There was a philosopher called Ernst Cassirer who had to dip out of Germany in the 1940s before the Nazis caught up with him. Before he fled, he wrote a paper in which he labeled the human species ’symbolic.’ Symbols, he said, encode ideas. So a flag represents nationality, a cross represents Christianity, and so on.
Cassirer knew what he was talking about, but he was also an old white man who spent Friday nights reading the untranslated manuscripts of Immanuel Kant and he could never have ever envisaged the way in which Symbols took off with the birth of Cool.
The visual symbols of Cool give us a discerning insight into the lifestyle changes undergone by youth culture throughout the twentieth century. A pair of sunglasses, for instance, can define a persona at adolescence.
I have chosen five symbols that emblemise the five main eras of youth culture. These are not symbols in the scientific sense, like Ï€ or Ω. What I’m talking about is mythic symbolism, something which has always been part and parcel of American youth culture. You can see it in the Elvis pompadour hairstyles of the 50s or the dark clothing and macabre tattoos worn by goths.
Bobbed Hair
Although they weren’t called teenagers, the crazy kids of the Roaring Twenties were the first true example of young people who rebelled against the lifestyle choices of mummy and daddy.
Young women called ‘flappers’ wore short skirts, rolled-down stockings, and short ‘bobbed’ hair. They partied at speakeasies where they drank bootleg liquor, listened to jazz, and danced the Charleston. Their cropped hair, in particular, became a symbol for the flapper lifestyle, being condemned by adults as crude and openly sexual.
But the flappers ignored the censure, and set the tone for the shift in social values. For the first time, young Americans raised their middle fingers to society and adopted their own status within mainstream culture.
Sunglasses
By the early 1950s, the term teenager (coined a decade earlier) was in common use across the US. The social status gained by the youth of the 1920s had evolved into a lucrative market category. It was the first era of teen culture with its own music, movies and magazines.
Sunglasses made their debut into this new teen universe through icons such as Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marlon Brando. They perfectly characterised the new teen Cool and emblemised the pseudo-rebellious adolescent persona of the era.
The Peace Sign
In the 60s a counterculture movement emerged, spearheaded by young people wearing long hair, bell-bottom jeans, and colorful shirts. These hippies stood for free love, peace, and understanding.
Aided by the popularity of Star Trek – which used the ‘V’ sign as a Vulcan greeting meaning ‘Live long and prosper’ – the ‘V’ sign caught on with hippies, who turned its ‘victory’ meaning on its head, using it as a protest against war.
The Reverse Dog Collar
In the mid-1970s, ‘punks’ stomped their way in youth culture with a radical demeanor that was intended to be violent and confrontational. Punk bands spat on audiences, mutilated themselves and damaged props on stage, encouraging their audiences to follow suit.
The fashion trends they introduced (chains, army boots, naff ‘Mohawk’ hairdos, etc.) were designed to mock society and demonstrate defiance. Of all the punk signifiers, the reverse dog collar stood out as the symbolic item of punk attire.
At the time, it was common for animal trainers to use dog collars with inward-protruding spikes to punish disobedient dogs. Being against all forms of authority, punks reversed the dog collar in parody of dog obedience training. The outward-protruding spikes signaled that the wearer would never be controlled by mainstream society.
Baggy Pants
For safety reasons, prisoners are not allowed to wear belts. So they wear their pants baggy-style. Hip-hop youths have, in effect, embraced this prison-gang symbolism with its ‘in-your-face’ attitude ‘” an attitude that is a throwback to both of the ersatz rebellious look of 1950s youths and to the confrontational persona espoused by punk youths.
WORDS: MARCEL DANESI
ILLUSTRATIONS: POLLY PHILP
