CRITICAL THINKING PROJECT MAY 2014 | Page 9

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URBAN TRIBES.....THE NEW CLASSIFICATION FOR TEENS?

The urban tribes are mainly gangs or groups of young people (teenagers) who share fashions, interests, philosophies and common places. Generally, each one of these are called “tribes”, and they have their music and clothing that characterize them. Each one of them defends their ideals and objectives, and often they discriminate the other urban tribes because of their different thoughts.

The common thing between the different urban tribes is the rebelliousness and the social marginalization. They don’t like laws, the traditional things and people who force them to do “the right things”. And the other common thing is that all of them want to feel that they are not alone, and there are people like them; people with the same thoughts or likes.

The majority of the tribes share the same thought, and others share the same hobby (like skating or parkouring). And just a few share only music taste or fashion taste.

But now, the urban tribes are also a fashion. Now a lot of teenagers are only in an urban tribe to “follow fashion”. These are the most important urban tribes:

-Emos: are a group of people between 14-20 years. They have a negative or dramatic vision of life, they feel like victims and are pesimists.

-Geeks: they have an obsession with informatic, electronic and new technology.

-Otakus: a group that is fanatic of animes, japonese videogames or anything that refers to the japanese culture.

-Grunge: They don’t care about this communist society, they only care about their music.

-Punks: They reject society, everything is frustration and anxiety.

-Hippies: They escape from violence, and proclame love and peace for all the world, they also don’t like politics.

-Hipsters: They show unique thoughts, they don’t follow the modes and they reject consumism.

BY: ELIZABETH REYES AND ANA PAOLA DORANTES