Be Like Everyone Else and Try to be Different

 I had always thought of myself as a weird kid in high school. It had never occurred to me that a lot of people probably didn't see it that way. I had friends, we did stupid shit together, we partied, we laughed, we traveled, and partied some more. Yet at the same time, I could not help but think that it was possible that my public self was different than the one I shared at home with my family or my closest friends, that I had changed my identity for the world every time I stepped outside. I was Mark, an average kid growing up in the suburbs in a high school full of people being social and finding similar interests and sharing similar hardships with those I surrounded myself with. I was a different person. But what defined who I was if it meant trying to find out what's the coolest thing, what's the newest product, what's the most significant thing that happened in school, or in news? We feel pressured into maintaining a standard about ourselves every time we walk outside. This comes down to how to act normal, how to be professional, how to be awesome, what to buy, what to where, and what to do. Yet an ideology of a mainstream culture seems unappealing to most because everyone wants an identity that is creative and different than everything else. That is when everyone jumps on the bandwagon of "Being Different," and suddenly, being different is the new mainstream culture.

In Sarah Thornton's "The Social Logic of Sub-cultural Capital," she suggests that youth share sub-cultural ideologies that differentiate from the "parent culture," in which they imagine a separate identity that is asserted in the mainstream culture in order to associate distinctiveness within society. Ideologies that follow what is cool come into conflict when what is cool becomes affiliated with mainstream culture and loses its value among youth groups over time, with popularity, and with copies. Yet these subcultural ideologies shared among youth is routinely sought after to make profits. Club owners, DJs, musicians, and clothing designers all look for what is considered "hip" to attract their audiences and defined as sub-cultural capital. It is money generated by the attractiveness of trend valued and idolized by specific sub-cultural communities. If no one's heard of it, it's underground. Once it's heard of and popular, they become mainstream. Once it's used for generating profits and changing ideologies and values to cater to the majority, it becomes a sell-out. 

By way of example, Shepard Fairey's OBEY The Giant, had grown into an economic marketing success compared to it's spread in the small town skater subculture of the late 1980's when he first created it. His style of street art had focused more on the aspect of how propaganda worked compared to what was being propagated. Over time his street art conceptualizing Andre the Giant as propaganda spread in parts all over North America and the world over time as it gained popularity and notoriety for the past two decades and getting involved with politics; one notable work being the 2008 HOPE poster for Obama’s political campaign. His work had gone from underground to mainstream, yet he maintains the value and ideologies as a street artist and is well respected in the urban art culture. His designs that he sell can be seen as cultural capital but well reflects the subcultural traits and "what is hip."

As we get older we put away our childish things but does this mean that we give up our sense of what's cool and why we should still care? The parent culture is exempt from allowing "cool" within it's borders and anything that should cross will become "not cool, man." Graffiti and street art are expressions of youth looking for identity and independence within a world that doesn't care for them, within a society that won't provide for them. When people say that graffiti is vandalism, it comes down to perspective. It's easy to call something vandalism if you don't like it being there. Obviously, there's going to be people who don't agree with their walls being painted but it's no different than the propaganda of what to buy, what to do, where to go, and who to be that we surround ourselves with everyday even within our own homes.