Rockers

British youth subculture in the sixties and early seventies. In contrast to the Mods, who tried to stand for something new (modern), the rivaling Rockers were in certain respects more conservative, as they were more "class bound" and had "lower paid, less skilled occupations", thus representing "an affirmation of 'traditional' working-class liefestyles" (Osgerby 42).

Rockers can be considered as the "spiritual" successors of the Teddy Boys (subculturelist.com), though their look was different from the rather formal Edwardian style of the Teddy Boys (rockabilly-rules.com). The Rockers bore certain resemblances to American motorcycle gangs, often driving heavy Triumph motorcycles and wearing black leather (Osgerby 42). Being themselves "overtly masculine" (Hebdige 52) the Rockers thought of the Mods as being effeminate snobs (Osgerby 42; subculturelist.com) as the latter, from the Rockers' point of view, cared too much for fashion. Their preferred music came from white American rock and rollers, e.g. Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent (subculturelist.com).

Though the Rockers and the Mods were rivaling groups it was mainly through representations of the media by which attention was drawn to the vandalism and violence when those two groups clashed together in Brighton on Whitsun in 1964. According to Cohen, it was the media that brought about a moral panic about British youth in Great Britain (Cohen 10-11, 16).

Sources:

Hebdige, Dick.Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Routledge, 1979.

Osgerby, Bill. Youth in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Oxon: Routledge Classics, 2011.

http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/

https://infodocks.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/stanley_cohen_folk_devils_and_moral_panics.pdf

https://www.rockabilly-rules.com/blog/teddy-boys-edwardian-style/