RAVE CULTURE

Rave culture explodes in the UK starting in 1988, in the so-called "Second Summer of Love," when acid house — imported from the house and techno scenes of Chicago and Detroit — meets clubs like Shoom in London, run by Danny Rampling.

From there, warehouse and open-field parties, often illegal and organized last-minute by phone, spread the movement across the country through the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It's a hedonistic, communal culture with a strong rejection of the establishment — unlicensed parties dodging British law — that blooms as a direct reaction to Thatcher-era England.

The UK government goes as far as legislating specifically against the phenomenon: the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 defines and bans gatherings marked by music "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" — a legal definition famous for its almost absurd attempt to describe electronic music in legal terms.

Loose, comfortable clothing for dancing all night, neon colors, bucket hats, bandanas, whistles as an accessory — all in service of the dance floor, not the shop window.

The yellow smiley face, borrowed from 1970s pop culture, is adopted as the movement's informal icon, printed on t-shirts and flyers across the scene.

Rave seeded the entire UK licensed club industry that followed, and its festival logic spread into global electronic music culture decades later.

The neon aesthetic and the smiley face still resurface cyclically in streetwear and festival fashion today.