Still some rockabilly people around! A lot of them have moved on to doing the pin up thing or have gone more historically accurate vintage these days though.
I was the same! It was rare to ever see me in "normal" clothes đ My style has evolved over the years and I wear more late 60s and 70s clothing now, but I still have all my pretty dresses in the wardrobe.
Thats so cool. I used to do pinup heavy in 2011-2013 and just stopped after having my son and working full time. I kinda want to go back but maybe wearing authentic clothes may be the way to do it. I am going to see if my sister wants to go thrifting with me.
I love 40s and 50s styles. The dresses, the hair, the makeup, all of it was so pretty. It's annoying that they are so closely tied to trad-wives because I want to rock that shit all the time. I know I can anyway but it's hard to shake the view the public has on it.
I do anyway. Nobody has ever linked me to a trad wife. I think thatâs more prairie-core or cottagecore thatâs tied to trad wives. Besides, not everything I own are dresses and a lot of it are actual vintage pieces that are a lot of fun. I say go rock the style.
It's been a subculture for a long time. (It's also way more right wing that may assume).
The thing is that having a bunch of conspicuous tattoos and dressing ostentatiously is now tolerated basically everywhere. I've seen surgeons with sleeve tats. It's no longer associated with particular sub-cultures. Everyone is atomized.
It became more right wing when being rebellious became commodified. The Rockabilly subculture in the 80s (the Rockabilly Revival) was very lefty and very open. With so many deaths from AIDS, subcultures were decimated. Then the poseur right wingers moved in.
Yeah sure. Iâm just saying that if an entire subculture is rooted in nostalgia, it would attract people also attracted to a political ideology rooted in the same.
I clocked the right wing aspect awhile back. What i personally don't know is if they are actually right wing themselves, or if they're the fabled 'non political' person who just hides who the really are, which makes sense considering the whole look is a larp/cosplay.
A lot of the weird "alt right" types worm their way into subcultures. I think some of the cosplay appeals to them, but I also think part of it is trying to "shock" people. Which is kind of funny because the whole "alt right" thing is becoming so bloody pedestrian these days anyway. LOL. I also think its about hooking up with "alt" chicks.
I think a big thing is that the political compass has gotten really cynically skewed since 2016, when establishment Dems started aggressively pursuing culture war trivialities to beat back the nascent left-populist movement represented by Bernie Sanders. A lot of people truly believed that shit and it fried their brains, and alt-righters gained purchase because of it.
I've been a pretty hard-core lefty my whole life--supported gay marriage in the 90s (the only kid in my classroom who did so! I was called all sorts of names!), marched against Iraq war, supported Dennis freakin' Kuchinich. And yet by the late 2010's I had people who voted for George Bush twice calling me a facist because I listened to Cum Town.
I turned eligible to vote right when Bernie announced his campaign. When I turned 18 I had zero intentions of joining the democratic party, and I felt that both major parties were just gangsters who didnât respect the law but werenât above using it to enrich themselves. Going to college for political science for a couple semesters I learned a lot of stuff that really did more to confirm my cynicism than anything else. It wasnât until Bernie ran that I even considered voting for any candidate on a major party ticket. When he lost I stuck with the party, even though I suspected that the primary was rigged. Months later when she lost liberal leaning media really took it out on everyone who supported Bernie. They said he split the party, fragmented the young voting block that had once worked for Obama, but that was nonsense because most of the people I knew my own age werenât even going to register to vote until Bernie came along. Furthermore, we werenât the same generation that elected Obama, and then entitled attitude of âyoung=democratâ without question hurt the parties image in the eyes of my entire generation. Im now pushing thirty lamenting all the dreams I had for my twenties that got crushed by not one but two separate Trump economies.
If you wanna know why so many sub-cultures lean right that used to lean left the answer is money. Me and my wife would both probably love to dress up like Mojo Nixon and Kim Lenz and go out dancing, going to concerts and burlesque shows, drinking, partying and carrying on, but who can fucking afford that when the same groceries from last year have been 50% more this year for as many years as either of us can remember? I say that as a musician, a guitar player, a pretty competent one at that. I tried to keep up with the rest of the scene in my early twenties. I wanted to play out. I donât know how people can afford to play out anymore when strings are twenty bucks a pack, cables are ridiculously expensive, and none of the gear is built to last.
In the 1980s when punks started appropriating all these different mid-century aesthetics like rockabilly or tiki and turning them inside out, the reason they could afford to do it was that stuff was in a thrift shop or in the garbage. Same thing with starting bands, there were so many groups back then because instruments were cheap. I hear guys from that time talk about finding a Sunn amps in the trash, getting guitars that command five digits at a pawnshop for 100 bucks, finding a weird pedal that there was only like five of just sitting in a music shop for 20 or 30 bucks. Then eBay comes along and suddenly nerds have a reason to horde every niche collectable under the sun. The value of things become totally detached from their usefulness and thrift shops themselves start raising prices to cash in. In the 80s and the 90s you had to go thrift it yourself, but now you could work all day at some fucking tech company and overpay someone else to go thrift your perfect rockabilly fit, or pinup fit, or tiki fit, and the important thing is its authentic, you have it, and everyone else doesnât. It doesnât matter if you look like shit in those clothes. It doesnât matter if your never gonna learn to play that instrument. Its just a vibe, an aura, an aesthetic. The posers are now in charge because there the only ones with the money to go out on the weekends and pretend to be punks.
