Spectacles of Semiotic RevoltSubcultures such as punk, hip hop, grunge and others arise out of the real material alienation of a society dominated by narrow dominant class interests, but they take the form of a revolt against the ideological alienation of a society dominated by the spectacle, the imaginary reality of the signs of the commodity form. This revolt against the imaginary spectacle takes place on the playing field of semiotics, in the form of signs. It takes this form because revolt through oppositional signification seems to be a safe and effective expression of dissent. But because the sign in the society of the spectacle is patterned after the commodity sign, in its metastructure and behaviors, the oppositional signification of subcultural style is easily co-opted into the spectacle, divorcing it from its origins in material alienation and translating it into a metre commodity sign. This appropriation of subcultural style, especially as done through the inherently commodifying medium of commercial advertising, results in a reinforcement of the ideological control of hegemony by the dominant culture's elites, and to a further expansion of the spectacle into the expressions of subaltern youth groups. The options for opposition to dominant culture hegemony, and to the spectacle through the behaviors discovered by subcultural groups seems pessimistic indeed after an exploration of the subject such as ours is done. Not to say that we have exhausted our subject's possibilities, or that the means taken by subcultural groups are necessarily invalid, but the responses to such opposition through signification by the institutions of hegemony and the spectacle deter the revolt of subculture from becoming anything but symbolic. The revolt itself is incorporated into the spectacle. It might even be said that the spectacle requires this kind of semiotic revolt in order to renew its power.
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