The Importance Of Subculture

Outdoors person, nature freak, naturalist, and outdoors enthusiast, these are all words that my parents, my friends parents, and other people have used to explain me and my friends. This group with its own set of values, practices, and beliefs, or subculture has and is a very big part of my life because of how much time I spent in the outdoors growing up and how much time I spend there now. Subcultures are groups that have a huge impact on us as individuals and differentiate us from others, no matter which one you belong to it has a direct impact on your life until you stop being apart of it. As people who enjoy the outdoors, we value things such as beautiful scenery, the environment, and physical activities, we usually show this …show more content…
My friends are the people I mainly go with when I do outdoor activities with people, me and my best friend go hiking and canoeing/kayaking almost every other week in the summer as a way to relax and have fun because both of us prefer it to things other people out age might go do like shopping, going to concerts, or sporting events. Before I graduated high school, school was also a big influence for my friends and I to love the outdoors. The school I went to did a lot of outdoor activities every week and was always really fun because we would go in large groups to most so it was a lot like just going with my friends. When it was nice out during the year we would go on “outdoor class adventures” where we had class outside or just go out and walk around for an hour, in the winter time during gym classes or study halls we were allowed to go on hour long gym field trips (my school was small so they were happy to have kids from study halls join) to the lake and play broomball, skate, or whatever else we wanted to do. Compared to other school, even the ones around my school, these practices probably seemed strange, but to the teachers and staff at my school it was an obvious or common sense way to get us to pay more attention, be less bored or tired during class, and a simple way to get us to exercise more during the …show more content…
For outdoor enthusiasts there are only a few mores and laws that can affect them such as, getting in trouble for trespassing while hiking or another activity. They could also get into trouble if they’re in a national park and don’t follow the rules of the park they could get into trouble such as not following the parks rules on pets or not staying on trails while hiking. Both of those examples would lead to a formal, external sanction or a consequence that would be imposed by others, in most cases some kind of fine or even just a warning would be the punishment, but if it’s something the person has done before possibly time in jail. Outdoor enthusiasts tend to run into a few more problems with folkways and customs than they do with mores and laws. A big folkway that I’ve noticed while hiking is sharing the trail, in a lot of place I’ve hiked there are people of all different hiking skill using the same trail, from what I’ve seen and experienced it is very annoying when people take up a large part of the trail or make it so that no one can get by them without going off the trail. This folkway has an informal, internal sanction, no one will punish you for taking up the whole trail, but you’re not going to make friends with any of the people behind you and it can be embarrassing to notice someone go off trail in order to get around you and your friends. Another