The expansion of the rave subculture in the Midwest has brought about some "growing pains," as evidenced in the developing status hierarchy that governs interactions in the subculture. As raves have expanded the boundaries between "us" and "them," and the homogeneity of the actors has broken down, particularly in terms of what I call authentic membership. Simply put, it is no longer enough to just be a raver; instead, subculture members expend considerable energy assessing who is authentic or true in the scene, and who is either a poser or a money-maker looking to capitalize on raves’ success.

In a ten-month study, I have compiled information from personal interviews and participant observation in an attempt to describe the social patterns at work. This study presents the findings in two parts. First I detail the history of raves’ development, beginning with the music around which raves where constructed, and the early parties in London’s underground clubs, and reaching up to the contemporary rave subculture in the American Midwest. In the second part I discuss the three categories of status markers, their symbolism, and summarize the issues in light of the impact of mainstream corporate interests on the battles over status and authenticity.

PART 1: Theory and History

Youth subcultures did not receive much attention until a number of them, particularly in Britain, earned the countercultural label by setting off a flurry of concern about delinquency and the decline of morality amongst young adults. Many early subculture theorists were concerned mostly with the delinquent youth cultures, so much of the early work concentrates excessively on deviance. But the panic over delinquent countercultures then opened the way for subsequent study of groups that had previously not been considered by a specific theoretical tradition. These subcultures were recognized as social systems that usually incorporated deviancy on some level, but were more complex than just the sum of their delinquent members’ actions.

The first group of social researchers and theorists to address the concept of subcultures, even before the term had been coined, was the Chicago School, or the behemoths of American sociology at the University of Chicago and their intellectual colleagues. Their work, which was conducted primarily in the first half of this century, was at first mainly one-shot studies, more ethnography than cohesive theory. Robert E. Park ("Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior" [1915 (1997)]), Paul Cressey ("The Life-Cycle of the Taxi-Dancer" [1932 (1997)]), Albert Cohen ("A General Theory of Subcultures" [1955]) and others delved into cultures within cultures in an attempt to pull subcultural terrain onto the map of sociological inquiry.

Cohen’s book Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955), from which "General Theory…" is an excerpt, is a clear attempt at a generalizable subcultural theory. He analyzed subcultures (gangs, specifically) as a problem-solving response to the dysfunctional socialization of the actors, trying to systematize the subcultural response, to understand it outside the sphere of adolescent delinquency. Coleman also took a social-developmental approach in Youth: Transition to Adulthood (1974) wherein he employed group psychology theory to demonstrate how themes common to youth culture helped define the space between early adolescence and full adult status.

Jock Young explored the relation between "subterranean values" and "formal work values" (1971:72), and theorized that countercultural beliefs are held by all members of a society, but are acted out and exaggerated only by subculture members. While his theory is weakened by its overly-wide scope, it iss still an important attempt to put subcultures back in relation to the total society. As he says, "We must relate subcultures to the total society: for they do not exist in a vacuum, they are a product of our reaction to social forces existing in the world outside," (ibid.).

While the Chicago School contributions were important, it was the work of academics on the other side of the Atlantic who made the most significant attempt at a unified discipline of subculture studies. The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University was established in 1964, and soon produced some of the more influential subculture theorists to date. Working from a predominantly Marxist framework, the Birmingham school explored the class relations at work in the realm of subcultures, a methodology similar to that espoused by Jock Young.

The bulk of CCCS study focused on British subcultures that arose in the late 1950s through the 1970s - first the teddy boys, mods, and rockers, and later the punks and skinheads. These groups were all the products of the working class, and thus articulated closely with the series of post-war recessions in Britain. Because the issue of class origin was common to their subjects, according to Gelder, the CCCS theorists aimed to locate subcultures "in relation to three broader cultural structures: the working class or the ‘parent culture,’ the ‘dominant culture,’ and mass culture" (1997:83-84). Ultimately, CCCS theory concluded that as the parent culture lost cohesion and failed to provide adequate socialization, and as the dominant or mass culture offered only repression and subordination, youth responded through subcultures. Phil Cohen’s work is exemplary of this vein of thought, because it locates subculture actors in a system of class and cultural influences, including dominant and parent cultures, other non-dominant class cultures, and other subcultures (1972:92).

The concepts of subcultural style and space were heavily based in Birmingham theory as well. Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, and Roberts co-authored "Subculture, Cultures, and Class" (1975 [1997]), which describes subcultural territory as both defined and definitive. "This registering of group identity, situation and trajectory in a visible style," they maintain, "both consolidates the group from a loosely focused to a tightly bounded entity; and sets the group off, distinctively, from other similar and dissimilar groups" (1975 [1997]:103).

While this theory focused mostly on subcultural style’s ability to distinguish and refute, Hebdige recognized that style also affirms the ideology of the parent and dominant culture. A proponent of the idea that post-war social upheavals in British society were the fundamental cause for subculture development of a previously unseen complexity, Hebdige wrote extensively about the resistance rituals embodied in style, language, and territory (see Subculture: The Meaning of Style [1979]). At the same time, he realized that subcultures also embody (albeit in a distorted form) the values of the parent culture. In Hiding in the Light (1988) he writes:

In retrospect, Willis’ work marked the point at which Birmingham theory began to lose its position at the acme of subculture theory. For the 10-15 years after the height of CCCS’s influence, subculture sociology consisted mostly of reaction and criticism of previous work. Two primary arguments arose: first, that historical development had been consistently ignored; and second, that the subculture-is-class-struggle argument neglected the impact of adolescent issues, politics, economics, and broader social issues. Furthermore, according to Gelder, criticisms were made of CCCS’s theoretical displacement from the reality of subcultures:

Post-Birmingham theory has been characterized by a more group-specific assessment of subculture symbolism and meaning (Grossberg 1984; Thornton 1996). Whereas Birmingham’s work was guided by a well-defined theoretical structure derived from class conflict models, subculture studies in the last 20 years has developed a broad-ranging scope, less concerned with universal positions than with particularistic understandings of the complex values at hand in subcultural systems. The interplay of non-class influences has become more important in the field, such as McRobbie and Garber’s "Girls and Subcultures" (1975 [1993]) which considered the unequal subcultural status of males and females. Youth culture and adolescent development theories have made a reappearance from the early Chicago school work (Blackman 1995; Kephart 1976; Widdicombe & Wooffitt 1995; Wooden 1995).

Not surprisingly, a few works in the field have focused on the rave subculture, although only the British version has been studied since the American branch is too young and too far from Britain to have attracted serious academic consideration. Redhead (1993) and Thornton (1993, 1996) have published books on ravers and club/underground culture that address some of the issues specific to these groups. Thornton’s concept of subcultural capital, a modification of Bourdieu’s cultural capital, is of particular interest to this study. The "main currency of the underground" is a measure of "hipness," opposition to the mainstream, subcultural knowledge, and so on - it is the essence of being subcultural transformed into a collectible capital. Ultimately, subcultural capital is the accumulation of behaviors, styles, and knowledge that impart authenticity and accepted membership in a subculture (Thornton 1993:178-179). For the sake of this discussion, subcultural capital equates with what I term status and authenticity, which will be discussed later in this paper.

