The mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of
the early to mid-1960s. Media coverage of mods and rockers fighting
in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths, and the two
groups became labelled as folk devils.
The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling, and their appearance
reflected that. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black
leather jackets and motorcycle boots (although they sometimes wore brothel
creeper shoes). The common rocker hairstyle was a pompadour,
which was associated with 1950s rock and roll —
the rockers' music genre of choice. The mod subculture was centred on fashion
and music, and many mods rode scooters. Mods wore suits and
other cleancut outfits, and preferred 1960s music genres such
as soul, rhythm and blues, ska and beat music.
The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley
Cohen to develop the term moral panic in his study Folk
Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker
riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen admits that mods and rockers had some
fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different to the evening
brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both
at seaside resorts and after football games. He claims that the UK media turned
the mod subculture into a negative symbol of delinquent and deviant status.
Most British Newspapers described the mod and rocker clashes as being of
"disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as
"sawdust Caesars", "vermin" and "louts".
Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham
Post editorial in May 1964, which warned that mods and rockers were "internal
enemies" in the UK who would "bring about disintegration of a
nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the
mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause
violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire".
Fast forward a couple years another event similar to the mods and rockers
conflict just more destructive the London riots occurred.
Between 6th and 10th August 2011, the riots happened first in Tottenham and
later in Tottenham Hale Retail Park, thousands of people rioted in
several London boroughs and in cities and towns
across England. The chaos implicated generated looting, arson, and mass use of the
police. The events were also called "BlackBerry riots" because people
used social media and
their blackberry’s to broadcast when the events would happen and
The spread of news and rumours about the previous evening's disturbances in
Tottenham sparked riots during the night of 7 August in the London districts of
Brixton, Enfield, Islington and Wood Green and in Oxford Circus in
the centre of London. Disturbances began after a protest in Tottenham following
the death of Mark Duggan, a local who was shot dead
by police on 4 August 2011. Protesters became angry after police restrained a
sixteen-year-old girl who was alleged to have been acting in an aggressive and
disorderly manner. Several violent clashes with police, along with the
destruction of police cars, magistrates' court,
a double-decker bus, many civilian homes and
businesses, began gaining attention from the media. Overnight, looting took
place in ‘Tottenham Hale Retail Park’, nearby Wood Green
and hackney.
I feel that these two events are really similar because after these two
events occurred the teenagers of the generation were labelled as troublesome,
destructive, unmannered and thuggish. The British media enjoyed making these
events seem worse than they were especially the mods and rockers conflict.
Although the London riots were very destructive the precautions of this event
meant that the even teenagers as a whole got the blame, just like with the mods
and rockers conflict.
