Editing Subculture (section)

==Relationships with mainstream culture==
[[File:Bar-b-quin' with my HONEY.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Potato chip]] packages featuring [[Hip-hop culture|hip hop subcultural]] designs in a case of mainstream commercial cultural merging]]

It may be difficult to identify certain subcultures because their style (particularly clothing and music) may be adopted by mass culture for commercial purposes. Businesses often seek to capitalize on the subversive allure of subcultures in search of ''[[Cool (aesthetic)|Cool]]'', which remains valuable in the selling of any product.<ref>Howes, David. ''Cross-cultural consumption: global markets, local realities.'' New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.</ref> This process of [[cultural appropriation]] may often result in the death or evolution of the subculture, as its members adopt new styles that appear alien to mainstream society.<ref>Goldstein-Gidoni, Ofra. "Producers of 'Japan' in Israel: ''Cultural appropriation'' in a non-colonial context." ''Ethnos:Journal of Anthropology'' 68.3 (2003): 365. Print.</ref>

Music-based subcultures are particularly vulnerable to this process; what may be considered subcultures at one stage in their histories{{snd}}such as [[jazz]], [[Goth subculture|goth]], [[Punk subculture|punk]], [[Hip hop culture|hip hop]], and [[rave culture]]s{{snd}}may represent mainstream taste within a short period.<ref>Blair, M. Elizabeth, "Commercialization of Rap Music Youth ''Subculture''." Journal of Popular Culture 27.3 (1993): 21-33. Print.</ref> Even religious groups can be seen as subcultures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reddy-Best |first=Kelly L. |url=https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/dressappearancediversity/ |title=Dress, Appearance, and Diversity in U.S. Society |date=2020-08-01 |publisher=Iowa State University Digital Press |language=en |doi=10.31274/isudp.2020.9}}</ref> In his research on British punk rock in the late 1970s, Hebdige proposed a controversial proposition at the time: punk portrayed the entire history of post-war working-class youth culture in a "cut" form, blending elements that originally belonged to completely different eras.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} Some subcultures reject or modify the importance of style, stressing membership through the adoption of an [[ideology]] which may be much more resistant to commercial exploitation.<ref>Lewin, Phillip, J. Patrick Williams. "Reconceptualizing Punk through ''Ideology'' and Authenticity". ''Conference Papers--American Sociological Association''. 2007 Annual Meeting, 2007.</ref> The [[punk subculture]]'s distinctive (and initially shocking) style of clothing was adopted by mass-market fashion companies once the subculture became a media interest. [[Dick Hebdige]] argues that the punk subculture shares the same "radical aesthetic practices" as the [[Dada]]ist and [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] art movements:
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Like Duchamp's 'ready mades' - manufactured objects which qualified as art because he chose to call them such, the most unremarkable and inappropriate items - a pin, a plastic clothes peg, a television component, a razor blade, a tampon - could be brought within the province of punk (un)fashion ... Objects borrowed from the most sordid of contexts found a place in punks' ensembles; lavatory chains were draped in graceful arcs across chests in plastic bin liners. Safety pins were taken out of their domestic 'utility' context and worn as gruesome ornaments through the cheek, ear or lip ... fragments of school uniform (white bri-nylon shirts, school ties) were symbolically defiled (the shirts covered in graffiti, or fake blood; the ties left undone) and juxtaposed against leather drains or shocking pink mohair tops.<ref>Dick Hebdige p.106-12</ref>
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