Subcultures become part of mainstream culture in how they exist. The commercialism of mainstream culture finds ways to get money from subcultures, which makes the subcultures somewhat reliant on and part of the mainstream culture, which means that all subcultures are inevitably going to having limited time spans.
Becoming part of a subculture is generally buying into the idea of rebellion rather than choosing to join the culture because that's the way you as an individual would choose to live your life, as generally there's never a huge choice of subcultures to choose to identify yourself as being within. The idea of rebelling against mainstream culture is, in itself, somewhat flawed, as parts of the mainstream culture you're rebelling against survive because of rebellion.
The process of a subculture being absorbed into mainstream culture is called Incorporation. This generally happens in one of two ways, ideologically or commoditively. Ideologically is when the labelling of the culture in certain ways makes it so that the people within the culture no longer want to associate themselves with the culture, which is what kills it. Commoditively is where the subculture becomes overly reliant on mainstream culture for it to physically exist in terms of clothes etc, this slowly dilutes the subcultures into mainstream culture.
Teddy Boys
The era of the Teds was the first time when men started thinking about their appearance in terms of their hair etc. This was reflected in the lower classes as they wore clothes similar to those worn by the upper classes in a bit of a piss-takey way. The lower classes really stuck together through this phase and this was reflected in how solidly the idea of the teddy boy was portrayed.
Rockers
The rockers were heavily American influenced, especially from films such as The Wild One, which really set the suggestion that being different was cool. This was the first subculture that established gaps in generations, as no parent wanted their child to being a rocker. The rocker culture was tried to be shut down by television and the media showing it in a negative light, but that only popularised it further with the youth of the country. However, in turn that meant that people were becoming part of the subculture that weren't taking it as seriously as the original rockers, slowly diluting into mainstream culture.
Modernists (Mods)
The mods started looking forward and trying new things, which is different to what previous subcultures had done. They mainly took influences from jazz music, not the rock and roll music that was previously popular, and was just generally about being cool. A lot of mods had scooters which gave them a sense of freedom as they were no longer reliant on their parents. As the subculture grew bigger and people from different generations became part of it with new ideas, the culture sort of split, with some of the original mods rebelling against the newer mods.
Skinheads
The skinhead subculture was generally started when some mods started rebelling against other mods by having their hair cut really short to emphasise the neatness. They also had influences from the West Indies, where people were arriving from in England at the time. Because of this skinhead culture was particularly noticeable in deprived areas where white people and black people both lived together in what was a fairly racist era. As soon as the media coverage started people started growing their hair slightly longer to get away from the medias associations, and so the subculture slowly died by the 70's. It was back again during the mid 70's though, but this time as a uniform for racism. This was because it was quite an intimidating look.
Soul Boys
Blues & Soul magazine spread the subculture nationwide. It was mainly about loose clothes, being comfortable and dancing. It had a friendly atmosphere and was more about the people within the subculture than any icons of it, and because of this was generally left alone by the media, and generally just died down of its own accord.
Punk
The punk era was mainly about provoking a reaction, and in contrast to how the teds and mods look was very rehearsed, the punk look had more of a do-it-yourself attitude, and there wasn't really a wrong way to be a punk. It was more inclusive of the influences of females than any other subculture up to that point, and arguably is where the roots of modern day feminism stem from.
Casuals
The casuals subculture was mainly about fashion and football, and originated in Liverpool, where Liverpool fans would come back from away games in Europe with expensive sports clothing that wasn't available in England at the time. This trend caught on in England and it slowly became fairly mainstream that expensive clothes were being sold to what were essentially football hooligans. Towards the end of the 80's ecstasy was getting big and took over from this culture.
Rave
Rave culture was about taking a lot of drugs, dressing individually but comfortably and dancing. This got so big that it was becoming commercial as there was a lot of money to be made from it, this started making it more generic.
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