Scene Subculture

Where does it come from?

In the early 2000s metalcore scene, a new type of fan was starting to become more common. These were girls and women in hyper stylised outfits. They were known as “Scene Queens”. This was an insulting term towards the girls and it implied that they cared too much about the fashion rather than the actual music. 

In the 70s and 80s, there was a lot of hate keeping energy around ‘looking the part’ when it came to metal. At this time in the metal scene, the standard was to look tough and very masculine. Anything else was considered ‘poser’. This was until the rise of Glam metal. The fashion associated with this spesific genre of metal was men with long hair that had extreme volume, tight pants and full faces of theatrical makeup. 

By the late 90s, more people were starting to embrace the less masculine uniform of glam metal, although it was not yet considered mainstream and was still hated by traditional metalheads. 

In the hardcore punk scene, sasscore bands made screamo famous for queer coded lyrics and theatrical styles and performances. 

Fashioncore was a movement within the metalcore genre, a fusion genre between punk and metal. Fashioncore consisted of more feminine styles, guyliner, gothic themes and stylised hair. It was supposed to be everything that traditional metalheads hated. From there, many more fusion genres developed and also had extreme fashion associated with them. 

 Metal went through many fusion genres during the 2000s, such as deathcore (death metal + metalcore) and electronic-core (metalcore with synths e.g. Asking Alexandria) and Crunkcore, this was a wolf mix of screamo, metalcore and hip hop. 

Due to the rise in popularity of Emotional Hardcore and the blend between emo and pop punk, this had a massive impact on the scene. 

Scene ever from the early days of MySpace, where everything could be customised and underground music became easier to come across. 

The aesthetics mostly formed from huge followings on social media, with made it easy for scene girls to become well known online. 

Their looks and lifestyles became extremely desirable and were imitated by millions all around the world. 

Many similar aesthetics from all over the globe such as Shimata in China and Floggers in Argentina took inspiration from scene and all shared the same maximalist energy. 

Fashion influences: 

Following in the footsteps of Punk, Scene Kids still had a very DIY approach to the fashion, this gave the aesthetic a scrappy handmade edge. Scene also took fashion inspiration from rage culture and cyber goth with neon colours and costume pieces. Gyaru, Kawaii, and Decora also had an indulgence on Scene. These styles originated in Japan and rejected society’s standards and expectations of women by incorporating extreme accessories and colours, exaggerated western styles and childlike characters, such as Hello Kitty. 

The subculture that scene stemmed from the most was emo. This is because scene lifs were involved in the post hardcore music scene l, this lead to a lot of crossover between the two. Despite many similarities, there were lots of key differences. The emo aesthetic was darker with a gloomier vibe and leaned more Punk, while scene was made up of multiple fusion genres and was louder, brighter and more wide ranging. 

Hip Hop also had an influence on Dvene fhr to the popularity of Crunkcore. The blingy and over the top hip hop fashion of the 2000s also influenced popular styles such as Mcbling, this later showed in scene fashion. 

To narrow it down, the main influences of scene fashion were Glam Metal, Punk, Emo (especially with the popularisation of Hot Topic), J Street fashion, rave culture, cybergoth and hip hop + Mcbling. 

A spesific breakdown of scene fashion: 

Tops: - Loud T Shirts with bright colours, characters or neon prints. 

• hoodies were almost always colourful, often included unique patterns and/or animal print 

Bottoms: - Skinny jeans that created an androgynous style. This also takes inspiration from the big top and slim bottoms silhouette from the 80s. 

• TuTus, which were originally used to symbolise perfect femininity, scene girls laird the alternative punk elements with hyper feminine tutus, this subverts traditional expectations of women. 

Accessories: - handmade pieces of colourful jewellery such as Kandi. This shows strong influence from Punk and Decora. Kandi was also closely associated with rave culture, where they were traded with other ravers as a symbol of peace or respect.

• rubber bracelets and wrist bands were also very popular in the scene (for example silly bands, rubber wrist bands with band logos on them or shag bands) 
• Two iconic scene necklace charms were the brass knuckles and the diamond. scene queen Kiki Kannibal was famous for selling overpriced versions of these necklaces. 
• Pearl necklaces were also worn, pearls are historically a symbol of wealth. Making them look trashy and cheap relates back to scenes punk roots. 
• Studs, dog tags and razor blades were also worn, although these were more common in emo fashion. 

Belts: - layered studded belts, often colourful. 

• white belts were also a stable, tracing back to 90s sasscore, also known as the ‘white belt scene’
• Buckle belts, this pulls inspiration from Hip Hop and Mcbling fashion. 

Shoes: - congers and vans were both stables for scene and emo fashion, especially thanks to vans involvement with Warped Tour. 

• fluffy leg warmers were also common, they were also worn by cybergoths and in Gyaru fashion 
• skate shoes, often stylised or colourful

Glasses: - Shutter Shades were a popular piece in scene fashion. This links to both Hip Hop and Crunkcore. 

• large oversized sunglasses pulled from Mcbling and popular celebrity fashion at the time. 

Socks/tights: - tall striped socks or tights, this goes back to cybergoth and mall goth. 

• fishnets also pulled from punk, although they were less common. 

Scarfs: - thin scarfs and bandanas were another crossover of scene and emo fashion. 

Other: other accessories may include fingerless gloves, skinny ties, stylised bags and arm warmers. 

Hair:

Scene hair is probably the most iconic aspect of the scene look and also the most important. Scene hair changed throughout the 2000s going from extreme extensions and raccoon tails to brightly coloured layers. Scene hair has some similarities to emo too, for example, the deep side fringe or shaggy layers. There are also other ways to do scene hair with straight bangs and lots of volume. (in my opinion this looks amazing and should be done more often) peacock hair was also a popular choice.

A lot of scene outfits in the 2000s were actually very simple but were paired with the extravagant hair to crest an iconic look. 

From me:

This is a follow up from my previous blog so if you haven’t seen that yet then I’d read that first. 

I got most of my information from other blogs or videos about the scene subculture. My main credit goes to aestheticsexplained on YouTube. Their video was the first video explaining the subculture that I watched and it inspired me to write it all out. 

Anyways I hope this helps to clear up some of the confusion around where scene came from and what it’s based around because I’ve noticed that being a common argument at the moment </3