13 - Subculture



Title – Sub culture / උප සංස්කෘතිය

(Amateur photographer / ආරම්භක ඡායාරුපශිල්පියෙක්)

Photographed by Camera – Canon: EOS REBEL T6 – EFS 18 – 55 mm

Open for ideas and criticism.

අදහස් හා උදහස් වලට විවෘතයි.




The word “Subculture” according to the dictionary.com is,
A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

This is something I noticed during my A/L 2010 when I was wondering around after A/L classes at Gampaha. I used to read socialist magazines, watch films over and over again, read and also dream which I regret in the year 2017.

As a student what I noticed in the Sri Lankan socio-cultural platform is that there is a standard product for the society to consume and there are sub-products. And for the sub-products, they are tend to be highly criticized and rejected. They usually have a low market share comparatively to the market leader.

Now let’s consider H.R. Jothipala, a popular Sri Lankan singer whose songs are extremely famous and approved by all, but still his songs by many musicians are being criticized for being too entertaining and lacking conceptual background in lyrics. And then there is W.D. Amaradewa who’s in the same category considering the popularity among the fans but conceptually in lyrics, vice versa. Both of them are famous musicians and singers. Amaradewa more educated with more conceptual music and songs while Jothipala being entertaining and crowd pleasing.

But then we find these songs from local suburban music groups who function independently. Many Sri Lankan’s call their songs “Bus Tracks”. These songs are highly criticized but still there is a lucrative market segment in the industry. Thematically many of these songs reflect love and break up and it is in my opinion very less conceptualized.

Anyway this is just an observation.

Currently in the Sri Lankan music scene there are many sub-cultures and is very hard to go deeply and study each one of them.

Now this photo was something I noticed as a student.

There are additional classes for students in A/L’s to support education. And these also have two categories.

The classes that most students attend and the other where small classes are held.

This got me to think that the concept of sub-cultures as a socio-cultural aspect is similar to the concept in economics in the market structures. I find the tuition industry to be more like a monopolistic competition.


Now the basis of this photo is to establish a visual evidence of a thematic observation of society made by myself.

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