These developments were co-opted by musicians and dj’s working in Chicago, and became an integral part of a new electronic music. In the early 1980s, House music took the four-on-four standard of disco, sped it up to 120 beats-per-minute, and added "hammering piano and wailing soul voices…, Eurocentric sequenced synthesizers and bass, (which) forcefully gripped the listener’s pelvis" (Wice and Daly 1995:107). The name "House" came from a Chicago club called the WareHouse, where dj Frankie Knuckles played a mixture of underground Disco, Funk, and Soul in an innovative new style. The first House record was produced by Jessie Saunders on the Mitchball label, and by 1985, according to Cheeseman, "it was clear that something big was beginning to stir" (1993). In the following two years, some of the most famous House labels, including DJ International and Trax, were established in Chicago (Cummings 1994:17).

Shortly thereafter, Detroit artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins, who on a flyer for a rave called One in New York just this past summer were referred to as "the godfathers," stripped House down to an edgier, faster, and mostly non-vocal form called Techno. While House producers relied heavily on synths and manipulated vocals, Techno was based more on computerized beats, distancing it from the funkier soul sounds of House (Russell 1993:123).

Both House and Techno were showcased predominantly in black gay bars (the WareHouse, the Music Box, the Garage) and in unlicensed under-age clubs in Chicago and Detroit ghettos. Russell claims that because the unlicensed clubs were unable to serve alcohol, House and Techno were quickly associated with illicit drugs, the only high the club-goers could easily obtain (1993:123). Through the gay bar and underground club scenes, the music made its way to New York. House gained a firmer foothold there than Techno, so House became the basis for the New York Garage sound. Through the work of mixers like Larry Levan, Tony Humphries, Timmy Regisford, and Boyd Jarvis, and with considerable influence from the UK (more so than original House), Garage developed a slower, more soulful club sound with heavier basslines and more complex percussion (Cheeseman 1993).

Garage remained a New York specialty while House and Techno made their way to Britain and Germany. In the UK, Chicago House fused with the edgier sounds of London Acid to establish the original rave sound, Acid House. The name "Acid House" came not from a drug reference, but from a musician’s term for stealing an artist’s idea, called "acid burning" (Russell 1993:122). London clubs were the first to import the Chicago and Detroit sounds, and in early 1986 the first House hit was released: Marshall Jefferson’s "Move Your Body," which quickly became THE House anthem. By late 1986 Acid House, a drum-machine based fusion of funk, hip-hop, and psychedelic music, was a full-fledged underground genre in Britain (McKusick 1992:22).

At the same time, the harder Detroit Techno found its primary audience in German clubs (particularly Berlin), where the precedent for quirky, edgy electronic music had been set by the "proto-robotic" group Kraftwerk in the early 1980s (Wice and Daly 1995:248). German producers expanded upon Techno, taking it in two directions: Hardcore, a violently fast, punk-like music that became well-known in Belgium; and Trance, a slower, non-vocal, more ethereal music.

While its influence was not seen until after the Acid House movement, Jamaican Dub was one root of a later-developing electronic music called Jungle. Dub was an offshoot of the Reggae phenomenon, where, in order to fill the b-sides of tracks, producers would remove vocals and stretch the instrumentation to cheaply expand upon Reggae singles (Mignon 1993:160-161). Lee "Scratch" Perry, Joe Gibbs, Bunny Lee, and King Tubby were among the first artists in this genre.

Reggae and Dub styles made their way to both New York and London. In the early 1980s, dj Kool Herc moved to the US and invented "beats" or "breakbeats" out of Dub styles; and dj Theodor, also Jamaican, invented scratching (a key element in rap music) after his relocation to America (Hebdige 1987:138). These technical innovations added to the development of the American traditions of rap and hip-hop. Meanwhile, the rude boy and Rastafarian elements of Dub and Reggae caught hold in London’s ghettos, so that the dance hall genre became popular in that underground scene.

While the connection is not as linear as the Techno/House case, eventually British Dub and Dance Hall, American hip-hop, and the now-international Techno became fused around 1991-1992 in the London black underground to create Jungle. Brooklyn’s Frankie Bones had been licensed by the UK label XL Records a few years before, through which he produced the "Bones Breaks" records that blended breakbeats with Techno melody (Cheeseman 1993). According to Redhead, "The first successful crossover attempts between Dub and Techno all feature rip-roaring bass, spaced out keyboards, generally bizarre but inventive samples, Rastafarian chants and slowed down hip hop break beats" (1993:161). British producers have always been the most respected Jungle artists; and even while some Americans have made attempts in this genre in the past few years, for the most part neither British nor American ravers appreciate US Jungle as much as the UK version.

The most recent development in electronic or "rave" music is the greatly significant to the issues of status to be discussed later in this paper. Late in 1996, the American music industry was suffering through the last days of its most recent "big thing," alternative rock. Chart-topping hits were fewer and farther between every month, sales were sagging, and it was obvious that "the great alternative-rock gold rush (was) over" (Strauss 1997:36). Along with gansta rap and country, the alternative sound that had driven the music industry during the 1990s had "lost momentum amid a glut of identical-sounding bands" (Schoemer 1997:61).

The cure, it seemed, was in electronic music, which was quickly re-dubbed "electronica." At the beginning of 1997, mass media publications were featuring articles about the next big thing to hit popular music, even giving cover-story status in some cases. While this was not the first interest the industry had shown (in 1991, the popularity of raves in Britain prompted US record labels to make a halfhearted attempt to sign electronic artists [Strauss 1997:36]), it was the first significant venture towards making the genre truly profitable in America.

Electronica posed a few difficulties for the industry, however. For one, its obvious association with raves, drug use, and other illicit behaviors would have to be sanitized. Schoemer writes, "By the time (electronica) arrives, rest assured that most of the danger will have been wiped from it. Shrewd music-business minds will strip it of its seedy drug roots, add catchy pop choruses and package it neatly for mass consumption" (1997:60).

The nature of electronic dance music’s production and performance formats were also problems. Often in the press electronica was described as "amorphous and fluid, simple rhythmic phrases… decorated with bleeps, swooshes, and other noises that often bear little resemblence to ‘proper’ sounds" (Schoemer 1997:62), or was said to "spurn the human world altogether, embracing a brave new millennial world in which technology promises transcendence and the body is shrugged off as dead ‘meat’" (Kakutani 1997:14). The alien, computerized nature of electronic music was difficult for the industry to navigate, especially when producers and djs didn’t adequately fill the role of traditional guitar-rock stars.

The headlining acts in the electronica movement therefore were the most "rock-like" ones. The Prodigy, Orbital, Aphex Twin, Moby, Underworld, and the Chemical Brothers were the subject of album reviews and feature articles in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and had videos in rotation on MTV. The music channel even began a new show called Amp to showcase electronica videos late on Friday and Saturday nights, presumably when ravers and clubbers would be returning after an evening of parties. The musicians that became electronica’s poster children were those who had a face to accompany their sound, which meant the artists who enjoyed popularity in the underground were never seen or heard in the mainstream industry’s outlets.

Thus far, the electronica movement has not proven very successful. As of this past summer, Orbital, Future Sound of London, and Underworld have sold fewer than 65,000 copies each of their albums released in the US - fewer than the Spice Girls sold in a week at the same time (Farley 1997:62). MTV’s Amp is on the air, but still relegated to the late night slot due to low viewer rates compared to the channel’s other programming. And while the major labels have been jockeying to sign the handful of potentially marketable acts, the traditionally smaller, more underground companies like Hypnotic, Moonshine, and Instinct are remaining low profile and independent of the larger companies (Hochman 1997:21).

Ibiza already had an established club culture prior to the Summer of Love ’87, but it wasn’t until then that Acid House had enjoyed extensive play by club djs outside of London. On the other side of the island from the sanitized banality of the San Antonio resort, Ibiza Town offered a twelve hour cycle of clubbing at Pasha, Amnesia, Glory’s and Manhattan’s (Melechi 1993:31). Acid and Ecstasy were in ample supply, further exaggerating the vacation/fantasy atmosphere.

