Punks in Great Britain

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,7, University of Cologne (Institut für Englische Sprache und ihre Didaktik), language: English, abstract: The increase of the unemployment rates and at the same time small public social security benefits and constantly high inflation aggravated the social gap/ differences. Great Britain suffered from recession and big numbers of graduates were threatened by unemployment. Great Britain's youth had absolutely no possibility/opportunity to develop freely. Most kids were fed up with the mostly unrealizable promises of the British government. Due to the dark prospects they only saw a meaningless future for themselves. That's why, a new youth movement, the punk, developed in Great Britain in the middle of the 70ties. Most of its followers came from socially underprivileged classes, but later on also youth coming from the middle class joined. Lyrics like 'No future' were by no means only key words of the punks, but also characterized the actual situation in Great Britain. But what does is it mean to be a member of the subculture punk? What did they do and what was their particular concern? And why do so many people think that Punk is dead after just two years?