The Red Knob

Last weekend The Independent on Sunday carried an article on the phenomenon known as Vice magazine – something we here at Red Knob HQ are very much in favour of. Why? Around 30 years ago some of us were involved in a ‘spectacular youth culture’ ( to quote Dan Laughey) known as Punk Rock. Now what relevance does this have to today’s Generation I-Pod and Grime and Drum and Bass etc subculture and music? There is a link between the two. Punk Rock was a do-it-yourself subculture – music, fanzines, clothing – an insurrectionary lifestyle developed by young people, for young people, an inspiration to independent-minded thinkers and culturally remote from the mainstream – unfortunately the music industry recovered from its shock and capitalised and marketed the ‘new wave’ – and so on – the story is told a lot better elsewhere (e.g. see Punk77 and countless books – England’s Dreaming , Cranked Up Really High etc, etc) ; however the punk DIY ethic continued to grow and inspire countless young people – and thankfully still does. Whilst it may be viewed that there is little connection between the Grime etc of today and the Punk Rock explosion of the late 70’s the relevance in this context is youth culture – and the incredible DIY creativity of young people –as creative today within their own subcultures as they were 30 years ago. Give them a chance. Hence we come to Vice magazine and why it succeeds in being popular with young people where the mainstream doesn’t.
At five years old Vice magazine is a free, themed issue based, no-holds-barred youth publication, that in the words of The Independent on Sunday’s reporter ‘has an ethos of aggressively tackling issues that other mainstream magazines tap-dance around – i.e. let’s say it like it is and to hell with political correctness and the consequences – images of dead bodies and language calculated to offend are, if not commonplace, at least part of the Vice ‘Weltanschauung’. If you’re offended then it’s not aimed at you – a snotty ‘so what’ appears to be the order of the day. Vice magazine tackles everything from sex and STIs, to sex trafficking, to gun crime, to comics, to poverty etc – they even do a pretty good student guide that showed up at my local record emporium some weeks ago. Apart from the information and lowdown on the latest like-them-or-not street fashions, music, leftfield thinking etc, the appeal of Vice is that it does not subscribe to the hysterical mainstream media cult of B and C list celebrities, Big Brother, big booty n’ boobs etc to ‘sell’ copy – as the IoS reporter states, ‘as the media struggles to find a niche within the world of user-generated content, the DIY punk ethic of the Vice media brand, it seems, has hit a chord with a generation disillusioned with mainstream media’ – it taps into and identifies with a particular cultural group – and they identify back and ‘invest’ in it. Marketing? The problem for Vice magazine – as with anything to do with a fast moving youth culture, is staying ahead of the game, remaining interesting and cutting edge… and history gives the example that when the mainstream media ‘discovers’ a youth phenomenon it usually rings its death-knell – in this case we hope not.

So what’s all this got to do with the world of sexual health work with young people? A lot if you think about it. The current uninspiring one-size-fits-all approach to sexual health education that promotes a discussion and participation route to engaging with young people is fine for some young people – but not all people are alike – whilst everyone might want to ‘do it’ – not everyone wants to talk about it – especially if they can’t identify with the ‘adult’ employed to do this; the sexual health mandarins parcelling out advice and benediction from their shiny, ivory academic towers continue to propagate this mantra (which is fine – it works for some) and as cosy as things are within their apparently cloistered and inclusive (to some – but hey we’re not banging at the doors and scaling the ramparts – yet) world, have seemingly failed to notice that there are other ways of providing young people with information – information that is delivered in a culturally relevant way via the application of social marketing and using humour, irony and the language and idioms of young people in order to make information accessible. The material produced by fpa and others may have very nice cartoons and the current ‘feminine whisper’ (who are these aimed at?) adverts on STIs currently doing the rounds on late night TV may be very well produced, but in terms of delivery of information ask young people if they’d prefer it delivered Vice style – or for that matter as per The Red Knob – or in the style of any Lifeline publications and you can be sure of your answer. Wake up people – change or go and live in Islington, New Hampshire, Norway or somewhere where such approaches are apparently banned – or the barbarians will be at your gates, and stealing your thrones.

This isn’t to denigrate or judge in anyway the great work done by so many people working in sexual health education who work alongside and discuss issues with young people – of course we need to do this – however commenting on an anecdotal basis many professionals working in sexual health are culturally remote from the young people they work with and intentionally or not, there is the danger that they impose their own code of ethics (personal, political, or professional) upon young people – sexual health like everything else should be a matter of choice – and that includes how it is delivered. The rub is that it is so frustrating that the sexual health mandarins and social engineers are apparently so blinkered to the wealth of creative youth culture around them that would deliver ‘information that sticks’ in a far more effective way than their own material (the question is – if this material was produced by statutory organisations – would young people see it as ‘authentic’ and engage with it?) And from this viewpoint whilst a cosy clique contents itself that if we just continue in the same old way we’ll eventually get there, we continue to cultivate an epidemic of STIs.

Blah! to the same old same old and Viva the DIY approach, Viva young people and their creativity – and Viva Vice magazine.

Further info on Vice magazine can be found here

Filed under: Op Ed