Alternative

About

Members of the Alternative tribes are vaguely rebellious but don’t yet have a specific focus to rally against (their parents may well have helped shape their Alternative views, in fact). However, they are likely to conform with peers. While open-minded about music and fashion they are wary of the Mainstream tribes and determined to be different – together.

Alternative Tribes are predominantly made up of white working and middle class kids. It seems a huge proportion of teens in the UK have a hankering for something a bit different, and Alternative brands that have achieved massive traction include Converse and Vans. Kufiyas also feature heavily.

All Tribes within the Alternative segment are passionate about music, and their friendship groups, tastes and activities are largely defined online. Peer influence is a huge part of the Alternative scene, though new trends usually emerge outside the segment. The best way to reach these kids is through niche magazines and social media.

Young Alts is the gateway Tribe to the Alternative and Leading Edge scenes and is a massive group who snap up all kinds of media and accessories as they ape their elders. Metalheads and Skaters are much more rigid Tribes, adopting teens early and keeping them until their mid-twenties in small, fiercely loyal friendship groups. Both scenes are fluid about fashion but fanatical about their core preoccupations: rock music and skating. Emos and Scene Kids are heavily over-lapping tribes with Goth-derived fashion sense and US-led rock music tastes, although Emo kids are interested in angst while Scene Kids are more concerned with socialising and building massive online presences. Apart from Gamers, Scene Kids are the Tribe most glued to their computers, making the Alternative market the most-web facing of the segments.

The final category, Gamers, are truly unusual in that their online profiles and pastimes have assumed more importance than real-world socialising. They are a globalised Tribe with eclectic and influential taste in games, music and film, but no real need for fashion.

Stats

This segment ‘definitely agreed’ that they “like to share music with my mates” more often than all other segments (Index = 117 vs. all 16 to 24s)

They loved going to gigs more than most (47% definitely agreed compared with 29% of all 16 to 24s)

Only 9% saw having ‘a high powered job’ as ‘very important’ to their future. This contrasted negatively with the total of 16% for all 16 to 24s