Punk subculture in the context of "Ramones"

In the sociology of culture, a subculture is a group of people within a cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the mainstream or dominant culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, political, and sexual matters. Subcultures coexist within mainstream society while keeping their specific characteristics intact.

Since its inception in the English-speaking world (primarily North America and the United Kingdom) during the 1940s–1950s, the concept and study of subcultures was developed in the academic fields of sociology, communication studies, and cultural studies. Examples of subcultures include punks, skinheads, Teddy Boys, mods, rockers, bikers, hip-hoppers, and more. Subcultures differ from countercultures.

Punk rock (or simply punk) is a subgenre of rock music that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the overproduction and corporate nature of mainstream rock music. Typically producing short, fast-paced songs with rough stripped-down vocals and instrumentation and an anti-establishment theme, artists embrace a DIY ethic with many bands self-producing and distributing recordings through independent labels.

During the early 1970s, the term "punk rock" was originally used by some American rock critics to describe mid-1960s garage bands. Subsequent developments such as glam and pub rock in the UK, alongside the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls from New York have been cited as key influences. By the mid-1970s, the term "punk rock" had become associated with several regional underground music scenes, including the MC5 and the Stooges in Detroit; Television, Patti Smith, Suicide, the Dictators, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Ramones in New York City; Rocket from the Tombs, Electric Eels and Dead Boys in Ohio; the Saints and Radio Birdman in Australia; and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and the Buzzcocks in England. By late 1976, punk had become a major cultural phenomenon in the UK, giving rise to a punk subculture that expressed youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing, such as T-shirts with deliberately offensive graphics, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands, jewelry, bondage clothing and safety pins.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction set in a dystopian future. It is characterized by its focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features a range of futuristic technological and scientific achievements, including artificial intelligence and cyberware, which are juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. A significant portion of cyberpunk can be traced back to the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, prominent writers such as Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison explored the impact of technology, drug culture, and the sexual revolution. These authors diverged from the utopian inclinations prevalent in earlier science fiction.

Comics exploring cyberpunk themes began appearing as early as Judge Dredd, first published in 1977. Released in 1984, William Gibson's influential debut novel Neuromancer helped solidify cyberpunk as a genre, drawing influence from punk subculture and early hacker culture. Frank Miller's Ronin is an example of a cyberpunk graphic novel. Other influential cyberpunk writers included Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series Akira, with its 1988 anime film adaptation (also directed by Otomo) later popularizing the subgenre.

Vice is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. It was founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, and its founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, which consists of divisions including the printed magazine as well as a website, broadcast news unit, a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint. As of February 2015, the magazine's editor-in-chief is Ellis Jones.

On 15 May 2023, Vice Media formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as part of a possible sale to a consortium of lenders including Fortress Investment Group, which will, alongside Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, invest $225 million as a credit bid for nearly all of its assets. In February 2024, CEO Bruce Dixon announced additional layoffs and that the website Vice.com will no longer publish content. The print magazine returned in September 2024.

New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles that emerged in the mid- to late 1970s as a lighter and more melodic "broadening of punk culture". The term new wave initially held distinct regional differences between the United States and United Kingdom. In the US, "new wave" had originally been used by music critics to label New York punk bands during the early-to mid 1970s. The term was later adopted by Sire Records founder Seymour Stein, who launched the "Don't Call It Punk" campaign in October 1977 to replace "punk" with "new wave". In the UK, new wave was less rooted in punk and had a more diverse definition. Over time, the genre became a catch-all for several musical styles that emerged after the initial popularity of punk rock, such as synth-pop, alternative dance and post-punk.

New wave commercially peaked during the late 1970s into the early 1980s with an abundance of one-hit wonders. In 1981, the MTV channel was launched, which heavily promoted and popularized new-wave acts in the United States. Regional new wave scenes developed across Europe, particularly the Netherlands' ultra, Germany's Neue Deutsche Welle, Spain's La Movida Madrileña, France, Poland and Belgium's coldwave, as well as the Yugoslav new wave. Additionally, the movement inspired subgenres such as minimal wave and darkwave.

Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures that show a systematic hostility to the dominant culture are sometimes described as countercultures.

Youth music genres are associated with many youth subcultures, such as hip-hop, punks, emos, ravers, juggalos, metalheads, and goths. The study of subcultures often consists of the study of the symbolism attached to clothing, music and other visible affections by members of the subculture, and also, the ways in which these symbols are interpreted by members of the dominant culture.

A head shop is a store that sells drug-related paraphernalia. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and at that time, many of them had close ties to the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as groups in the marijuana legalization movement like LeMar, Amorphia, and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Products sold may include magazines (e.g., about cannabis culture, cannabis cultivation, tattooing, and music), clothing, and home décor (e.g., posters and wall hangings illustrating drug culture themes such as cannabis, jam bands like The Grateful Dead, Phish, psychedelic art, etc.). Some head shops also sell oddities, such as antique walking sticks and sex toys. Since the 1980s, some head shops have sold clothing related to the heavy metal or punk subculture, such as band T-shirts and cloth patches with band logos, studded wristbands, bullet belts, and leather boots. Other items offered typically include hashish pipes, "one hitter" pipes; pipe screens; bongs (also referred to as water pipes); roach clips (used for smoking the end of a marijuana "joint"); vaporizers used for inhaling THC vapor from cannabis; rolling papers; rolling machines; small weighing scales; small ziplock baggies; cannabis grinders (i.e. herb grinders); blacklight-responsive posters and blacklights; incense; cigarette lighters; "stashes", which include a range of standard consumer products such as clocks, books, tins of cleaning powder, and toilet brushes which have hidden compartments for cannabis and non-camouflaged "stash boxes" which are tins or wooden containers for storing marijuana; and legal highs such as whipped-cream chargers (which contain nitrous oxide) and Salvia divinorum (both of which are illegal in some countries and some US states for recreational purposes). Some head shops also sell items used for home cultivation of marijuana plants, such as hydroponic equipment and lights and guidebooks on cultivation. Since the 2000s, some head shops also sell e-cigarettes and the flavoured liquids used with these devices.