As a student in the North West of the UK, I wore skating shoes a lot – they were big, chunky and thick, making my feet sweat like mad, but I loved them, despite the lack of any skating in my life. Once, when I was walking home, I passed a gang of ‘Scallies’ who were hanging around outside an off licence. They spotted my over-sized foot wear and shouted, pointing ‘Moshers wear them shoes! Ay, are you a Mosher?’
I replied (in my Southern accent) ‘Na mate.’
I think I must have confused them (they were a bit merry, thanks to the produce of the previously mentioned off licence). I think I’d given them too many reasons to hate me (Southerners, students and ‘Moshers’ were all objects of hate for many local people) and this gave me a chance to wander off home without the expected assault.
The Mosher/Scally divide was huge in the North West when I lived there (eight years ago now). The Moshers were into skating-type sports, dark clothes and looking morose; they listened to heavy, grungy, rocky sounds. Scallies wore lots of sports leisure wear and tucked their tracky pants into their socks; they were more likely to play football and listen to dance, rap or pop. Each group offered plenty of scathing abuse to the other.
I researched these two tribes for a while and found that, what could (and often did) look like two different types of irritating/intimidating teenagers wandering the town in packs – ready to pounce on unsuspecting old people – was actually far more technical. Within these two, vastly different groups, there were micro-sets of groups, for example, within the Moshers, there were Boarders, Bladers and… oh, I can’t remember their name, but they liked messing about on scooters; some were politically motivated while others didn’t care; some smoked pot while others were dead against it.
These Moshers and Scallies, like the Teddy Boys, Mods, Skinheads and other teenage tribes throughout the 20th century were behaving in a (mostly) healthy way. A young person could take the cultural tags and ideas that came with their tribe, using them to present a picture of their own, developing identity.
This was cultural discourse, the same as the adult world, but with the most vibrant, alert, interesting, interested, engaging and innovative section of society. Teen tribes were a place where a young person could practice their social skills, readying themselves before the adult world expected them to act responsibly.
I saw an article recently that was mourning the loss of the teen tribes. It argued that young people seem far less likely to be particular about a genre of music and that this, in turn, has meant that the stylised groups that descended from these genres haven’t really developed like they used to. The article suggested that, when people listen to a set of 12 songs on an album, their tastes would necessarily be limited but, with MP3 players, the opportunities for space and scope of genres is limitless. There’s no longer any need for peculiarity of taste.
I hear what the journalist is saying, but this does sound slightly sickeningly like ‘youth is wasted on the young’. Adults are foreigners, viewing a world we can’t inhabit with this subject. Show me a person who understands the complex cultural world of teenagers and I’ll show you, well… a teenager.
I can think of 2 reasons for this (lack of) social phenomena:
Firstly, we expect adolescents to be adults more than we used to. The obsession with ‘anti-social behaviour’ around the turn of the century became a sort of state-sponsored, anti-youth, adultist movement – it was no longer okay to be a teenager. We expect so much of them: a 15 year old girl should be attractive; focussing on her education; not having sex, but if she does, only with the right people and keeping STIs in mind; she should show maternal instincts but think of her career; keep away from drugs and alcohol, but it’s fine to dabble, so long as she’s mature about it.
Secondly, the culture that teenagers are growing up in is no longer about the message, but the messenger. Nobody cares about music – it’s celebrity that matters, far more than it has done in the past. Our teenagers aren’t aiming to associate with genres of music, but a genre of people. So the girl that I spoke about should aim to be Cheryl Cole, but better educated, less kitsch and using her infinite charms to keep Ashley from wandering. Every teenage girl needs to be the Alpha Female, just like every boy needs to be the Alpha Male.
So adults create the culture in which teenagers form their tribes, so we should take responsibility when things go wrong.
I can’t remember where I planned to go with this idea, but it was good. But then I saw an amazing documentary called ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children‘. This had been shot undercover and described the life of several different children in Zimbabwe, coping with poverty. It was beautifully made and featured some beautiful kids who were starving, searching for opportunities to find food or make money in a world that was too busy falling apart to care.
One boy was an Aids orphan in his Gran’s care – although she seemed to be in his care as much as he in hers. The boy was panning for gold with his friends to afford a place at school. He set traps for wild birds to feed his little family. There was no room for adolescence for him, no opportunity to become any particular type of man. If he survived to manhood, it seemed highly unlikely that he might do so outside of poverty. The film maker said:
Ah, when kids can’t dream, I think we can pretty much say goodbye to everything.
And then it hit me. Children always suffer more than adults in an unhealthy world. The health and happiness of a society’s children is a very good indication of the health of the whole society. Teenagers who feel free to choose their culture might be a great indication of a free, multicultural society. When young people feel the need to act and look like the homogenous, sexualised adults in our magazines, we can see, in them the attributes we value.
And when a child runs out of food, dreams, health and life without anybody noticing, it’s hard to see what remains valuable to a society.