When the Ibizan Acid House revelers returned to London that fall, they began "the re-staging of Balearic memories" (Melechi 1993:33). Both House and Techno had been played, albeit sparingly, in London clubs like Manchester’s Hacienda since early 1986, providing the same musical atmosphere as on the island (Foote 1990:62). The Shoom Club, a pioneering space in the rave subculture’s development, opened in November 1987, and for the rest of the year into 1988, colorfully-clad clubbers spent all night there, and in a handful of other underground clubs trance-dancing to Acid House music. Melechi contends that the Ibiza experience helped form the Acid House movement’s distinctive values: "(The Re-staging) would rely, more than ever, on the spell of the dance floor to effect the disappearing act that had been previously aided by the hyperreality of tourism and Ibiza town" (ibid.).

Thus, in the first year, Acid House clubbers, although they were not yet calling themselves ravers, managed to solidify the subcultural codes to which ravers later ascribed. Drugs were a large part of the scene for two primary reasons: first, the escapism/reality distortion inherent in most drug use, especially Acid; and second, the sociability-enhancing qualities of mood-altering drugs like Ecstasy. The secret nature of Acid House events helped establish the initial set of membership qualification (or subcultural capital, as Thornton names it [1996:11-12]). Among these qualifications were wearing the yellow Smiley face, the aforementioned drug use, gregarious social behavior with other Acid House clubbers, and apparently innate knowledge of the locations and events that were nearly impossible for anyone outside the subculture to discover. The primary tenets of the rave subculture were that secrecy was maintained with respect to "straight" society, and intense bonds existed between subcultural members.

This was the first and only year that Acid house/rave subculture escaped the eye of law and order. By late 1988, according to Rietveld, "the tabloid press started to create an image of ‘Acid House’ and its cultural trappings as that of gendered and sexualised evil" (1993:42). Numerous headlines ranted about drugs, sexual deviancy, and ‘acid pied pipers’ seducing innocent British youth at raves (Melechi 1993:35). Police stepped up patrols of clubs and other obvious venues, so organizers/promoters became more creative in finding hidden spaces for their events. Airplane hangars, empty warehouses, abandoned churches and other unusual locales were rented or broken into to house the illegal parties. In early 1989 many organizers realized they could make better profits on "unbustable" large-scale parties out in the open, removed from the London police force.

It was because of this escape tactic that the rave subculture broke off from clubs and established its own identity. Once out of the club environment, the subculture’s ideals became even more gregarious, sociable, and community-oriented. The need for secrecy and maintenance of acceptable membership became increasingly important since raver’s activities went from vaguely tolerable to fully illegal in the eyes of police and the media. In fact, part of the fun of raves was driving around the countryside in convoys, trying to outwit the police en route to the site. Organizers, usually well-networked kids, djs, and occasionally club managers, set up voice mail with directions to a series of map points, where ravers could get further directions, and organizers could weed out police and other undesirables.

Police continued to bust illegal raves, arresting djs, organizers, and partiers. By the summer of 1990, British police were "prepared to raid or prevent raves in this third Summer of Love," and even the former haven of Ibiza was subject to newly-instated noise-pollution laws (Foote 1990:63) By the end of the year, according to Rietveld, the rave subculture was forced back into clubs because of the increasing number of run-ins with law enforcement (1993:49). This was due, in part, to the Entertainment (Increased Penalties) Act introduced that year, dubbed the "Acid House Bill." It gave police broader surveillance power over clubs and night events, and authorized club license reviews six times a year instead of just once (ibid.). Acid House, Trance, and other rave music styles were still enjoying club play, but for all intents and purposes the subculture that encompassed them had lived out its glory days prior to 1990-91, and folded back into the existing club culture. Legal raves, the first being Raindance in May, became possible in mid-1990 with a series of complex licenses that were most easily obtained by established clubs.

The development of the Hardcore genre coincided with the demise of the original UK raves. Hardcore developed out of Techno and had some influence from Jungle - it used the break beats from Jungle, sped them up to an ear-piercingly fast speed, then put deconstructed vocals of Techno over the beats. This harder, more menacing style has been called the punk music of the 1990s. According to McKusick, "This new hardcore form is decried by older purists, who lament that techno’s original happy groove has been replaced by speed and megalomania rooted more in punk’s aggression than in any urge toward cosmic bliss" (1992:22).

When Hardcore records made it onto the "Top Twenty" lists of commercial radio, it paralleled the greater mainstream interest in raves. Once ravers saw "a bunch of idiots cashing in on Rave’s popularity whilst giving everyone not in the know the wrong impression of what Rave was all about," and heard their music on the more popular radio stations in Europe, they dejectedly agreed that commercial interests had pulled the rave scene out of the underground and out of their control.

In recent years, some remaining rave organization groups have made attempts to revive the outdoor parties, and incorporate the hippie influences that took hold in the American rave subculture. By 1997, for example, the Exodus Collective in Luton, England, a London suburb, had been throwing free raves for two years. So far Exodus has used a donation system to collect funds for group homes and a community animal farm for people too poor to afford entrance to the city zoo (Scheib 1997:10-11). The majority of large-scale raves, however, are limited to a few groups like Exodus, and the big annual events like Berlin’s Love Parade; but the days of three warehouse raves a weekend have been over for nearly five years.

In the first three years the American rave subculture patterned its value system very closely on the hippies of the 1960s. Tie-dyes, peace signs, rampant drug use, uninhibited energy and enthusiasm, disdain for "straight society," and a spirit of mass-consciousness were fundamental aspects of authentic raver style and behavior. Anything shiny, tactile, or cute was high fashion because of the heightened or exaggerated state of the senses created by drug use, similar to hippie psychedelic paraphernalia. "Zippies," as the most hippie-esqe ravers came to be known, even joined with the Rainbow Gathering (the US branch of the international Rainbow Family of Light) in the summer of 1994, throwing raves in Wyoming, Aspen, Vail, the Grand Canyon, and Biosphere 2 (Caniglia 1994:27).

However, the majority of American ravers were not a demonstration-oriented or politically active as members of the hippie subculture. While their behavior was decidedly deviant, the rave subculture wanted to lose any reference to mainstream society, to be classless and unknown. Isolationism and disappearance were valued instead of the standard subcultural resistance behaviors.

American raves also varied from their British counterparts since America did not have an established club culture for kids under 21 like Britain did. There was not nearly as much social interplay between clubs and raves in America, with the exception of music development. Raves were, and still are, perceived as wholly separate from the club subculture by both camps. According to Caniglia, American djs and promoters in San Francisco and Los Angeles also tried to "beef up" the basic blend of drugs and dancing with "technological stimuli: computer graphics, laser holograms, and virtual-reality installations" (1992:23). Multi-media attempts made American raves more of a theme park than just a club in a warehouse.

American raves kept the pattern of outlaw parties in illegal venues for the first few years. Warehouses were the most common spaces used because they were large, often unguarded, and were in industrial districts where noise complaints were not a problem due to lack of adjacent residential areas. But, inevitably, law enforcement had managed to infiltrate the secrecy surrounding raves, and began busting the events they found, arresting organizers, ravers, and drug dealers. According to Cummings, Los Angeles began strict enforcement of fire codes to stop large indoor parties, and San Francisco tried to institute a curfew for people under 21 (1994:63).

