Page "Mod (subculture)" Paragraph 5

Dick Hebdige claims that the progenitors of the mod subculture " appear to have been a group of working-class dandies, possibly descended from the devotees of the Italianite style.

" Mary Anne Long disagrees, stating that " first hand accounts and contemporary theorists point to the Jewish upper-working or middle-class of London ’ s East End and suburbs.

" Sociologist Simon Frith asserts that the mod subculture had its roots in the 1950s beatnik coffee bar culture, which catered to art school students in the radical bohemian scene in London.

Steve Sparks, who claims to be one of the original mods, agrees that before mod became commercialised, it was essentially an extension of the beatnik culture: " It comes from ‘ modernist ’, it was to do with modern jazz and to do with Sartre " and existentialism.

Sparks argues that " Mod has been much misunderstood ... as this working-class, scooter-riding precursor of skinheads.