Popper (youth culture)

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Popper in summer look, July 1981

Popper were the members of a German youth culture in West Germany , West Berlin and the GDR in the first half of the 1980s . In Austria they also called themselves snobs .

background

The youth movement spread in 1979, starting from high schools in Hamburg , during the first half of the 1980s. Most of the supporters, who come from the middle to upper class, were consciously conformist and apolitical. They demonstratively celebrated consumption , out of weariness and in protest against the previous and existing consumer-critical youth cultures (“rebellion against rebellion”). As a subculture, it is comparable to the Paninari from Milan that appeared in the same period and the Teddy Boys in the 1960s.

A satirical "Popper Knigge " the Hamburg student Carola Rönneburg and Mathias Lorenz became, according to the journalist Jörg Oberwittler the mirror "copy and distribute our products at schools" as "Behave manifesto quickly required reading for Popper". On March 14, 1980, Die mit der Tolle , the first article about the Hamburg popper scene, appeared in ZEITmagazin .

Under the slogan See and be seen, Poppers is lucky on earth , aesthetic issues replaced ethical and social issues that dominated, for example, in the 1968 or alternative movement . With their demonstrative and creative consumer style they also tried to differentiate themselves from traditional conservatism (" philistines "). In place of traditionally conservative values ​​such as striving for harmony, loyalty to authority, a sense of duty and modesty, some provocative values ​​such as celebrated hedonism , undisguised egoism and materialistic self-expression, with which they alienated both the alternative milieu and classically conservative circles , now appeared .

From 1984 onwards, the movement subsided sharply. The corresponding years graduated from high school and switched to university . As a result, the existing groups mostly dissolved.

In other European countries such as France, Italy (see Paninaro ) and partly in England there were similar fashion developments, but they were not as emphatically apolitical and formulated by name as in Germany.

Consumer behavior

1980s leather ties

Exclusive and expensive fashion brands such as Burberry , Etienne Aigner , Burlington , Timberland , Fiorucci, Benetton , Diesel or Lacoste determined the external appearance of the poppers. The typical hairstyle was the "Poppertolle" with side parting; a short haircut with very short, shaved hair on the nape of the neck, shaved sideburns, longer, layered top hair and a large, asymmetrical bangs that fell over the face so that one eye was completely covered. The preferred means of transport for the popper were mopeds (e.g. Bravo and Ciao from Piaggio) and motor scooters such as the Vespa .

One smoked “international cigarettes” of the brands Cartier, Dunhill or JPS and used the fragrances of Cartier , Chanel and Lagerfeld . The fashion style of the Popper was based on models such as Felix Krull , Martin Fry , Bryan Ferry , the fashion photographs of Helmut Newton and their emphatically elegant and exclusive fashion direction. Popper, for example, wore a combination of tassel loafers , then called “slippers” or “college shoes”, with “pompons” and Burlington socks, the first carrot pants from the “Fiorucci” brand, polo shirts with knitted and leather ties, including tie clips and cashmere - V-neck sweaters, plain or with a diamond pattern. The clothes were largely the same for female and male poppers.

music

Poppers did not consistently have their own style of music, as is characteristic of youth cultures. The listeners listened to pop music dominated by synthesizers and string arrangements of the time. Typical popper bands / albums are for example ABC / The Lexicon of Love , Haircut 100 / Pelican West , Spandau Ballet / True and Roxy Music . Non-political, romantic topics such as love and lifestyle determined the content of typical “popper music”. Popular producers included Tony Mansfield and Trevor Horn .

Relationship to other youth cultures

Poppers did not form an exclusive subculture, but rather formed more or less loose cliques . In a politically turbulent time with numerous demonstrations and protest movements ( peace movement at the time of the NATO double resolution , construction of the West Runway at Frankfurt Airport, opponents of nuclear power against the WAA Wackersdorf, etc.), this youth culture offered an apolitical, consciously adapted alternative to the rather confrontational alternative scene. That in turn led to tensions with other youth cultures, especially the punks . In 1980 there were several mass brawls between the two groups, mainly in Hamburg and shortly afterwards in West Berlin, later also in other cities. In May 1980, hundreds of young people, mostly Hamburg punks, stormed the Pöseldorf known as the Popperviertel , a posh area west of the Hamburg Outer Alster , and attacked status symbols, threw in windows and overturned cars. Only a few months later the disputes escalated, especially in West Berlin, when the music band Die Popper put on a concert in the Hasenheide event center and around 400 punks tried to break through to the location of the event. The police put an end to this project. The media took up the topic and stylized these conflicts into a kind of class struggle among young people.

Another counterculture to the popper consumer society was the second wave of mods . There are also some things in common with this group, such as the apolitical attitude, “having fun in life” and the scooter. They were not easily distinguishable for everyone. Mods were styled too, but got by with cheaper accessories and often wore parkas .

Anyone who wasn't a popper - especially punks, rockers and mods - was from their point of view a " prolo ".

Surname

The origin of the term "Popper" is unclear, but it does not come from English. The plural form is the popper .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Panorama - classic of the report episode: youth culture from 1950 to today - I can't get no , 3sat, March 25, 2011 4:05, article from Ohne Mulkorb from June 4, 1980
  2. ↑ Carola Rönneburg , Mathias Lorenz: The Popper Knigge. ( Memento from February 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Jörg Oberwittler: Aalglatt up to the stop. In: Spiegel Online . July 16, 2008.