PUNKS
The subculture of punks appeared in 1970 s in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. It was greatly influenced by anarchism, the Sex Pistols, nihilism, Marxism, pop art and other movements. Punk literature originates from the depiction of the street youth by Charles Dickens, and Jim Carroll’s book «The Basketball Diaries» is the first example of such a literature. The main goal of punks was to declare themselves and their negative attitude to money -based society and politics.
Music is an integral part of punk subculture and is known as punk rock. It is a very loud aggressive music usually played by the bands. These bands consist of a vocalist, guitarists, bassists and a drummer. The songs are usually short, have only a few chords and lyrics, which express their ideology. This music takes its origin from the garage rock and the first scenes, where punk rock started to be performed, appeared in New York, London and Los Angeles. But all of the first bands to play there did not last long.
Some prominent figures are associated with this movement, for example, a famous American artist Andy Warhol. He even produced the band of punk-rock style – Velvet Underground
By the way, punks are closely interlinked with other youth subcultures, such as rockers, metalheads, hippies. Punk movement was strongly influenced by arts, music, literature, philosophy. The first music bands of punk-rock were Sex Pistols and Ramones. In the late 1970 s the movement began to diversify. That’s about the time when new waves of subculture appeared, such as pop punk, street punk, hardcore punk. Punk-related ideologies mostly relate to individual freedom and nonconformity.
To be admitted to the Group you must usually undergo some kind of test. It’s character depends on it’s representatives. It can be anything, proving that a person is able to step over the conventional norms. "Punk" as a sub-culture protests against stereotypes, so the newcomer should feel a sense of disgust and shame. Examples of tests for the initiation rite: -eat a week of garbage; -spend a few days in a dumpster, telling passersby, "Good morning. "
The punk fashion has been around for quite a long time now. This style is not only involved clothing, but also hairstyles, jewelry and cosmetics as well. The people who follow Punk Fashion are commonly known as the “punks”. This is quite an extreme style of fashion and a lot of people look at it with contempt. When this fashion was started in the 1970’s the purpose was to shock the people and it worked very well. People who wanted to stand out from the crowd became the followers of this fashion and it has been around since then. The punk fashion in 1970’s was much milder than it is now. Over the years as fashion became bolder, new things were added to the category of punk fashion.
Military boots, jackets and leather jeans were all a part of punk style of clothing. They are still worn by a lot of punks. When it comes to the hairstyles, the punks mostly like to keep their hair messy. You might also have seen punks with their hair dyed in most outrageous colors such as pink, green, purple and orange among many others. Boys like to make spikes out of their hair.
Jewelry is also an important part of the punk fashion. People who follow the punk fashion like to wear studded jewelry and heavy chains all the time. Body piercing is quite common among the punks. Makeup is worn by both males and females who adopt the punk style. Thick eyeliner and dark lipsticks are the two essential parts of punk make up. Punk fashion mostly involves wearing a combination of clothing. You need to be really creative how to mix both masculine and feminine articles together.
Rubber, leather and vinyl clothes are changed into trendy punk outfits adding paint, signs written with a marker or using pins, spikes, buttons or razor blades. Tight torn jeans or tartan trousers and skirts are combined with leather jackets, heavy belts and footwear including Converse sneakers, military-style spiked boots, skate shoes or brothel creepers.
Punks have their own peculiarities in visual art, dancing, literature, movies as well. Their artworks usually can be seen on flyers, album covers and punk zines. Punks are also the central characters of many novels, comic books and biographies. There are many punk poets and musicians, who influenced the development of many new genres. A great number of punk bands were the participants of movies. Some notable filmmakers, belonging to punk subculture, and they shoot not only films, but also clips and videos.
To sum up, Punk subculture is spread all over the world. There are typical “punk scenes” in big cities usually centered on a core band, its fans, publishers of zines, visual artists, many other people, who organize concerts and are connected with the band. Though this subculture is regarded as violent and dependent on different substances, it does not mean that all the representatives of punks are criminals. It deserves the right to exist, as each person has his own point of view and choices in life.
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