Tribe for target audience

My target audience ...

You are an Indie Scenester! You are at the forefront on the indie scene – you know all the major players. You’re always ahead of the game – moving on to the next thing once everyone joins in. You like to look good and your icons go beyond the centrefold of the NME – your current look is James Dean meets Grace Jones. Just wait – everyone will be wearing it in a year’s time.



Indie Scenesters occupy the space previously inhabited by Trendies (and Ravers before them) – people who want to be ahead of the crowd and are willing to invest time and effort into the paraphernalia and detail of their sub-culture. A decade ago they may well have been Ravers and a couple of years back they were listening to bands like Klaxons, the pioneers of nu-rave. Indie Scenesters exist thanks to the fashionable status of guitar music (though for them it’s often about mixing it up with more electronic sounds) and are linked to the general rise of instant fashionability – of fashion and music trends having much faster lifecycles thanks to the commodification of cool. Scenesters don't mind bands achieving mainstream success, but prefer them before the masses cotton on – their own version of second album syndrome. There is significant role reversal in the Indie Scenester Tribe, with both boys and girls dressing in tight fitting clothes and often sporting make-up and accessories. The relatively recent return of the Ray-Ban Wayfarer (in all colours) is big with this crowd as they love to be the first to pick up on the rebirth of a once popular fashion item.

Scenesters are festival goers – if they can blag it. The real action, though, is in small, sweaty, adrenalised clubs. Scenesters are more bothered about iPods and drinking than phones or conscious materialism. Online communities such as those found on drownedinsound.com are important as they allow visitors to discuss, diss or discover the latest cool bands.

The list of bands they like is ever changing. TV On the Radio, The Vivian Girls, Vampire Weekend, Spank Rock and Shit Disco are some of the sounds they like, as is hip French label Ed Banger Records, the home of Justice.

The look – skinny jeans, Converse, stripes and Americana T-shirts – shifted for a while when nu-rave came on the scene, but has come full circle as the genre became too mainstream, reflecting the fickleness and speed of quick changing trends in music having an impact on fashion. Currently labels such as American Apparel, Topshop/Topman and Uniqlo are high street staples, with House of Holland appealing to more affluent members of the Indie Scenester crowd.