In response, organizers used two different adaptations to keep the then-established subculture going. One was to secure legal permits for all-night events through the city councils where raves were to be located. If a rave was billed as a drug- and alcohol-free event, the promoters could often get legal licenses and legitimately rent warehouses, despite the patently untrue "drug free" claim.

The second method was indirectly a factor in the subculture’s spread from the coasts into the center of the US. Since law enforcement in the major coastal metropolitan areas had increased awareness of raves by late 1992, escaping the police meant traveling outside the cities. Native American reservations (where police had no jurisdiction), farms, canyons, and RV parks became popular new venues. In part because of ample space and low police density in the mountain and Midwest regions of the US, the rave subculture spread to those areas beginning in 1992.

Of course, that was not the only reason the subcultural expansion occurred. The occasional media attention afforded to raves helped make Midwest youth aware of the phenomenon, although most attention paid by journalists both then and now is usually of the moral panic persuasion (Simmons 1994 "Hayden urges probe of all-night party - Drug, alcohol abuse reported; Irwin 1997: "Police raid rave party, arrest three men on cocaine charges; Associated Press 1997: "Rave task force looks for way to tame all-night parties"). Also, students coming from the coastal cities where raves first occurred helped make college campuses in the Midwest (University of Wisconsin at Madison; University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana) the new centers of the subculture’s activity. Third, by 1993 the west coast especially began to wane (Kelly 1993:60), so djs and promoters hoping to keep their involvement and profits steady had to look for a fresh set of kids.

The Midwest branch of the rave subculture today has been active for the past 5-6 years, with centers of activity in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Madison WI, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Louisville. Raves are almost exclusively one-night affairs, beginning around 11 pm on a Friday or Saturday night, and lasting until 6 or 7 am. The exceptions to this rule are annual weekend-long events such as Furthur in Wisconsin, and Family Affair in Ohio.

PART 2: Status in the Midwest Scene

The email Survey 1 (see Appendix 2) was the first attempt at gathering subject data. By monitoring mw-raves, a group-send email list to which roughly 300+ ravers in the Midwest subscribe, I tried to determine which topics or phenomena needed to be explored to establish a comprehensive view of the actors and their value system. I had two objectives: first, to determine basic age and behavior patterns common to Midwest ravers; and second, to see how to better focus my questions when I began personal interviews on site at raves.

I synthesized a 32-question survey: 18 short answer questions that covered age, self-defined class background, introduction to raves, behavior at raves, peer group, concept of typical or ideal ravers, and related topics; and 12 descriptions/word associations that called for the subjects to describe and explain terms used in the rave subculture (primarily those describing subgroups of ravers). I solicited participants from mw-raves by emailing directly to the group, explaining my intent and insuring confidentiality to those who requested it, and received replies from 17 people. Of the 17 who received the email survey on July 2, 1997, eleven answered fully and returned it - 7 male and 4 female.

Once I had obtained the first batch of subject responses, and had received quality feedback from them, I felt that the email survey would be useful for conducting personal interviews in the field. The survey did need minor adaptations, so with the omission of a few short-answer questions, and replacement of the last few word associations, I constructed Survey 1 (see Appendix 3). I had to allow for more flexibility in both questions and answers with the personal interview survey, mainly because talking face-to-face with subjects made it necessary to accommodate elaboration to facilitate more comprehensive data collection.

Survey 1 was employed at two raves: Family Affair 3 on July 4^th weekend 1997 (see Fig. 1 & 2) in Canton, Ohio; and Roll’n on August 9, 1997 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Eight subjects (5 male, 3 female) were interviewed at the three-day Family Affair event, and 4 subjects (3 male, 1 female) were interviewed at Roll’n. I approached and requested interviews from most of the subjects; and a few saw me in the process and asked to also be interviewed. I allowed subjects to not answer or skip questions on which they had no opinion, but the two subjects who completed less than half of the interview were omitted from final analysis.

I modified Survey 1 once again to focus more on issues of authenticity and attitudes toward raver subgroups and the mainstream/music industry in the last interviews. Using parts of Survey 1 and some additional questions, I constructed 15 short-answer and 6 word association questions for Survey 2 (see Appendix 4). In all I interviewed 5 people (2 male, 3 female) at Schizophrenia on September 9, 1997 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (see Fig. 4), using the same method as at the previous two raves.

In addition to the email survey and 17 personal interviews, I monitored the group-send email list mw-raves from June 17, 1997 to November 23, 1997 and collected approximately 150 separate emails. Mw-raves is a subscription-based discussion group created by the hyperreal web organization, and while subscription fluctuates greatly, average size is 300-400 subscribers. Not all subscribers will submit posts, but usually 75-100 will post messages and replies on a regular basis. Posts usually concern upcoming parties, reviews of recent ones, discussion of equipment (turntables, mixers, light rigs), clothes, drugs, and the lack of intelligence and questionable parentage of the list’s less popular and more verbose members.

I have subscribed to mw-raves for 1 ½ years, but once I began monitoring and collecting information in earnest, I stopped submitting posts so as to minimize any influence I might have on the subjects. This method of information collection elucidated the same types of attitudes, self-definitions, and information that interviewing did, but because of the statement/reply framework of the forum, mw-raves also brought to light the interpersonal and inter-group dynamics that are fundamental to my study. I received an average of 60 emails from mw-raves each day (some days as many as 100), and selected the ones that were relevant. I have used first names only or pseudonyms in describing subjects from this group because they were unaware of their participation in this study.

Finally, participant observation was a part of my research methods, though it is the least influential to this study. In addition to the three raves where I conducted interviews, I observed behavior and social patterns at two other raves - Fusion on August 23, 1997 in Bloomington, Indiana and Fright Night on October 31, 1997 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The extent of observational focus was essentially style, language, grouping behavior and patterns of interaction.

The concept of spectacular subcultures rests on this definition of style - through clothing and body manipulation, subcultural members are living megaphones, constantly voicing their countercultural beliefs by means of the medium clothing.

The effectiveness of the message relies on the construction of the medium; that is, no subcultural style is political unless it deliberately created to be so. Style is not just objects and clothing, but rather it is the act of stylization that makes a style (Clarke, et al. 1975 [1997]:108). Hebdige claims that the fabricated nature of subcultural style is itself countercultural. Since the principle defining characteristic of mainstream culture is a "tendency to masquerade as nature," the intentional displays involved in subcultural style are another opposition to mainstream values (Hebdige 1979:134).

The construction of a subcultural styles has historically involved the appropriation of objects and clothing from the mainstream styles. This re-contextualization arms subcultural style with its symbolic message by taking objects already associated with one set of values, then reworking them to serve as a critique of those original values. The parallels between mainstream and subcultural style are therefore apparent and intentional. As Brake argues, "Subcultural use of fashion is a rhetorical use of formalized styles, a sort of slang or argot of the ‘standard English’ of fashion" (1980:13).

The ultimate purpose of the style code is to demarcate two borders: it is a cohesive force amongst those on the inside, a self-created norm particular to a group; and it is a method of distancing from and exclusion of those on the outside. The initial assessment of a raver is usually visual, thus one’s style is the first defining element presented to other ravers. It functions as a doorway to further assessment; or to put it another way, if a raver doesn’t meet the pant-size criteria from the start, s/he will have to do more "subcultural work" to establish themselves as an authentic raver than others who have got the style mastered. When asked what someone would do, say, or wear that would make the respondent think someone is a raver, 8 of 25 respondents mentioned clothes, 6 of which mentioned clothes first.

