| abstract | - Zoku(族) is a Japanese term meaning tribe, clan or family. As a suffix it has been used extensively within Japan to define and coin subcultural phenomena. As was the case in the western world, Japanese subcultures became a notable phenomenon in the post-war and early post-modern era. While many that have received international attention are not always suffixed with zoku, such as cosplay, some can appear with or without the tribal tag. Often terms are formed using a Japanese stem, although hybrid terms using more familiar or distinctive English words to coin a sub-cultural reference. In line with the usual practice elsewhere in the world, subcultures in Japan that bear the zoku tag have almost certainly been labeled by an outsider to the group in question, often an influential person in the media, rather than a word-of-mouth evolution of the terminology.
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