A subculture is a group inside a larger society that has its own way of living — its own music, clothes, words, rules about what is cool and what is shameful. Punks, skateboarders, biker gangs, hardcore gamers, cosplayers, hip-hop communities: all subcultures. The members share the country's main culture too, but they have built something extra on top of it, and often partly against it. That word 'against' matters. A subculture is usually not just a hobby group; there is some sense of standing apart from the mainstream, of belonging to a world that ordinary people do not understand. Now, the dictionary tells you the word often shows disapproval, and it can — older people and news reports sometimes say 'subculture' the way they might say 'a bad crowd', especially with drugs or crime attached ('a subculture of violence'). But be careful, because that is only half the picture. Among younger people and in writing about music, art and the internet, 'subculture' is warm and admiring; people proudly say they grew up in a subculture. So the feeling depends entirely on who is speaking. Read the sentence around it. The word came out of sociology in the mid-twentieth century and still sounds a little academic — it is a word you write more than shout.