In recent weeks, any Argentine-even those who, like me, keeps a low or even minimal contact with the television program "had access to a large number of notes devoted to revive the well-known theme of" urban tribes. " In this case, however, the tribes that were under the microscope were not the traditional media-by which I mean the punks, the skinheads, the Gothic, the ever present cumbieros, etc-but two relatively new groups and theoretically antagonistic: the "floggers" and "emos."
However, before communicating my vision in this regard, it seems appropriate clarify that my purpose in this post is not to inquire about the cultural and ideological purposes of these groups, in fact, I think they are nonexistent-but I intend to discuss the paradox that surrounds the profusion of these new trends revolve around adolescence.
dared not say that these new tribes are heirs of capitalist culture, a consequence of the expansion of a theme that builds the homogeneity from the difference. So, if you pay attention to the dominant discourse, is seen in young people strongly believe that they are different even if their peers look the same way and claim the same thing. Or is this not what is reflected in the mass meetings in the Supply or the square in the vicinity of Bond Street?
However, as regards this last point, the attitude of emo is even more paradoxical than the floggers because while they recognize themselves as social beings and do not deny the system in which they are embedded but that make your office a lifestyle, those wielding a discourse of protest and rejection that is no coincidence whatsoever to their conduct. Thus, we hear them describe themselves as loners, to just misanthropes and yet, provide extensive social networks using the same technology as their rivals: the Internet. Surprisingly, even the proliferation of gold fotologs "where these subjects are portrayed themselves in conditions that differ little from those of the" vain "and" frivolous "floggers. Worse
is watching the show from his injuries photographed as a trophy of war, as if the pain will generate a pride worthy of being photographed and displayed before others. It is worth mentioning, however, that my criticism here is not directed to the fact that someone is hurt himself, but what I find inconceivable is that a person is doing harm to the public as if trying to justify to eyes of the spectators something as private as existential angst.
Finally-and to summarize because, in truth, this is an issue ripe for analysis and debate, there is one aspect that I find especially troubling is the fact that these new groups of young plant identification not only an aesthetic that serves the interests of a market that operates on a preset range, but also a terrible impoverishment of language.
Today it is fashionable to speak ill and who dares to challenge this new law is seen as outdated and incomprehensible character with horror, I see daily the lack of vocabulary that you have my brother, a flogger of thirteen and, worst of all, the pride that this causes. Dispenses with words without the slightest interest in knowing their meaning and pride to practice writing anarchic, lacking any connection with spelling rules.
But if this bold disregard for the laws of culture is inconceivable in any human being, even more so in the case of "emos" as far as they are called to be a representation of a "counterculture "channeled in aesthetics and art. What is the goal, then, to depose our language with no "h", the profusion of "z" and the extinction of accents when "ignorance" role in the social universe is the subject of criticism? No answer but the most banal and rejected by who describes himself as a unique and independent of public opinion attention.
No way, then the fans of these groups and most of all the "emos" - conduct that would qualify as "nasty" in other tribes, especially the "villainous" - such as intake alcohol in excess or the propensity to casual sex and promiscuity ...
Are they different, then those flying the flag of the difference? Or the distinction is extinguished along discourse? They say that the fact that there is long way ... and there in the crack that spans between them, has melted down the shoots of intention.
