Shamate
Chinese youth subculture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shamate[a] or SMART is a youth subculture and fashion movement originating from migrant workers (mingong) in 2000s South China.[1] It is characterized by eccentric makeup, hairstyles and clothing. At its peak, there were over 200,000 Shamate.[3][6][7]
Fashion and influences
Shamate is a subculture marked by colorful and eccentric makeup, hairstyles and clothing. Hairstyles are often large, colorful and spiky. It takes inspiration from Visual Kei, Korean fashion, glam rock, goth, and punk.[1][3][4][5][8][9][7][10][11]
Le Monde diplomatique describes Shamate men as wearing "eye make-up, studded leathers, slashed jeans and tight T-shirts", and Shamate women as wearing "fishnets or knee-high socks with mini shorts, thick belts and skimpy tops".[1]
Socioeconomic background
Many Shamate are second-generation migrant workers (mingong) in their teens or early twenties from rural towns and villages in China, who dropped out of school at a young age and went to large urban centers to look for jobs, particularly factory jobs in Guangdong.[1][2][3][4][5][6][11][8][10][7][9][12][13][14][15][16]
They are also often described as being part of the "Left-behind children", because many of their parents abandoned them at an early age to work in factories in urban areas.[1][2][3][7][8][10][15][16][17]
History
Origins
The Shamate subculture was founded in 2006 by the then 11-year-old Luo Fuxing. Luo was also a part of the "left-behind generation", and lived in Meizhou at the time. Luo was inspired by other underground movements, but found them too tame. Inspired by the Visual Kei subculture, Luo uploaded a selfie of himself with his hair dyed red and a sleeveless studded jacket to QQ. He named the new subculture "SMART", which he transliterated into Chinese as Shamate. The term quickly gained traction, spreading to a new subculture that adopted the style.[1][18]
However, Foreign Policy and Sixth Tone claim the movement was founded in 1999 in Hong Kong by Mai Rox.[2][13]
See also
- Emo subculture
- Scene (subculture) – Comparable subculture from the West
Notes
- simplified Chinese: 杀马特; traditional Chinese: 殺馬特; pinyin: Shāmǎtè. Transliteration of the English word smart.[1][2][3][4][5]
