Crusties
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Crusties is a term for members of a subculture. The term pre-dates crust punk and can be used independently to refer to street punks or squatters. [1] The trend was most widespread in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s but there are also international subsets. Members are noted for their unkempt appearance and are associated with raves, road protests, begging, squatters, train-hopping, street entertaining (or busking) and the young homeless.[2] The term may now be more notable for its associations to crust punk.
Typical dress styles involve dirty unkempt clothing, body piercing, matted messy hair (dreadlocks) and sub-decent hygiene.[3] Crusties are seen as being typically young, homeless and unemployed. This association is such that the term crusty can often be because of their matted, dirty style of dress. Facial and stick and poke tattoos are also common. [2]
Although loosely defined politicly, crusties are typically anarchists or anarcho-primitivists, rejecting consumerism by reusing, and subsisting off society's waste. Activities such as dumpster diving and squatting are forms of utilizing unused resources and are in themselves political actions. Many crusties take on a migratory lifestyle picking up temporary or seasonal jobs such as harvesting crops.
The term 'crusties' is also used in the related field of body piercing for the dried, crusty leakage from a new piercing.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Homelessness". http://www.digihitch.com/road-culture/hitchhiker-lingo/118.
- ^ a b Hetherington, K: New Age Travellers, page 9. Cassell. 2000
- ^ Hetherington, page 98.
- ^ "Body Piercing". http://tattoo.about.com/library/blgloscrusties.htm.
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