Fetish of sneakers and youth lifestyle simulation representation in Indonesia
From Firenze University Press Journal: Aisthesis
Joni Agung Sudarmanto, Universitas Negeri Malang
Pujiyanto, Universitas Negeri Malang
As part of society, young people have different cultural charac-teristics in their respective regions. Furthermore, each culture has specific social characteristics. So when a group of young people migrate from one cultural environment to another, they experience social processes that affect the pattern of adaptation and the formation of their new identity. Culture in a new area as a goal provides a new framework for traditions because it also pro-vides a formulation and standard for measuring values for the life of a group of people. Including how the trend of young people towards the sneaker phenomenon became a lifestyle.In Indonesia, culture is a historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols (Daddesio [2013]: 9). It is an inherited system of conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by which humans communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge and attitudes towards life (Rou-dometof [2016]: 113; Svasek [2012]: 39). The rela-tionship between sneakers and young people’s lives to become a culture has regional boundaries. The three negotiate as a group, where each cultur-al agent looks for the meaning of the Indonesian society’s symbols. The symbols and meanings used by a group of young people result from the mutual agreement in a group or community. Sneakers as a symbol that is a behavioural guide for all mem-bers of the youth community in a society (Brace‐Govan & de Burgh‐Woodman [2008]: 188). Through these prerequisites, the sneaker trend is finally formed as one of the cultural identities in scope.Symbols and behaviour of a society can also be explained by analyzing the context in which the construction of the symbol was constructed (Daddesio [2013]: 11). Therefore, the sign or symbol is no longer a condensation of meaning but depends on the multi-meaning of the social group it refers to. Meanwhile, cultural reproduction occurs when immigrants affirm their cultural identity, such as the culture of origin. The process aims to assert its existence in Indonesian social life, which requires adaptation to groups with different cultural back-grounds2. At the same time, the sneaker has repro-duced itself as a cultural agent in a new trend that explains the contemporary change (Noland [2009]: 77). Therefore the area of culture is no longer important in the process of giving mean-ing to one’s personal life when an individual move from one place to another which makes his cultur-al area change. Thus, the original identity of young people (which in the context of this research is Indonesia) originates and grows in the end into history and life stories that they cannot leave because it will turn into their life guide in his new trend area. This dynamic process will occur continuously along with the ongoing interaction between general or social characteristics until it becomes a fetish symptom.The symptom of the sneaker fetish refers to the theory of cultural construction, which is an important basis for explaining sneaker adaptation as fashion to construct the identity of young Indo-nesians (Bide [2021]: 5). The fetish symptom of sneakers appears because of a new group of differ-ent people (Skeates [2016]: 11). This grouping is a process of adaptation of newcomers, which means forming new social relationships. Subsequently, the sneaker worn by young people was redefined as a new stage of life took shape. This stage may have very different meanings for a person because their social environment is different from the environment they were in before. Finally, there is a process of giving new meaning to someone and guiding him to redefine his identity and cultural origin through the use of sneakers.Cultural practices will always experience a process of reproduction, reproduction and even commercialization that go hand in hand with the gradual development of modernity. Further-more, the transmission process depends on the individuals who play a role in the cultural arena. Therefore, referring to one of the prestige of young people’s identities today is fashion. Fashion has even become a “religion” that binds the identity of the individual who wears it. So, the sneaker, a form of fashion, also has a big role; even now, it has become a commodity and prestige with a fet-ish nuance. Therefore, this study aims to identify how the sneaker fetish becomes a space for simulating the lives of young people in Indonesia. Fur-thermore, this study also examines the problem of the representation of youth-lifestyle simulations in Indonesia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Aisthesis-14033
Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/14033
