Goths, Gamers, and Grrrls: Deviance and Youth Subcultures

by Ross Haenfler

"There are surely people and practices that you find strange. Even stranger, though, is how we often have different ideas regarding what is strange."--from the Introduction

How and why do subcultures emerge? Do youth subcultures mount a meaningful resistance to mainstream/adult society? How do men and women enact gender in their scenes? What does it mean to be "deviant"? Who decides what is deviant and what is "normal"?

A concise, engaging, and affordable supplementary text for introductory sociology courses and any course that covers popular culture, youth, or deviance, Goths, Gamers, and Deviance and Youth Subcultures addresses these questions and many more. This unique volume introduces students to the
sociological study of deviance, equipping them with the theoretical tools necessary to analyze various youth subcultures--and virtually any subculture--in new and fascinating ways.

Author Ross Haenfler opens with an introduction that provides an overview of subcultural theory, a definition of the concept of resistance, and explanations of various theories of deviance and delinquency. He goes on to examine eight different youth subcultures in skinheads, punk
rock/hardcore/straight edge, hip hop, heavy metal, virginity pledgers, Goths, gamers and hackers, and riot grrrls. Each chapter begins with a brief description and history of the scene before exploring a specific sociological concept or theory. Topics addressed include symbolic interactionist
theory, status hierarchy, the role of style and politics in music scenes, enacting race and gender, moral panics, positive deviance, social stigma, the components of a virtual subculture, and more. The book concludes with discussions of resistance, commodification, and what happens as subcultural
youth age.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

176 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[Miri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting and engaging overview of a bunch of different subcultures. The author did a great job of using each one to explain different sociological concepts, though because the focus was explaining sociology, he didn't go too far in-depth about the actual subcultures.

My main quibble is that the book is full of terrible grammar and spelling errors. I seriously wonder if it even got edited. I'm not normally a freak about grammar, but there were mistakes in here that you'd expect from a high school student. So that made it kind of annoying, but whatever.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a breath of fresh air for an English major who has been reading theory for three years straight. I appreciate that this book took popular culture seriously and attempted to examine and question the stereotypes that surround subcultures.

[sara !! ⋆ ˚｡⋆★ · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for my youth subcultures class! :) bedroom culture and hip hop were my favorite chapters

[xinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

reads off as overly ambitious and even cringe at many times, but the charitable understanding is that it’s an attempt to expose obscure groups to the academia space

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a sometimes goth, a major gamer, and a grrrl, the title of this book intrigued me, so I decided to read it. Ultimately, the book has disappointed me immensely. I started with the chapter titled, "Gamers, Hackers, and Facebook -- Computer Cultures, Virtual Community, and Postmodern Identity." I feel as though the author did the most minimal amount of research possible for this chapter, and many simple mistakes are obvious to anyone who has personal knowledge of any of the too-many subjects presented therein. For instance, the author lists Nintendo and Wii as being independent of each other. Though "gamers" are listed as a major part of the subject matter in the title of this book, the only chapter that covers them is mainly about hackers and computers/technology in general, and the author admits that the hacker community is predominately male, then presents little discussion of female roles in said community. The book is simplistically written, as though for laymen, and dumbs down every topic it covers (making it even too simple for the average layman). Also, a lot of the sources that are researched seem extremely dated, even though this book was published within the last five years. The author references MySpace as a popular social platform, and anyone with a regular internet connection knows that MySpace is long dead. The author also makes very tenuous connections, like in one chapter where the Riot Grrrl movement is somehow tied to fan fiction.

Basically, most of the text in this book is just telling me extremely basic things that I already know. Perhaps some of the information is unknown to people outside of the sub-cultures that I personally inhabit, but a lot of the information presented seems to be readily apparent to most people.

Plus, the book contains and discusses in detail the ever-prevalent negative media hype that unwittingly goes hand-in-hand with any misunderstood sub-culture. I feel like I've heard enough about the goth scene "causing" murders and suicides -- I didn't really need a reminder of all of that negative hype.

[Zivile · Rating 5 out of 5]

You won't find too many studies done on alternative scene, especially done by an insider, which lends even greater bravoure to this book.
It's a small and compressed sociological glimpse at various alternative cultures/scenes. If you're part of one of those sibcultures, you won't learn anything new, but it's a good introduction to other cultures that surround us or clash with us.

[Masha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. I Identify with a lot of it, so it was a interesting read.

[Mills College Library]

305.23509 H135 2013

[Niah]

Not gonna lie. I skimmed most of this, but I'm still counting it because of all the other readings I do that I can't count here XD