The most distinctive and universal items of clothing are phat pants, which have been popular for roughly 4 years in the Midwest. In interviews, 7 of the 18 respondents to the question "What do you consider to be raver style?" said phat pants, making it the most-cited article of clothing or accessory. Phat pants are usually either denim or corduroy, and are most often mass-produced and store-bought (see Fig. 5). Phat pants are distinctive because of their huge size - the legs have little or no tapering from the hip, so that the leg is double or triple the size of normal pants. Cuff width is considered adequate if it can conceal the entire shoe or more (30-35 inches minimum circumference). Almost every pair of commercially-produced phat pants has oversized back pockets, the tops of which are placed low on the seat of the pants, and the base of which extend down to the back of the knee. As Dan (16) said, "If I can’t fit a school notebook in my pocket, they’re not big enough." Hand-made phat pants are a valued style object, and tend to have greater variance and eccentricity involved in color and fabric choices (see Fig. 6). The basic form is the same as commercially-produced pants, but they are seen less often because of the expertise involved in making them.

Respondents repeatedly said "baggy" was a key element of raver style, including pants, shirts, and other accessories. Short-sleeved shirts, for both sexes, are worn large enough to reach at least past the hips, and sometimes down to the knees. In transit to a rave or when otherwise out in the elements, hooded sweatshirts and athletic windbreaker-type jackets are worn in huge sizes to conceal the hands and lower torso completely. The hooded sweatshirt is worn with the hood down when outdoors or not at a rave, and pulled on the head when indoor at a rave. While this is completely against common sense, it is clear that he hood is not protection from the elements, but a distancing device that partially conceals the wearer, putting him/her in a privileged position to assess others’ style and behavior.

Baseball caps and athletic visors are also common (see Fig. 3 & 4). Raver (more males than females) wear visors either forward or backwards, and occasionally upside down. Baseball caps are always worn forward, not backwards as is popular amongst mainstream "jock" types, and are equally popular with both sexes. The brim of the hat is often pulled down low enough to cover the eyebrows, serving the same concealment purpose as the sweatshirt hood.

In addition to these standard clothing items, raver style incorporates a number of accessories and body alterations. One third of the "raver style" respondents mentioned piercings as part of raver style, as it is common to see kids with hoops and studs through numerous body parts. Ears, tongue, and nose (nostril and/or septum) are the most commonly pierced places that can be seen without more-than-average exposure. Hair was another physical manipulation cited as an aspect of style. Color alterations are seen often on males and females - usually bleaching until white-blonde, bright non-conventional colors, or stripes and patterns - and short extreme crops and children’s hair accessories are standard for females.

Backpacks serve both stylistic and utilitarian functions (see Fig. 4). At a rave they are necessary to hold the candles, blanket, water bottles, drugs, flyers, candy, and other items that kids bring with them. Outside of raves, they also carry items of daily use, but are just as often worn more as a complement to the clothing than as a practical necessity. Backpacks are part of a larger collection of child-styled accessories incorporated by raver fashion. This includes glitter and stickers worn on the face and hair, stuffed animals, and plastic jewelry.

Phat pants also function to blend the raver in with his/her surroundings. This argument does seem contradictory in light of the clown-like appearance of phat pants - hardly a way to conceal oneself. But in actuality, the base of the pants create the perception that the raver is attached to the floor, and hence is part of the floor and the surrounding environment. As is shown in Fig. 5, the cuffs are supposed to conceal the shoe and graze the floor. The resulting effect is the raver’s leg appears to flow straight into (or possibly out of) the ground/floor because there is little or no separation between ground and feet. Rooted on the floor, the raver tries to create the illusion of natural growth, or stemming from the surroundings. Ultimately, this element of style is an attempt to conceal the raver in the environment, as well as manifest an aura of naturalness to the scene, or inherent belonging to the subcultural environment.

Counter to McRobbie and Garber’s claim that subcultural membership is divided and unequally constructed by gender difference (1975 [1993]:115), the emphasis on androgyny in raver style attempts to equalize gendered stylistic oppositions into a coherent compromise. Stylistic authenticity for females is noticeably tied to degree of de-feminization in their dress. Tight, short, or standard female style items will usually discount the raver as a poser or candyraver. This is not to say that masculine dress is the acme of style status; males usually include childish/feminine items in their style construction, namely pacifier, bright colors, and toys. And in the past half year or so, tight tank tops have become popular with girls. Instead, raver style constructs an androgynous "place in the middle" of mainstream gender styles. Huge pants and shirts conceal obvious markers of sex like breasts and genitalia, and the toy-like accessories reconstruct the relative sexlessness of early childhood.

The child-related style elements are also part of the second style theme, opposition. This is manifested primarily through the incorporation and manipulation of common style elements to create a politicized message. Widdicombe and Woofitt, in discussing Hebdige’s work, claim that "(punks) wearing a swastika illustrate how symbols are taken from their natural context, exploited for empty effect, displayed through mockery, distancing, parody and inversion" (1995:22). The same principle is at work in raver style, although political resistance symbolism is not as fundamental here as it was to punks.

The opposition symbolism of the child-related objects involves both corruption and denial of mainstream beliefs about age and life stages. Pacifiers, for example, have been re-contextualized as an accessory to drug use. Acid (and to some extent Ecstasy) tends to create a need for oral stimulation or activity, as I was told by a group of four ravers tripping at Family Affair 3. During the first years of the rave scene when Acid was the drug of choice, pacifiers became a common style object. An object which is typically associated with the most innocent phase of life has been stylistically manipulated to represent what the mainstream considers the most evil and corrupted phase of life.

The toys, glitter, whistles, stickers, and other objects also pose resistance to the so-called Protestant work ethic that governs American socioeconomics. In response to the command to mature and earn a living, ravers instead associate strongly with the leisure of youth, calling themselves "rave kids" and displaying their Peter Pan attitudes through their clothes. The over-sized clothes add to the statement, creating the look of a child playing "dress-up" in clothes ten sizes too large. This style statement is important to status because the younger a raver appears to be, the less corporate, mainstream, or old s/he is. The distance between those categories and a raver directly affects their implicit claim of authenticity.

The distortion of the standard mainstream style is also evident in the "de-functionalization" of objects. In particular, visors are often worn upside down or backwards, at raves held indoors in mostly-dark warehouses. The conventional use of an athletic visor is to shield the eyes from the sun, but ravers have literally turned the visor’s function upside down so that it is primarily aesthetic instead of utilitarian. The same premise applies to a lesser extent with backpacks - they are often used to carry items around in keeping with the typical usage, but are sometimes worn without contents, more akin to non-functional accessories like necklaces.

These roles and the associate status involved with position function with respect to a specific subgroup of ravers, not the entire subculture. For any standard Midwest rave, a maximum of 20-25 people are active in the production and organization of the event. Position is therefore the most divisive marker of status, since it is not a universal element of rave subculture membership. The distance between raver and organizer is further exacerbated by the economic elements involved. The boundary between subculture and mainstream economics is occupied almost solely by those in organization positions, a precarious place to navigate given the anti-mainstream and anti-corporate sentimentality common to ravers.

