Raves and a Drug Cultured Identity Society has been greatly influenced by lifestyles, ideologies, and perceptions involving popular music and contemporary culture.
We are all influenced by the values and ideologies that DJ’s and artists produce in each genre of music. I have recently noticed that electronic music has become extremely popular among University of Washington students. The growing reputation of this electronic music has lead to an increasing population of ‘rave’ culture.A rave is characterized by “a party atmosphere designed to enhance a hallucinogenic experience through music and behavior, which consists of an all-night dance session at a club or party, accompanied by the ingestion of recreational drugs” (“Rave Culture”).
It is important to study rave culture because it is an “experience good” where the musical experience is enhanced by drugs and material elements. In this essay I will argue that rave culture is inspired by a drug culture identity that creates a cultural phenomenon that could not exist without drugs.I will use Kellner’s cultural study method to display how the production of a rave is influential in minimizing class inequalities. Drug use at a rave is apparent as the consumer whiteness’s bizarre interactions throughout a rave.
Concertgoers communicate through their senses, massaging, touching and hugging each other, while vibes to the music inspire their interactions. Every sense of inhibition is lost, creating a passive environment where virtually anything nonviolent and peaceful becomes socially acceptable.Verbal communication is difficult in rave culture, and interaction often occurs with little or no discourse. It is a high-context culture where the meaning and cultural identity lies within the physical environment. The cultural identity would be nothing without recreational drugs that create a perception of timeless space and an altered sense of reality. Kellner uses textual analysis to explain the central meanings, values, symbols, and ideologies behind the production of culture.
Using a cultural studies approach, it is important to analyze the dimensions of class, race, ethnicity, and sexual preference within the rave culture (Kellner). People associated with the rave culture have a unique and creative identity with their fashion and essentially anything becomes acceptable at a rave. The culture is racially diverse, made up of people from different ethnic backgrounds. It’s a culture inclusive to everyone, as there is no exclusion and it promotes a creative individualistic environment.The only value system associated with the rave culture is the idea of P. L.
U. R. (Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect). These are the ideologies that the rave culture promotes.
Rave culture in itself is something that glorifies individuality and allows individuals to follow their own style (delete? ) From a cultural studies perspective, rave culture is an example of a product that serves to resist the dominant political meanings of status therefore creating this ideology of PLUR where social domination is nonexistent.Kellner’s semiotic analysis would also conclude that this drug-induced culture creates no guidelines, or rules governing social interactions. Raves are timeless places, removed social spaces, where utopias are both imagined and lived. It is a creation of space where love and happiness exist beyond everything else. Race, gender, age, and sexual orientation do not matter as these values simply fade into the background.
When analyzing the cultural production of a rave it embodies material elements such as laser light shows, projected images, and artificial fog, and the DJ who creates the music.The cultural product is stimulated by the combination of music, dance, light shows, and the ingestion of recreational drugs. More importantly, the production of culture is embedded within the cultural interactions and nonverbal codes which create ideologies and perceptions resulting in a non-hegemonic organizational structure that promotes PLUR and economic equality. The idea of Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect seems like such a valuable ideology. Do you really need a drug to define such cultural values?I have learned that rave culture promotes a small power distance as its primary value, emphasizing the importance of minimizing social or class inequalities, reducing hierarchical organizational structures.
Drug use is an important aspect of both personal and social identity within rave culture. Although you don’t need to consume a drug to be associated with rave culture, participation in rave-related drugs is often a means of achieving ethnic identity. Therefore I have observed and realized that there could be no such rave culture without a drug cultured identity.
