Conformist Rebellion



The Conformist Rebellion was a movement created in 2005. This movement represented the ideals that teenagers have continually rebelled against everything mainstream until no one followed the mainstream. People began to categorize themselves as Emo, Goth, Punk rock, etc. all of which are made up of the same ideals and only separated by styles of clothing and music. Based on Conformist Rebellion ideals, today's mainstream has become the act of rebelling, and thus by conforming and not rebelling, one is rebelling from the mainstream of rebellion making them Conformist Rebels.

Conversely, it could be argued that everything is now mainstream. There is no one standard to conform to, yet no one standard to react against. While this is a major dichotomy, it could be argued it shows how easily co-opted most youth movements have become over the years. Even Aristiasians have argued that this is "the doctrine of The Cardbaord enemy" in action. In effect, the old conformity has been replaced by several new ones. Even these new models of conformity are in conflict with each other, despite being part of the same thing. They argue that a counter culture is a contradiction in terms, as it goes against all culture. The Confromist Rebels believe that these minor conformities contradict eachother on an extreme scale.

A good example was the hippies of the late 1960's. They supposedly rejected conformity, yet conformed to a set of common characteristics that manifested themselves in dress, ideals and music.

In The sitcom by Cult humourist Chris Morris, Nathan Barley, one of the characters (A journalist called Dan Ashcroft)writes an article on the conformity of the so called "avant-garde". He writes that: "They are blind to the paradox of their uniform individuality." We see shots of these media types in ridiculous attire and riding tiny bicycles as Ashcroft's voice over plays.