Because the position roles traverse this boundary, and because the fulfillment of these roles can literally make or break a rave, status assignment tends to be in extremes. Rarely is a promoter considered "sort of okay;" usually s/he is either a champion of the scene, or a despised corporate sell-out, with few opinions falling in between. Josh, in complaining about the state of the Minneapolis rave scene, illustrated this point:

According to Blackman, there are two markets for musicians, symbolic and economic. He claims, "Few (musicians) manage to retain the symbolic market when they transfer to an economic market because through commercial success in chart placings the (musician) becomes accessible to a wider audience" (1995:46). Djs who are accorded subcultural authenticity work in the symbolic market, and thus are less concerned with remuneration than with representation of underground music. Certain genres of electronic music are considered less commercial than others, so djs are often judged by the music they spin. In interviews, ravers displayed the most respect for Jungle djs because, as the newest and least appreciated form of rave music, Jungle is the "truest" music. By comparison, House djs were commonly disparaged either because House is the dominant music played in clubs, or because it is the most commercialized and accessible electronic music.

Sacrifices of time and money are expected of rave djs as a symbol of refutation of the commercial music industry. Tracy (20) described djs as being anyone who spins records, even without large-scale public exhibition: "Someone who spins at parties… however big or small. Or maybe they just do it in their basement." Ajia (19) answered similarly: "It takes a lot of patience and dedication to be a good dj. The djs I’m friends with have spent all their money on records, and all of their time practicing."

Much of the social patterns in the rave scene revolve around musical integrity, according to Thornton: "In an age of endless representations and global mediation, the experience of musical authenticity is perceived as a cure both for alienation (because it offers feelings of community) and dissimulation (because it offers a sense of the really ‘real’)" (1996:26). Djs are therefore expected to fulfill the second task, the orchestration of a rave’s atmosphere and, by extension, the rave scene’s cohesion. Thornton claims "it is as orchestrators of this living communal experience that djs are most important to music culture. Djs respond to the crowd through their choice and sequence of records, seek to direct their energies and build up the tension until the event ‘climaxes’" (1996:65).

Ten of 19 respondents echoed this sentiment, making repeated references to djs as conductors of raves and as "supports" or "leaders" for the subculture. The element of psychic connection was also common. Chris (20) said djs "give something for the crowd to connect to," and Jennifer (18) said they have a "responsibility to like keep the scene going, to keep a positive attitude, to share the love." This psychic/emotional responsibility is carried out, oddly enough, only in their capacity as musical conduits. Rarely do djs interact personally with the mass of ravers in the crowd before or after their performance; and most djs dress more like mainstream people than like ravers (phat pants, etc). Still, because of their role in perpetuating electronic music’s dispersal in the underground community, djs are revered for being "close to the masses."

Promoters, on the other hand, are criticized with the same frequency that djs are commended. The people who promote and organize a rave usually start planning anywhere from three months to a year in advance, depending on the scale of the event. Promoters must first line up a venue, which can be managed by paying rent to the owner(s) of a warehouse, coffee shop, convention center, or similar spaces. Permits for all-night parties are a standard requirement in almost every municipality, so promoters have to confirm their responsibility for the event in legal documentation. After the site has been more or less confirmed, the djs have to be contacted and lined up. The flyers go out roughly a month or two before the event, advertising the djs and any theme associated with the rave. Finally, within the week or two before the event, the promoters spend most of their efforts on damage control: making sure djs show up, managing financial compensation (if any) for the performers, paying off police to protect against busts, and innumerable other details.

Despite the fact that the promoters/organizers are the people responsible for any event actually taking place, they are often condemned and criticized as the antithesis of the raver mentality because of their involvement with mainstream corporate interests. Eleven of 19 respondents described promoters as "shady," "doing it for the money," or as Brett (20) put it, "money-hungry sleazebag crackheads." A number of posts to mw-raves voiced this sentiment as well, and called for boycotts of raves thrown by disreputable promoters. Jason wrote, "I think it’s damaging to the scene not to care about the political side of things. If you blindly support shadey (sic) promoters and their corrupt business practices by going to their parties then you are keeping them in business."

Status, therefore, is almost a moot point with respect to promoters. The general sentiment among ravers is that promoters are associated too closely with corporate mainstream interests, and thus are significantly distanced from the heart of the subculture. But, as Brake argues, "oppositional norms may be developed in direct contrast to respectable norms, (but) a subculture can’t survive which exists in direct conflict with the prevailing society" (1980:11). Ravers reluctantly accept that raves can’t happen in the Midwest without promoters managing permits and money, likening that group of status markers to a necessary evil.

The final two groups of people - communicators and mediators - bridge the "status gap" between djs and promoters because they are of a slightly higher prestige than average ravers, but nowhere near the scale as the djs. Communicators are responsible for bringing information about a rave from the promoters to the rest of the subculture members, primarily on an informal, word-of-mouth basis, which is the "consummate medium of the underground," according to Thornton (1994:185).

In this role, communicators’ status relies on the newness of the information, or how secretive the rave is at that point - the rarer the news, the more valued the messenger. The low-level prestige accorded to these ravers relies significantly on their subversive relation (albeit unintentionally so) to promoters, since they are taking subcultural information from the promoters and releasing it to other ravers. In addition, since word-of-mouth information requires an "extension of other communications… (such as ) flyers seen, radio heard and features read" (ibid.), the communicators are also gaining status by manipulating more accessible media into authentic subcultural forms.

The behavior patterns are similar to those discussed by Schwendinger and Schwendinger:

All subcultures therefore employ some mode of behavioral control to monitor membership. As is the case with style, a raver’s mannerisms, speech, and daily conduct are readily visible as a basis for assessment by others, and a similar standardization of behavior has evolved.

The youth culture code has been analyzed by various authors, particularly in Coleman’s work. In Youth: Transition to Adulthood, he describes five elements common to youth subcultures (1974:113-124). Inward-lookingness describes the self-containment and reliance of teens and young adults on each other as primary socialization models. Strong bonds and emotional ties, or psychic attachment, arise from that self-reliance and are often enhanced by drug culture or common substance use. The drive for autonomy is characterized by "high regard for youth who successfully challenge adults, or act autonomously of adults." As a function of young adults’ inferior position in mainstream society, concern for the underdog is commonly displayed through behavior patterns. Finally, youth culture codes are apt to rapid fluctuation because of the interest in change.

Blackman also discussed subcultural behavior codes, and claims there are three social relations of a youth group (1995:31-35). The private (internal) face encompasses behaviors displayed solely in the company of members of one’s own subculture, similar to Kephart’s primry group, or face-to-face groups where subcultural themes are shared and tested (1976:132). The between face describes the different procedures employed during interactions with other youth groups, including those that are known, unknown, similar, and rival. The third relation, the public face, dictates behaviors that are "a strange mixture of reality and fantasy in ritual exaggeration, where the most important function is to feed public consumption and assumption" (ibid.).

Music appreciation was another category of responses, although often mentioned in conjunction with dancing behavior. Ben (21) gave just two defining characteristics of a raver: "People you hear say ‘I danced all night,’ or ‘I love the music,’" echoing the strong connection between them. Besides dancing, music appreciation is demonstrated by avid attention paid to particular djs, patronage at music stores that sell underground dance music, and, in particular, knowledge of the musicians who produce the tracks. This last behavior is attributed to the more highly-esteemed subculture members since it requires more work to find out who made a song than to know what djs spins it at a rave.

Subcultural knowledge, the third theme, was mentioned by 5 of 14 respondents. Through speech and actions, a raver is expected to demonstrate their knowledge of customs, upcoming parties, music, drugs, and trends . KC (20) said, "(It’s) either something that they said, the way they said something, a look in their eyes, a general intelligence, the appearance of knowing about the magic that happens at raves."

