This is pretty amusing. Without the internet would people in Chile be doing this? Still waiting for the Panther Moderns to crop up..
quote:
Indeed, the Pokemones are outfitted with the latest clothing and technological gadgets. Their look is androgynous and exaggerated: clad in low-slung, tight-fitting jeans, both boys and girls wear multiple piercings, dyed and waxed hair, and thick black eyeliner. They have their own Web sites, even their own slang, but what does it really mean to be a Pokemon? Curiously, the teenagers do not seem to hold any particular convictions about their identity in a political or sexual sense. Instead, their movement is mostly about image. "It's basically a fashion thing," says Raul Barra, a tall 19-year-old with piercings down the sides of his nose. "A Pokemon has a certain style and does ponceo."
quote:
Sociologists have labeled the Pokemones an "urban tribe," a term they have also applied to hippies, punks, and goths. But unlike those that came before it, this is the first "urban tribe" here born in the Internet age. As such, communication technology is key—Pokemones have hundreds of contacts on instant-messaging programs, and they regularly upload videos and photos to sites like YouTube and Fotolog. But despite the expanded capacity for communication, theirs may be the first movement in which debate about its goals is noticeably absent.
Things have been this way for the whole 20th century... Nothing new. Perhaps the only sensible differences are in scale and comfort. When I was young, to have lots of contacts I should subscribe a "fanzine" and ask the publisher to include my name in the "contacts" section of the magazine. If I want to "post content" I should record a "demo tape" and let it in an appropriate store so people could ask for copies...
Concerning to "ideology", my experience shows that most people just don't care about it. It has been this way in all major movements. Ideology and purpose is something that scholars attribute to movements regardless what inside people opinions and thoughts are.
---------- Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill ???
Posts: 822 | Location: Brazil | Registered: June 13, 2007
