Subculture in the “Authenticity in the Skateboarding World”

Cortland Bolling Branham SOCI 1301 In the article “Authenticity in the Skateboarding World”, subculture is described as a completely separate culture with its own set of values and norms outside those of the world’s society. Skaters can be described as one of these subcultures because of their unique values, norms, and sanctions that differ from most sports. Unlike sports such as basketball the norm for skaters is their lack of interest in competition and trying to out due each other.

According to Beal and Weidman the skateboarding community follows two central values, participant control and the devaluing of competition; many skaters explain that they chose to skate, and that they choose individually what’s acceptable. After interviewing more skaters the authors discover that like other cultures they also have their own sanctions. One example is that many of the skaters that are in it to look cool, or to be better than everyone else are looked down upon as not being “real skaters”, but instead conformist.

While sports are a common spot for subcultures, they are not the only place they can be found and in fact most people belong to one. For example I am a member of a Baptist church. While it is true that Baptist are Christians just like Methodist and Catholics, we have our own sub subculture or set of values, norms, and sanctions that somewhat differ from the other Christian churches. In a Baptist church praise and worship is often very loud and up beat while at a Lutheran church they remain quiet unless spoken too and sing old hymns, so being loud would be considered rude and vulgar.