This journal will be talking about identity and how it is related to popular culture. We know that from the past until now, identities were made and constructed among our society. In my opinion, the identity itself is a special characteristic(s) in us and is formed by the environment so that it fosters our personality, characters, and our perspectives. We cannot be defined as a simple mechanism of identity or even multiple identities. For example, I have multiple identities. I am a daughter, a sister, a student, and a friend but I also can be myself when I am alone. I can adjust and put myself wherever and whenever. As an individual, we were prescribed not by our internal qualities or will, but by the role we occupied in the institutions of family, church, class, and hierarchy. As an individual, we have our interest and perspective. In further, this can build an ideology. Ideology is a form of knowledge or belief that is shaped by observing, by powerful interests through its representation as natural, or common sense. Ideology is important in securing the acceptance of an exploited working class by promoting a belief in the naturalness of the capitalist order in the freedom of the individual within it in the past, but I think, it still occurs until now not only for the working class but also middle class and even upper class. Our ideologies are different depending on what position one occupies in the class structure. For example, a lawyer’s ideology is different from a butcher’s because the lawyer is more educated and has more knowledge compared to the butcher. It is also obvious if we look in the lens of social structure, the lawyer is higher than the butcher. This also shows the social class and level of education among people in the society just like a movie of I, Daniel Blake (2016) that shows social classes.
There are the terms of subculture and counterculture. Subculture refers to groups within a culture that have their own distinctive characteristics that distinguish them from the larger culture. Values and norms are compatible with dominant culture. There is ethnic subculture in which values, norms, foods, religions, languages, and clothing set them apart, for example Bataknese ethnicity that has its own language, norm, clothing that is different from Javanese ethnicity. Not only that, there is also professional subculture which is mostly related to profession or occupation. For example, doctor, engineer, teacher, police that all have their own vocabulary, values etc. Different with subculture, counterculture refers to groups whose values, beliefs, and related behaviors place its members in opposition to the broader culture. The example of counterculture is the phenomenon of feminism. This group has existed from early 1960 and it grows bigger now which the main goal is to change the patriarchal mainstream culture. It slowly gives a major effect to the main culture. Nowadays, women are becoming equal to men in every field. There are also many campaigns which support self-love and feminism. For instance, we can take a look of an account with username feminist whose contents are talking about campaigns to love ourselves, especially for the women. This account encourages women to be who they want to be. I think that it is good to free ourselves from the stereotypes that a woman should wear a dress, a skirt, have long hair, etc. We can dress like a man too, wear ripped jeans, flannel, and have very short hair. It is also normal for us to have dark skin, freckles, thick body and so on because what is important is to embrace ourselves and our bodies. These kinds of contents are internalized in our minds and open up our insight that there are not only two genders but many genders. There are also many kinds of relationships. Not only heterosexual but also homosexual relationships.
In conclusion, we know that our identity is shaped by ourselves and also by society. As an individual, we can be a member of both subculture and counterculture members. We can choose what we want to be in this life, whether we want to be a feminist or even a member of punk group. It is all in our hands, which path that we want to live in and do not forget, society also gets to choose what we are, with their perspectives.
