Assignment 06
To begin to understand Terranova’s argument we must have a clear, definite definition for subculture. Subculture can be described as a group with a culture that is different from the main culture, but still holds onto the founding principles. These subcultural movements don’t originally fall into the mainstream but through time and non-exclusivity, they appear in everything we know today. The relationship to capitalism is not that it wants to be capitalized but through sharing and cultural appropriation, it gives capital the ability to take part in this movement. Capitalism feeds on subculture movements. Cultural appropriation is defined as members of different culture, using or adopting some parts of a culture. Most times, this is done in a negative fashion. From this I think it’s safe to say that nothing can be of its own. I don’t believe that people in these subcultures want to allow capitalism, but in order for the flow of ideas to continue they have to be open to it.
Everything we know of today- music, styles, media, language- has come from something else. I think when Terranova argues that subcultural movements are not appropriated by capital from the outside, she means that all of the ideas that come out of these subcultural movements aren’t only appropriated. She believes that they have also become guided and structured by the capitalists from the inside in order for it to be seen in the outside. For example, today we see a lot of cultural appropriation with fashion. Within this month, I have seen a lot of comments about the costumes people wear. For example, the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead has been adopted by other cultures as means of dressing up for Halloween. These other cultures don’t necessarily know about the holiday and what it actually means for Mexicans. However, in almost every costume store you enter you can probably see a costume for this or search up a makeup tutorial on it. The ideas/fashion of this holiday have been structured by businesses to be part of our Halloween. Therefore, allowing it to be appropriated by other cultures and seen as just a fun way to dress or a cool costume idea.
