Week 1 Popular media reflection- Thomas Bartlett

When thinking about adolescent rebellion and identity formation, I keep coming back to the musical culture I was involved in the late 2000s and early 2010s. As I thought about it more, music subcultures act as a kind of incubator for youth identity and rebellion. In this case, I am specifically talking about that which I am most familiar with which would be the punk and pop-punk scene of the respective years I previously mentioned. The amount of time It would take to explain the entire scene would require more time than I have here, but I just want to highlight some defining bands and songs of the genre and how they encapsulate this idea of identity development in adolescents.

The first song that comes to mind is the band Sum 41's  big hit "Fat Lip." The chorus goes as such:

"I don't want to waste my time
Become another casualty of society
I'll never fall in line
Become another victim of your conformity
And back down"

Paired with the high-speed instrumentals, the song and chorus showcase this desire to reject the status quo. Conforming to mainstream society is described as "a casualty" and doing so would make the individual a victim. Its anthem like tone when listening to the song solidifies this idea that the youth's identity is being directly threatened and one must show strength in never backing down from their convictions lest they become the aforementioned casualty of society.

Another song that comes to mind is The Anthem by the band Good Charlotte. The lyrics I focus in on are

"Go to college, a university
Get a real job, that's what they said to me
But I could never live the way they want
I'm gonna get by and just do my time
Out of step while they all get in line.
I'm just a minor threat so pay no mind
Do you really want to be like them
Do you really want to be another trend
Do you want to be part of that crowd
Cause I don't ever wanna
I don't ever want to be you"

Once again, we can see the theme of rebelling against the status quo. The song points out some common expectations of I guess what we could call positive identity, and then proceeds to ask the question of is this what is really wanted. Finally, it closes out with a statement rejects the general expectations, opting for instead finding one's own path.

 The number of songs in this musical subculture is countless so there is no doubt plenty of songs we could analyze for these themes. In addition to songs, other facets of life choices such as vegetarianism/veganism, straight edge, and a myriad of other ideas get interwoven in musical scenes. The main point is that music subcultures can play a pivotal role in ones developing identity by creating a communal space for youth to interact and share these ideas with other like-minded youth that have rejected the positive identity of the main society. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week Three reflection- Turkle

Personally. I think that internet technology learning has a ceiling it cannot pass. As it stands currently, "online classes" only work for the either the driven who are capable managing time well to fulfill the class objectives or those who find ways to game the system(as we have seen with the recent concerns about quizlet and college classes.) I would be hard pressed to believe that technology could replace the teacher, especially one who is excellent at explaining or showing the content in an understandable manner. What we need are more highly respected and well trained educators that provide the skills that technology cannot replace. I worry that with the push to "digitize education" you will see a negative impact on the teaching profession as a whole. The spread of the Summit program has me concerned about such things being integrated into public schools. I think back to Vygotsky’s idea of the Zone of Proximal development. I believe this is a key component in ...
Read more

Lunch room Activity

I too picked Justin after watching the clip in class. I have to agree with the statement that the final reaction/decision was not the same as what I would of witnessed in my high school. There would of definitely been some sort of altercation in this situation. I don’t know that it would of necessarily been a physical altercation, but at the very minimum something would have been thrown back or words would of been exchanged. The lunch room was pretty heavily supervised, so there is a slim chance that a teacher would of stepped in and shit things down before it got too serious. There was a higher chance that a response would of happened in the hallway between class change. The halls were very crowded and as hard as the teachers tried, that is where of the a lot of the fights happened. For me personally, knowing how I react, I would of most likely shouted something back and moved on with my day. I grew up in Westerville Schools, the fights where usually very “gentle” compared to what...
Read more

Week 5 Reflection - Natasha; Maria Brown

Your assignment for reflection is to do this activity and then write about your reactions especially in relation to the book. So I chose to go into the lunchroom with Natasha.  She is one of the "nerd" and she is approached by the popular girl, Ashlee with "two e's".  Natasha finds an empty table in the lunchroom and clearly wants to be left alone but is approached by Ashlee.  She is hesitant to engage. The first time I chose to ignore Ashlee and this scenario ended with Ashlee getting her feelings hurt and asking Natasha is she sees her standing there, stating she just wanted to talk. The second go around I chose to engage with Ashlee and Ashlee just wanted to ask Natasha why she doesn't talk to her and if she feels she's not smart just because she's popular. In these two scenarios, the point is essentially the same --> Natasha is clearly uncomfortable because she feels she's being approached by someone in a different ...
Read more