Rave Ideology

I learned a lot about rave culture today. Thank you to those who presented. At first, I thought it was just a huge party with loud music and lots of drugs. This is the case, but there is a lot more to it. P.L.U.R is very interesting to me. That is a powerful message and I think it should be taken seriously. The rave culture represents acceptance, diversity, and respect. Another aspect of raves that I found interesting was the fantasy mentality. Raves are a way for people to escape reality.

I think the heavy drug use takes away from the culture's ability to get the P.L.U.R message out to the masses. Because of the drug-induced happiness, people tend to not take it seriously. Personally, I would take the ideology of the rave culture more seriously if it was filled with natural happiness and acceptance for all.

My DIY

After watching the documentary "DIY or Die" the first thing that came to mind as important was the last section of the movie where a variety of the artists encourage the viewing audience to "do it themselves"; to get out there and do what you love and make it yours. The first thing that I thought of in terms of DIY things I had done was my music. Back in high school I played in a metal band I found through a Myspace Ad I posted in the musicians' section ( in the days of yore when respectable human beings still used Myspace). The band was called "Havoc Theory". We played a lot of small shows, 'showcases' and battles, some of which were in clubs in the "trendy" area of Pittsburgh, and some were at little holes-in-the-wall with terrible sound and no stages, and we even played a party or two. We designed our own t-shirts and stickers, did our own promoting (even made our own flyers), and above all we recorded our own music. Here's a link (I'm not in that band anymore but I am on the audio because those are the only halfway decent recordings the band ever did): http://www.myspace.com/havoctheory
These days I'm in a new band doing the same thing. It's a great experience and even though I have yet to make any money that doesn't stop me from loving what I do. I think the people from the documentary would agree.

Comic Shop customers

Hey gang,

Doing some research on my project (I'm doing comic book fans), I ran across this site. It's primarily a humor site, but as someone who spent all of his teen years in a comic shop, I can tell you that there is no resource that paints a better picture of comic fans than these little strips. Thought I'd pass along the site just because it's fun, but it also works as a window into the sometimes dark and unsettling world of comic book fans.

Disclaimer: there is some rough language if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable.

http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/

Women and Hip-Hop

Here are the questions we did not get to cover in class today:

What dominant structures are the women of Hip-Hip challenging? How does their subculture reflect the status of all women in society?

How are women in hip-hip different than men in the same subculture? Do they constitute a separate subculture entirely?

Also, here's a link to the video that I was talking about in class. I think this is a prime example of how women use the hip-hop subculture to challenge the concept of misogyny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgIGMwZd2o

Any thoughts?

Art?

Before today's discussion I did not think skateboarding was art by any means. I have began to consider it as an art form after today's arguments. I only think the skateboarding done on a professional level is art. The fluidity and arrangement of tricks is critical to their achievement. Like gymnasts and ice skaters, skate boarders are judged based on creativity and aesthetics. This aspect alone made me think about skateboarding as an art.

In football or basketball, points can be scored in a very ugly manner. They are still points no matter how it looks. In a skateboarding competition the skills have to "look good" in order to reach a prestigious level.

I am still not completely convinced that skateboarding is an art, but today made me think about it further.

Thursday Discussion

There was a lot of discussion today about art and what makes something art that was very interesting. I asked if it would make a difference if the skateboarding was part of a performance. I found something like that on youtube in this video:
Link
It alternates between bboys and a handbalancer, but it is a creative use of the skateboard. I found another video of the same group doing similar things, so it appears to be choreographed. Just something to think about.

For the parkour article, on thing that stood out to me was that Atkinson did his research in 2005, just as youtube was starting up. Since then youtube has become a pretty big part of that culture. Parkour "samplers" are all over. From watching them I feel like there is a difference between the attitudes of the traceurs then and now.

Atkinson reports that a lot of the people he interviewed seemed to talk about how it was a personal thing, and the main thing that separated it from other sports was the de-emphasis on being better than others, but many of these sampler videos tend to be very show-offy and glamorize the person doing it, with their name often being very prominent in the video or description. Any thoughts on this? And in a more general sense, does mass-communication like this seem to affect other subcultures in similar ways?

Skateboarding in Bangor, PA

I wanted to post one of my brothers' skate video's which I mentioned in class today. It's very different from the one we watched in class which was made by a shoe company and was artistic in the skill level of the tricks and the mastery of the skater/artist.
Skateboarding is one of the major subcultures in my town and it's something I'm close to through my brothers. I think their videos, which this is an example of, are more expressions of a subculture. The focus of their videos is their skate tricks, but also a preservation or representation of what they're about as friends and as members of the subculture as it exists in one specific area at one specific time. There are inside jokes and interactions, for example the clip of the cop writing them a citation. One of the defining parts of the skateboard culture in my town is the fact that it is illegal to skateboard in public.

WARNING! They are teenage boys and there is cursing and I believe one of them moons the camera at one point. I apologize for any potentially offensive material. Watch at your own risk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0LEy4BZP5A&feature=related