Audience Research

Research found on the UK Tribes website in order to get a better idea of the types of things my chosen target audience are interested in, which I will apply in the creation of my music magazine.

Alternative

Possessing an alternative taste in music and fashion no longer automatically denotes outsider status. Instead, this segment makes up a significant slice of the youth market, with the internet helping to smash the barriers to the Alternative lifestyle. An enthusiasm for indie fashion and band culture is now almost obligatory in the development of middle class teens. 
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. 

Emo:

The last couple of years have seen this group go from marginal to proto-mainstream – they have, at the very least, gained much wider cultural currency. Bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance have also provided a chart presence and publications like the NME have given emo music a massive boost. But first, the basics: emo is short for ‘emotional’. On a less positive note, they have been linked with self-harming and suicide by the more right-wing media of late, but this attention only heightens their popularity among youths who want to belong to a ‘sub’ culture. You’ll see Emos everywhere: they’re the kids with dyed black hair and a long fringe which serves as a barrier between them and the cruel outside world, often wearing super-tight black jeans teamed with kiddiecentric cartoons, checkerboard patterns and skulls. This sub-group, which branches off from Young Alts and Metalheads is wilfully unflamboyant (depite the cartoons and the checkerboards). While a Tribe in its own right, ‘emo’ is used less discriminatingly as a term of ridicule by others. Emo kids are on the receiving end of abuse not only from Townies but also from the Metalheads and Young Alts. Along with Chavs, Emos attract the most bile from their fellow youths. But much like Chavs, that’s become part of the appeal... 
Black clothes are teamed with kitsch, brighter, cutesy items. Labels that few Emos will be seen without are Claire's Accessories (think neon wristbands and hair clips), Punkyfish, Vans and Atticus Clothing (Blink 182's own clothing line), with eyeliner being worn by both boys and girls. Hitherto, bands were mostly American and musically accomplished but a British strain has appeared over the last couple of years and is in strong ascent, with more bands undoubtedly to follow. The Emo sound is part hardcore punk, part melodic indie. Key bands include Panic At The Disco, Nightmare Of You, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Funeral For A Friend. Facebook remains massive for Emos. 

Emo - a genre of music that originated from hardcore punk and later adopted pop punk influences, when it became mainstream in America, before moving across Europe. It has seen many re-inventions of itself, and is thought to have originated in the early 1980s. The first wave of Emo was a sub-genre to describe hardcore punk, and in later years emocore, short for "emotional hardcore", which was also used to describe the emotional performances of bands. 
As the original punk/hardcore Emo took on a more indie-friendly format and hit the mainstream, newer bands began to emulate the mainstream style.
Recently we have seen Emo evolve once again, into a more melodic and less chaotic direction, with Emo abundant in the charts, and a huge adolescence following. The often dark, lyrical content, which deals with many major personal issues in life remains popular with pre and post teens a-like.

Scene Kids:

Scene Kids are a recent arrival from the States that found their feet in the north of England and are gradually moving south. They are basically a cooler, slightly more accessible and better-dressed version of Emo – though strangely some think there’s a bit of Chav to them; probably because they’re more feisty than Emos. Very much based around social networking sites, the Scene Kids love Facebook though there is a steady movement to also using Twitter. Image is all with the Scene Kids – either self-shots on a mobile phone that are uploaded to web pages or being noticed out and about by others. In short, Scene Kids like to be noticed. Updates on Facebook are a great way of informing others on how ‘Scene’ you are and are also often used to publicise friends’ gigs and homemade clothing lines. From here the move is generally to Indie Scenester or Hipster as these Tribes have extremely close links.
Musically, Scene Kids love a mix of electronics and hardcore punk guitars, with top bands being Late of the Pier, Gallows and Bring Me The Horizon (though lesser known local bands also get a lot of support). This is a young tribe with a very specific look. Rib T-shirts, zebra prints, skinny jeans, Converse, hair hugely styled with bangs (that’s a fringe to you and I) for boys and girls, and of course the obligatory 1000+ friends on Facebook on the laptop. Girls go for bright make-up and eyeliner with boys only going for the eyeliner. Both sexes like their hair parted to the side. 
Scene kids are most likely to be found assembled into small 'gang' type groups, lurking around a friend's house, with lights off, drinking cheap booze and smoking badly rolled cigarettes. Exchanging stories of heroic fighting days, and glory wounds they got from a near fight to the death experience at a local show. It is true; the Scene Kid take themselves very seriously, believing the ‘scene’ is a lifestyle not a music genre. 
They apply similar personas to one another, and claim to be 'brothers', united until death in the strife's and afflictions of commercial and mainstream, in which they must fight daily. Dark circled eyes, a sleep depraved scenester, leaves it's badly lit room, after a 12 hour Facebook posting marathon complaining of how the world lacks loyalties; unlike it's gang. The Scene Kid then quickly heads on its way to spend its dole money at H&M. Hey, the Scenesters never claimed not to be a hypocrite!

Metalheads:

The Metalheads tribe generally sees more people coming and going than other tribes – appeal wanes for many quite quickly. Metalheads feel no need to justify themselves to others, and are generally a friendly badge-wearing bunch but they do have a tendency to hate Chavs and Townies, as well as generally frowning upon the musical tastes of the Emos and Indie Scenesters.This tribe is keen on mixing up newer and older varieties of metal, punk and rock – so older classic metal bands like Pantera, Metallica and Killswitch Engage have currency as well as more recent, and more experimental, bands such as Cobalt and Converge. 
The internet plays an important part in the scene. Local or obscure bands are big among Metalheads, so an online community plays a vital role for talking and sharing music. As such, forums like ‘UK Metal Underground’ and the ‘Metal Hammer’ forum are popular destinations. As is file-sharing software like Limewire or Vuze.
You’ll mainly see them wearing black, though not exclusively. A black band t-shirt and blue pair of jeans would be the typical look of a Metalhead. 

Young Alts:

Young Alts are after something different, but beyond that, they’re not exactly decided. They’ll read about or listen to a huge variety of bands and try Skater, Emo and even Urban fashions. They also love a lot of mainstream fashion and music. The Young Alts make for a largely safe and non-judgemental Tribe in which to experiment with all of these styles. 

As they advance into later years, Young Alts specialise and move into different Tribes, but while they are still deciding they are some of the most voracious consumers out there: music, magazines, clothes makeup and haircuts are all sampled and discarded with abandon. 
Young Alts are wide eyed to the world and can be influenced by TV, radio and mainstream media. Some of them are still listening to their parents! Of course, the biggest influence is the playground and their friendship groups, and they constantly scour specialist magazines and the internet for news and clues about their favourite scenes. 
Young Alts generally adopt their passions from Emos, Scene Kids, Indie Scenesters and Hipsters and rarely create a trend for themselves. Their huge buying power combined with this predictable nature makes them a hugely exciting market. Careful analysis of social media can put marketers ahead of the curve, as can access to Young Alt tastemakers like Zane Lowe.
Tribe icons include Kurt Cobain, Hadouken!, Green Day, Bring The Horizon and You Me At Six.