Asyouwish for 2/22-2/24

In class we have been discussing Hebdidge’s idea of the subcultures becoming mass-produced and thus being normalized. Take the band Green Day for instance. They were once deviant and radical and now they are no longer the defiant punks they used to be but instead a subculture. Green Day was once their own band on their own terms, but once MTV got a hold of them their music started to change and became like everything else. It seems the MTV generation, while great, seems to change every original type of sound to something more mainstream. During the 90’s MTV turned college and university students spring break into something entirely different. Spring break has almost always consisted of people getting together with their friends to drink and party. This type of behavior had always been frowned upon but when MTV started Spring Break these behaviors were normalized at least in the eyes of the viewers watching from their homes. MTV Spring Break normalized drinking and vulgar activities because they kept showing thousands of people doing such activities each day. Since so many people were participating in these activities it was almost abnormal to be a college aged student who wasn’t celebrating their spring break in the spirit of MTV. While MTV Spring Break is no longer as big a deal as it used to be, it did inspire people to go away and party hard during their spring breaks. A bunch of my friends each year have gone away for spring break to the Caribbean or Mexico where they party like crazy because that is what they had grown up watching. It is what the generation before them had done and had fun with. These actions no longer receive questioning because they have become part of the American College culture. Spring Break for most college students means party time.