking to dive into the musician subculture further to find more subcultures. I am always looking to meet new people and share views and interests and am open-minded to becoming a part of new subcultures as well.
The United States society has 1000’s of subcultures. I found learning about the how and why subcultures play a huge role in society to be quite invigorating. I’m sure that there are subcultures and countercultures that I am apart of and am unaware of it completely. It’s virtually impossible for me to know everything there is on subcultures because there are so many of them. All in all I feel that people just want to be with people who share similar views on the world and thus subcultures and countercultures were formed and are huge in understanding how society works.
