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Young people having a subculture unique to themselves is a recent phenomena. It is thought that it started to become most prevalent around the mid 20th century, after World War II, due to the economic, political, and educational climate.

Ironically the music, clothes, language etc. of youth culture is often created by non-young people (adults). For example MTV while being seen as a big part of youth culture (at the present time) is controlled by adults. Boy bands who find favour with young people are often not young themselves.

Other cultures typically create and produce their own cultural ideas, while young people have a certain amount produced by adults. To some people this raises questions about the exploitation and oppression of young people.

In Western civilization, a distinct teenage culture has developed. A "teenager" or "teen" is a person whose age is a number ending in "-teen" in the English language: that is to say, someone from the age of thirteen to the age of nineteen. The word is of recent origin, only having appeared in the mid 20th century. The term "teenager" is roughly equivalent to adolescent. However due to marketing, the pre-teens (about 8-12 year olds, especially females) also have a strong youth culture. However, youth culture is beginning to expend its influence in increasingly younger age groups.

Today's youth culture in general can be characterized by:

• A distinct style of dress.
• A dislike for other teenagers who are not part of their "youth culture"
• Glorification of "bad" behavior (sex, drugs, etc.), to symbolize being "different".
• Frequent use of slang and profanity, particularly in the older age groups.
• Cliques and friendship circles, almost like a "second family".
• A strong desire to be "cool", e.g. following the fads.

1 See also

• youth culture in general
• Rebel Without a Cause
• marketing to teenagers
• youth council

Various youth movements, frequently associated with a musical style, have existed as part of teenage culture. They include:

• Edelweiss Pirates
• Mods and Rockers
• the Teds
• Skinheads
• PunkPunk can have the following meanings: A follower of punk music fashion or culture. Punk is a set of social and political beliefs, morals and standards that indicate an absolute rejection of conformity. A punk is a combustible material or a piece of kindli
• DiscoDisco is an up-tempo style of dance music that originated in the early 1970s, mainly from funk and soul music, popular originally with gay and black audiences in large U. cities, and derives its name from the French word discotheque (meaning nightclub), c
• Straight Edge
• Hip-hop
• the HippiesHippies (singular hippie or sometimes hippy were members of the 1960s counterculture movement who adopted a communal or nomadic lifestyle, renounced corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and/or Native American
• Rap
• GrungerThe grunge movement was the introduction of an independent-rooted music genre and eventually more commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands from cities in the U. Pacific
• GothThis article is about the contemporary goth subculture. For the Germanic peoples, see the Goths. Goth is a modern subculture that gained visibility during the early 1980s within the gothic rock scene, a sub-genre of post punk, and continues to this day.s