Abstract
Symbolically expressed by the concept of flat culture, it has been a long time since the distinction between high culture/popular culture and the definition of youth culture or the youth themselves became blurred. This paper traces the process of identity formation of rock culture and “the youth” as rock listeners in Japan by clarifying the transition in narratives tracing a distinction between the inner and the outer in each Japanese rock magazine. By so doing, the paper demonstrates that the difficulty counter cultures face today is mainly derived from the difficulty in imagining the mass of the population as a unified community.
