woww, such an interesting piece, couldnt ignore it..
the idea that extreme bodybuilding can make the body less individual really stuck with me!!!!! it made me wonder if the same logic applies to makeup too, when most people are following the same beauty standards, at what point does self expression start making us look more alike?
but I really loved the contrast you draw between the same obsession with the body creating either hierarchy or belonging, such an interesting tension. Maybe a subculture can actually teach people to accept difference simply through shared physical experience, even when it was never explicitly about politics or tolerance..
aaand that made me think about how internet subcultures have changed: they used to feel like places where people could find an identity and a community. so I keep wondering, what makes one subculture turn difference into belonging, when another turns it into a hierarchy?
“Tension between the body creating hierarchy or belonging” is such a fantastic way to put it, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Your second question may have been completely rhetorical, but I think when it comes to subcultures creating hierarchy, I feel like that negates, in a way, their subculture-ness. Obviously hierarchies are impossible to avoid wherever humans go, but it doesn’t offer the same “semiotics as resistance” that dick hebdidge always believed were innate to subcultures.
woww, such an interesting piece, couldnt ignore it..
the idea that extreme bodybuilding can make the body less individual really stuck with me!!!!! it made me wonder if the same logic applies to makeup too, when most people are following the same beauty standards, at what point does self expression start making us look more alike?
but I really loved the contrast you draw between the same obsession with the body creating either hierarchy or belonging, such an interesting tension. Maybe a subculture can actually teach people to accept difference simply through shared physical experience, even when it was never explicitly about politics or tolerance..
aaand that made me think about how internet subcultures have changed: they used to feel like places where people could find an identity and a community. so I keep wondering, what makes one subculture turn difference into belonging, when another turns it into a hierarchy?
“Tension between the body creating hierarchy or belonging” is such a fantastic way to put it, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Your second question may have been completely rhetorical, but I think when it comes to subcultures creating hierarchy, I feel like that negates, in a way, their subculture-ness. Obviously hierarchies are impossible to avoid wherever humans go, but it doesn’t offer the same “semiotics as resistance” that dick hebdidge always believed were innate to subcultures.