Because the meat and potatoes of politics is how far are you willing to hurt someone's feelings. Doesn't matter how silly it is, are you gojng to use a slur against gay men? That sort of thing. You may vote for their right to get married, support civil rights and all of that, but do you consider their feelings. Thats what politics has been for the last decade and a half.
Its purposefully been shifted away from legal rights to how people behave, and how much can different groups co-exist, when we haven't been open and honest about how much we dont mesh well. We use social witch hunts to determine if people vote for certain policies. People DONT like to hear Nick & Adam call someone a F**** even in the context of a joke. The liberal brown washing won!
100%, I think a. Lot of people in various subcultures are open minded creative types, and the alt right guys look for that in my personal experience. Also young women. Thatâs not a coincidence
You just brought me back to the 80s when all this was brewing. The subcultures (except for skins) were very accepting. Heck a lot of the NYC scene had a significant portion of gay dudes and lesbians. The Preppies and Jocks who became the Yuppies, they were the folks who came to clubs and they made fun of some of the rockabilly people, and who caused issues at ska shows (because the shows were interacial) and were the assholes pretty much everywhere they went. After AIDS decimated the subcultures, and some creatives latched on to gangsta rap, things changed. Rockabilly, when it came around again was called "Roots Rock" and for some reason a new group of less tolerant folks came in.
I went to an Reverend Horton Heat show in 2012 and the audience was basically every Mitt Romney voter under the age of 50 in the area.
I think of a lot of is just their aesthetics: they like a deranged version of immediate post-WWII Americana. Some leftists unfairly assume that must mean they 100% also want to bring back segregation or whatever, but that's not usually the case.
But, yes, compared to say the punk or (American) metal scenes, they are significantly more right wing.
I donât know, most of my rockabilly (female) friends are VERY liberal and tout the âvintage style not vintage valuesâ quote on their socials. The men can be more conservative/libertarian but it varies, also depending on region. Many of the ppl who actually play the music skew liberal but there are conservatives and moderates there too especially in the south, but with their appreciation for Black artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, etc. most Iâve met have been open-minded about race.
Thatâs why a lot of vintage lovers are spreading the âVintage Style, Not Vintage Valuesâ catchphrase that Dandy Wellington (a historian/musician/vintage fashion guy) is popularizing.
That part. I went to a psychobilly show in high school at a local venue and the band's frontman had a patch on his vest about "knowing in your heart that Archie Bunker was right". Also there were a bunch of dudes with swastika patches. Truly not something I'd encountered in our smaller town punk scene before.
Thats it exactly. The Rockabilly Revival started in the late 70s and went pretty strong into the 80s. I was part of that. Then it died down in the 90s -- with a whole lot of people literally dying of AIDS. A lot of the people who made the music, club and art scene died!! It was nice to see it revived again, but it was different and more right-leaning. Very frustrating.
I think they brought that up in Family Guy as well, with Peter asking if they're doing an early 70s Happy Days 50s revival, or a late 70s Grease 50s revival. Which Clowes comic was that, was it the one about the types of insufferable people?
When I was young I used to always watch American Pickers with my dad. Danielle (the woman who worked in their shop/helped with appraisals) had the rockabilly look and I always thought she was so cool and envisioned myself looking like her as an adult!! Iâve got the traditional tattoos down but not so much the style, I think itâs so fun though
FYI the woman in slide 12 is named Crystal Renn and she was a well known "plus size" model back then. Absolute hellscape of a time to be a young woman.
Well, yes. She has the body of the average healthy woman, which puts her significantly above waifs who are used as clothes hangers for sample size clothing. She'd still be plus size today because the term has nothing to do with the desirability of the body and everything to do with not fitting the sample size. Plus size models are used to more accurately show how clothes drape on a normal body.
What's funny is that we don't use the same terminology for male models when they're significantly bigger than high fashion models. Most athletic models are, by definition, plus size since they don't fit a sample size, but we don't use the appropriate term for them.
Rockabilly / Greaser Style has been around before the 2000s. in 90s, was when it had a big come back by mostly young Latinos as an offshoot of " Party / Rave / Tagger Crews " where some groups turned into " Rebel Crews " who threw parties like the other groups but dressed in a mixture of Blue Jeans, White tshirts, Harley Davidson Motorcycle Gear like boots, Belts, Vests, Jackets, Wallets Etc and whore their hair in Pompadours, got Tattoos, some rode Harleys or if they had some money started to buy pre 1960s cars and fixed up in Classic Hot Rod or Ratrod styles.
