Youth culture is perplexing at the best of times what with all the ear bleeding Crabcore and sexting. Some youth subcultures however, are worth spotlighting. That’s where Vice Versus comes in. Updated weekly, Vice Versus is a newly launched content partnership between Vice’s video arms, VBS, and internet television platform Babelgum.
The series champions the world’s cultural underdogs by traveling across major cities and unearthing the planet’s strangest, weirdest and most exciting underground scenes and cultures. From Tel Aviv ravers and Steampunks to African American Goths and Palestinian taggers, Vice Versus offers firsthand accounts of subcultures you didn’t even know existed from places you never expected them to flourish in. Take, for example, the Boombox Bikers, Swedish Teddy Boys and Wu Tang inspired Chess-Boxers below.
Also worth following is D.I.Y. America and Don’t Move Here from the arts and culture arm of Advertising Agency Wieden + Kennedy. Don’t Move Here follows Portland’s burgeoning underground music scene while D.I.Y. America focuses “on leaders in the youth/punk/DIY movement. Subjects include over two decades of leaders from the skateboarding, punk, grafitti and hip-hop worlds.” Fans of Aaron Rose’s work will recognize Beautiful Losers alumni Geoff McFetridge, Thomas Campbell and Shepard Fairey as well as demi-gods like Tony Hawk, Thurston Moore and Jason Lee. For students of youth culture both sites are a must. I haven’t used this much bandwidth since that time I discovered The Wire on Surf The Channel.