Finally, friendliness and sociable attitude is expected of ravers, as described by 6 of 14 respondents. Seth (21) said a raver is "someone who hugs first and asks questions later," confirming the common belief that hugging and emotional displays are fundamental behavior, stemming from the early London raves and the gregariousness brought on by Ecstasy use. The concept of p.l.u.r also comes into play with this behavior theme. "Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect" is considered the raver creed, and respondents would often cite p.l.u.r. as an attribute or belief of an ideal raver. At a rave, kids usually roam the venue and approach strangers to talk about music, people, and so on; and anyone who appears withdrawn or hostile is discounted as a first-time raver or just a poser.

Those four categories form the general code of interpersonal relations expected of ravers both at raves (all four) and outside (the latter three). As this code has become ingrained in ravers’ expectations, it has led to the development of two personifications of unacceptable or inauthentic behavior. These behavior roles are similar to the position roles discussed earlier, in that they are distinct, readily identifiable conglomerates of behaviors used to assess subculture members.

The dj groupie is the first of these roles, one that was described negatively by 17 of 21 respondents. The shorthand description of this behavior role is a raver who admires and follows a particular dj in a similar fashion as rock band groupies. At raves, dj groupies regularly crowd the area in front of the turntables to watch the dj through his/her entire set, and sometimes try to carry the dj’s records or get invited to post-rave parties with the dj. This behavior is attributed more often to females than males; one third of respondents referred to "girls," "hos," or used female pronouns in their descriptions, while the rest used gender neutral terminology.

While appreciation for djs and underground music is an ideal behavior in other interpersonal contexts, the dj groupie is associated with additional behaviors that create the negative connotation of this role. Lack of individualism was an underlying theme expressed by respondents, such as Josh (18) who described them as "the people who are pretty much just there to be of the cooler group," and Colin (20) who said, "If that’s what gets you off, I guess, but I’d rather have my own identity." A groupie’s desire to be attached to the dj and glean an identity from that dj’s following goes against the tenet of individualism inherent in the subculture. As a result, the groupie’s intense interest in being part of the entourage isn’t perceived as a true expression of music appreciation.

Secondly, the groupie’s attachment to the dj is seen by other ravers as an attempt to enter the position roles of the promotion group. Since the promoters in particular are accorded very low status and constantly singled out as the subcultural equivalent of leeches, any raver actively trying to be part of that group is essentially trying to lower his/her status. The same way the teacher’s pet is ridiculed, the dj groupie is disparaged for associating with the less-than-admirable people in promotion roles.

The second negative behavior role is the candyraver, although ravers’ attitudes on this group is not as cut and dried as with the dj groupies. Generally, candyravers are ravers who adhere to the child-style fashion to an extreme, and who behave light-heartedly and very sociably (see Fig. 7). Respondents often described candyravers in terms of their accouterments, such as Jen (23) who listed "glitter and stickers and lots of candy to hand out… stuffed animals, kiddie stuff like hello kitty," Ajia (19) who listed "blowpops, glitter, stickers, candy necklaces, ring pops," and Ben (19) who said, "A person who carries any of the following and uses them liberally: lolly pops/candy, glitter, stickers, stuffed animals, silver clothing, pacifiers, lotion, p.l.u.r., smiles, etc."

The other facets of the candyraver role are considered more negatively, especially the common belief that candyravers are usually heavy drug users and/or methheads (meth-amphetamine users). Nine of 12 respondents gave a negative depiction of candyravers, and six of those nine mentioned drugs as a characteristic of that role. The connection to meth-amphetamines explains why drug use, which is usually tolerated if not actually venerated, is a basis for contempt in this specific case. As I mentioned when outlining the history of rave music and the subculture’s early development, meth-amphetamines entered the drug cornucopia at the time when the subculture was going through a first round of insecurity. Meth is a stimulant, not a mood-enhancer or psychedelic, and it tends to create an excessively agitated state, followed by a crash that produces anti-social behavior. This effect was blamed in part for causing a change in attitudes in the rave subculture, moving away from hippie-like friendliness to a more hostile and withdrawn sentimentality.

Therefore, meth has always been a "low-status" drug in the rave subculture, and candyravers are accorded low status because of their association with the drug. In a post to mw-raves, John complained about problems extending from the candyraver mentality: "Most candy ravers do lot of designer drugs (we joke about smoking them and getting a buzz)…. Most candy ravers support the big parties for the big house djs and the big drugs." Candyravers who use meth are also called tweakers and crackheads, which are terms used generally to describe meth use. Chris posted to mw-raves after Schizophrenia to recount the story of a meth user who lost her shoes and her razor blade (to cut meth into snortable lines), and he later blamed "tweakers and other crackheads" for his leaving the rave earlier than normal.

The juxtaposition of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in the candyraver role has led to their uncertain status level. On the one hand, they are respected for upholding the childish, giddy attitude traditionally associated with ravers; but they are also disparaged for excessive drug use, or their single-minded use of raving as a gateway to drugs and subcultural status.. As Tracy (20) said, "They are the stereotypical raver…. Everything that someone thinks of when they think of rave parties, that’s what a candyraver is."

The British counterpart to the candyraver were Acid Teds and Tracys. By late 1988, according to Rietveld, "Smiley had sold out to the high street, and youth magazines and clubzines derided ‘Acid Teds’ who discovered the subculture as it became mainstream" (1993:35). The Teds and Tracys were essentially the second generation of British ravers who joined the scene after hearing the mass media coverage (or hysteria, depending on one’s source). These newcomers were often dressed as the stereotypical raver, capitalizing on the Smiley face, pacifiers, and Vicks Vapo-rub to gain entrance into the subculture.

In the same way that candyravers are both the epitome and the scourge of the American rave scene, the Teds and Tracys were greeted with mixed reactions. While they could master the most obvious markers of subcultural status, they rarely possessed sufficient knowledge of the underground scene to be considered authentic members. A branch of Acid House was named "Handbag" in reference to Acid Tracys setting down their frilly handbags to dance; and today, most ravers associate candyravers predominantly with House. Both Handbag in Britain and House in America have subsequently been relegated to "step-child" status among the electronic genres, in large part because of their association with the Teds and Tracys or candyravers.

However, as Jock Young argued, the rave subculture does not exist in a cultural vacuum, exempt from contact and exchange with the mainstream influences it tries to ignore. This point has become increasingly clear in the past year and a half as the mainstream music and fashion industries have attempted to pull raves out of the underground and transform them into a marketable commodity. As could be expected, ravers has been ardently opposed to the dispersal of their subcultural capital, and the additional variable of mass culture incorporation is exacerbating the existing tensions within the rave scene.

The electronica movement essentially fizzled out before it even began, but it was significant because it was a prime example of Hebdige’s theory of re-incorporation of a subculture into mass culture. According to this theory, the mainstream culture tries to locate an alien subculture within an acceptable reference frame to make it less alien and therefore less threatening: "It is through this continual process of recuperation that the fractured order is repaired and the subculture incorporated as a diverting spectacle within the dominant mythology" (1979:94). Music, which is pivotal to the rave scene, apparently was the most accessible part of the subculture, and was therefore the first aspect to be re-incorporated.

As could be expected, this re-incorporation met with substantial resistance and near-hostility from ravers. Every respondent I spoke with reacted negatively when asked their opinion of electronica, with only two making additional positive remarks. Lance (22) said, "(It is) the downfall of everything we know and love… just making money off of the new fad;" and Paul (16) claimed, "They’re trying to make this whole electronica s*** up. Rolling Stone magazine, and the media hype - they’re trying to make the rave thing a sellout."