The style was then evolved in the late 90s by the resurgence of Big Band / Swing / Ska / Punk Music and the bands that performed it like Big bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin Daddies, Rev Horton Heat, Squirrel Nut Zippers , Royal Crown Revue, who dressed like Latino " Cholo / Pachuco / Zoot Suite " style and their fans who started to dress that way to dance at the shows.
small TV News special on " Rebel Party Crews " that aired in the 90s on youtube.
There are a ton of great reproduction 40s and 50s brands out of England currently. A lot of the stuff I have is from Europe in general since they seem to have a large retro revival subculture. This includes actual vintage 40s and 50s dresses and other clothing as well. Unfortunately, that means tons of stupid tariffs for me. Iâve stopped ordering because itâs like an additional $100+ to ship to the US depending on the size of the order. Ugh!
When I think of modern rockabilly people, I think about all the ones I hung out with as a teenager that are conservative now. Itâs almost like they longed for a bygone era
This is why I kinda never clicked with the psychobilly scene, they all were pretty conservative for dudes with green hair and I just wanted to listen to songs about doing monster drugs
Itâs still a thing, just largely exists within the classic car show culture or âPsychobillyâ punk shows now. Both are quite niche things in themselves though.
I loved this look. My favorite bartender in the early 2010s had it. I just call it the Betty Paige look. But these pics seem all over the place with like only half fitting it.
Not only specifically this style, but itâs weird to see people post about this era like it was just one thing, or one style. SoCal here in hs during the period, at least in my hs it was pretty diverse in different trends and styles. This was definitely one with some friends I knew.
I think there's a misconception among a certain type of very online young person that if you go back far enough, subcultures didn't exist, only monoculture.
Don't know how big it is now but the whole rockabilly/greaser/swing revival subculture was around pretty consistently since the 70s. It's always been really big in the classic car and hot rod scene. And I remember it being big in the 90s with 3rd wave Ska and the Swing revival
I used to love this look! Punkabilly and gothabilly were such vibes back then. I wore more emo style stuff back then, but I loved seeing other alternative folk rocking this style.
This comes in waves. 1970s started w/ American Graffiti, Happy Days, Dave Edmunds, Rockpile, early punk like The Clash, X and especially The Cramps. 1980s it was Stray Cats, The Blasters, Social Distortion, Back to the Future. '90s had all the swing / rockabilly revival w/ Brian Setzer, Pulp Fiction. Y2K it was Amy Winehouse
I used to frequent a punk bar in the early 2000s that hosted rockabilly bands! They were fun, there was always a dude slapping the stand-up bass in this tiny little dive lolÂ
It never truly goes out of style but much like the music, it's never mainstream. I wonder how long it will last since younger generations have even less of a direct connection to the original rockabilly stuff then I did growing up.
Wasnât it kinda mainstream for a short period of time in the late 90s? I was a kid then, but I remember seeing young adults wearing the rockabilly look and a few bands getting played on mtv that fit that genre. It wasnt super mainstream, but still enough for me a 10 year old in a super small town to know it existed lol.
I got drastically downvoted once for sharing one of my s/a stories, people got angry because this particular one was another girl who did it to me. You would think no one would be stupid enough to have a problem with that, but leave it to reddit to find people who will!
Gonna get downvoted for this, but this was my least favorite subculture of the 2000s. Rockabilly girls were the worst bullies Iâve had the displeasure of knowing.
I think of that was people just kinda doing a âwell vintage things are in right nowâ response to the hipster trend. Itâs really shame the hipster movement seemed less creative with time.
I remember encountering a couple in my youth that had a rockabilly vibe and were decked out head to toe in 1950s vintage. I ran into them one time in a public setting, yet the encounter was always prominent in my memory. At the time, I thought it was pretty odd. Now as an adult I almost exclusively wear vintage, with several pieces coming from the 50s. Life is funny that way.
All I know is that Patricia Day from HorrorPops awakened something in me as a 13 year old boy in the early 2000s that changed the trajectory of my taste in women that still persists to this day. Great band that I unfortunately never got to see live.
There's always been some sort of rockabilly scene regionally since before and after this was sort of "in". West coast US, places in UK and Europe, and pockets elsewhere.
As a fan of genres ending in "-a-billy" id love more people to jump back in. It'd make finding a bass player for psychobilly bands alot easier....
Rockabilly is a persistent subcultural style that has existed since the 50s and will continue to exist, essentially in stasis, forever. I donât think there was a revival in the 2000s, it just continued to be around.
i was a greaser rockabilly all through the 2010âs and had no clue about hipsters, i guess it kind went side by side and similar enough to blend together
From 2007-2010 this was my aesthetic! As a pale girlie, Dita von Teese was my idol (she still is). It was so fun to do the hair and makeup but I eventually grew out of it for a more effortless look.Â
In my city in the mid 2000s we had that rockabilly subculture. It was made up of mostly working bartenders, tattoo artists, barbers and hair stylists etc. They never changed towards the hipster trends and had their own social groups and shows.
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u/Evafrechette Late 70s were the best Aug 30 '26
Still some rockabilly people around! A lot of them have moved on to doing the pin up thing or have gone more historically accurate vintage these days though.