ABSTRACT
Adults often treat youth as a problem to be managed, alternating efforts to curb underage drinking, teen-pregnancy, and juvenile delinquency with prescriptions to cure depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem. A headline in the satirical newspaper The Onion reads “Area Teen Up to Something,” the story noting “Signs that the teenager may be up to no good have so far included his hunched over posture, the way he keeps looking around with his eyes, and the fact that he probably owns a number of those violent video games.” The article pokes fun at adults' tendency to view “strange” young people with a mixture of wonder, suspicion, and even fear, but the satire works because many times this is the case. Given that most people associate subcultures with youth, the same wariness applies, compounded by media stereotypes of sub-culturists as troubled, alienated, delinquent, or violent kids. Thus a central concern for adults, including many scholars, has been to explain just why young people would “join” subcultures, often with the aim of curtailing deviance and delinquency.
