Generational Shifts in Subcultural Participation: The Transformation of Symbols, Practices and Performances in Visual Kei

Leisure based youth subcultures are often depicted and best remembered in the common imagination as the material manifestations that they occupy at the height of their popularity. The styles, behaviors and shared practices of these subcultures are often thought to reflect how participants feel, what they value and the lifestyles they desire. Oftentimes dismissed as mere ‘fashion fads’ or instances of deviance, subcultural participation is characterized and reduced to a passing period of youth to be outgrown or resolved as one moves into adulthood.

Visual Kei refers to both an aesthetic movement in Japanese rock music as well as the subculture surrounding the consumption, production and practices of its performers and fans. This paper critiques such notions of subculture as tied to a temporal period of youth by examining the generational shifts and continuous participation that extends well into adulthoood from within an established leisure based subculture such as Visual Kei, which is now in its third generation of practice and (re-)production.

To this end, this paper will compare the difference between each generation of the subculture by focusing on subcultural symbols and how the meaning attached to these symbols (in the form of dress, discourse and performance) transforms over time. It is suggested that these symbols form both the basis of a common shared history that links the members of different generations and at the same time functions as a resource for newer members to utilize creatively, allowing for the continuation of the subculture, albeit not without contestation as the emotive value attached to such symbols varies across the generations. The article concludes that potent symbols that continue to resonate with the values and orientations of people over time say much about people’s feelings regarding larger, hegemonic socio-cultural norms as they do about individual values.