Ironically, the music industry’s attention has been re-worked by ravers to function within the existing status system. Electronica has become the negative case example, or the litmus test for what is not authentic in the scene. During interviewing, respondents often scoffed or rolled their eyes at the word "electronica" when posed in a question, and would often use electronica in response to the question, "What types of people are not ravers, or the opposite of ravers?"

In this way, the commercialization of underground music is factoring into behavior roles: any raver who called the music at a rave "electronica" or bought music at a traditional music outlet (Best Buy, etc.) would be discounted immediately as a poser or newcomer. Elly, in a post to mw-raves, illustrates this: "Anyway, there is no such thing as ‘electronica.’ That word was made up by people doing the exploitation, because they want a catchy phrase to market their bulls***, but ravers know that it doesn’t mean anything."

A new facet has also been added to the candyraver role as a result. Ravers would often describe candyravers as kids who had "found out from MTV," or had seen a video on Amp. The low status of the candyraver has been pushed down even further by their reputed attempts to gain subcultural knowledge from an unacceptable source.

The status attached to subcultural style is caught in a state of less certainty in reference to the popularization of rave "commodities," stemming in part from the contradictory nature of raver style’s symbolism. As I explained earlier, raver style is an odd mix of disappearance from, resistance against, and glorification of mainstream fashion and cultural codes. When high-end clothing designers such as Julien MacDonald, Marc Jacobs, and Helmut Lang produced collections in 1997 supposedly inspired by "the techno revolution," it was obvious those clothes were not intended for teenagers living on a parental allowance (Greeven 1997:111, 114). And for the most part, ravers had no interest in clothing from designers who were copying them.

But the backlash extended beyond the faux style items to a number of objects and clothing articles that had been part of raver wear originally. The glitter and toys previously associated with ravers have been re-attributed to candyravers and demoted from symbolic to stereotypic. In contrast, the Adidas brand clothing and accessories, which are an obvious glorification of mainstream sportswear fashion, have become even more popular in the past few years. The older Adidas clothes have lost status compared to the newer ones, even though the older versions used to be considered "old skool" or subculturally historic and therefore more authentic.

The position roles are the only set of status markers to be relatively unaffected by commercialization. Promoters are of such low status already, there is little they could do to sell out more than most ravers think they have; and the communicators and mediators are, for the most part, judged by similar standards as non-position ravers, so any changes in their status are related more to behavior and style. The djs, whom I expected to be judged more critically on the basis of music industry involvement, have generally experienced no change in status. While respondents actually gave little information on this point, I would estimate that because djs have traditionally never been accorded status or success if they had commercial interests, the mainstream music industry hadn’t created any new issues for the assessment of this role.

Ultimately, emerging issues of authenticity, commercialization, and popularization are being filtered through the relations imbedded in the subcultural status hierarchy. Uncertainty about the subculture’s future is encoded in the ambiguous status of candyraver behavior. Hostility towards the mainstream music industry is focused on the most corporate position role in the subculture: the promoters. And the increasingly common articulation between the rave subculture and the "cultural commodity" markets of fashion and entertainment is evidenced in the stylistic jargon portrayed through ravers’ clothing.

In this study I attempted to gauge the direction of change in the subculture, but in the end I can only speculate. The outcome of the re-working of the rave status hierarchy as a result of subculture maturation, expansion, and mainstream commercial interest will probably be played out in a significant split between new outlaw parties and the larger established raves. It remains to be seen if a sub-set of the most authentic ravers, djs, and promoters will be successful pulling the subculture back underground; but the current sentiment amongst ravers is that a return to smaller outlaw parties is the only viable resolution of the status conflicts I have discussed in this study.

Appendix 2

Email Survey

Part1

5. How long have you been raving? Approximately how many parties have you been to in that time?
6. How did you first hear about raves?
1. How did you decide to go to your first rave?
2. How do you get information about raves (flyers, store, friends, other advertising, internet, zines, etc.)? If more than one source, please specify which is your primary one.
3. How often do you usually go to raves in an average 3 months’ time?
4. Do you go to raves on your own, with a friend, or with a group of friends?
5. If you go with a group, do you sit together? Do you dance together? Do you, as a group, hang out with other people you meet at a raves? Do you, as an individual, hang out with other people you meet at a rave.
6. In what cities or towns do you go to raves usually? What is the farthest you’ve traveled to go to a rave.
7. Do you consider the rave scene as you take part in it to be international, national, or regional? If some aspects differ, please specify.
8. Outside of raves, are most/some/none of your friends ravers? Do you hang out with other ravers when not at raves?
9. Are you more likely to approach or talk to a stranger who looks like a raver than one who doesn’t?
10. When you meet a raver for the first time, what would they wear/say/do that would make you think they’re a real raver? What do you consider a real raver to be?
11. What types of people are not ravers, or are the opposite of ravers?
12. What do you consider raver style?

Part 2

1. candyraver
2. junglist
3. dj
4. promoter
5. dj groupie
6. the scene
7. vibe
8. meth heads
9. phat pants
10. tweeker
11. old skool/new skool raver
12. p.l.u.r.
13. respect
14. drug use

Appendix 3

Survey 1

Part1

5. How long have you been raving? Approximately how many parties have you been to in that time?
6. How did you first hear about raves?
1. How did you decide to go to your first rave?
2. How do you get information about raves (flyers, store, friends, other advertising, internet, zines, etc.)? If more than one source, please specify which is your primary one.
3. How often do you usually go to raves in an average 3 months’ time?
4. Do you go to raves on your own, with a friend, or with a group of friends?
5. If you go with a group, do you sit together? Do you dance together? Do you, as a group, hang out with other people you meet at a raves? Do you, as an individual, hang out with other people you meet at a rave.
6. In what cities or towns do you go to raves usually? What is the farthest you’ve traveled to go to a rave.
7. Do you consider the rave scene as you take part in it to be international, national, or regional? If some aspects differ, please specify.
8. Outside of raves, are most/some/none of your friends ravers? Do you hang out with other ravers when not at raves?
9. Are you more likely to approach or talk to a stranger who looks like a raver than one who doesn’t?
10. When you meet a raver for the first time, what would they wear/say/do that would make you think they’re a real raver? What do you consider a real raver to be?
11. What types of people are not ravers, or are the opposite of ravers?
12. What do you consider raver style?

Part 2

1. candyraver
2. junglist
3. dj
4. promoter
5. dj groupie
6. the scene
7. vibe
8. commercial/corporate
9. old skool/new skool raver
10. p.l.u.r.
11. drug use

Appendix 4

Survey 2

1. How old are you?
2. Where do you live now (for the majority of the time)?
3. If your parents work, what are their occupations?
4. How would you describe your social class background (such as working, middle, upper middle, upper, etc.)?
5. How long have you been raving? Approximately how many parties have you been to in that time?
6. How often do you usually go to raves in an average three months’ time?
7. What do you consider raver style?
8. When you meet a raver for the first time, what would they wear/say/do that would make you think they’re a real raver?
9. What types of people are not ravers, or are the opposite of ravers?
10. Do you see a difference between old skool and new skool ravers? Which do you consider yourself?
11. Are there any people or types of people you feel can or are corrupting the scene?
12. How much involvement do ravers have with corporate or mainstream society? How much should they?
13. What is your reaction to the popularization of electronic music?
14. To what extent do you think the music industry has affected the rave scene?
15. What do you think is the popular media’s image or portrayal of raves and ravers? Is it accurate?

Part 2

1. candyraver
2. junglist
3. dj
4. promoter
5. dj groupie
6. p.l.u.r.

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Cheeseman, Mark

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Cohen, Albert

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Park, Robert

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