Burnout (stereotype)

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Burnout is a 1970s and 1980s slang term often used to refer to (typically) juvenile delinquents interested in heavy metal music (see also Metalhead, hesher), typically dressed in 70s/80s populist hard rock fashion: denim, work boots, flannel shirts, wallet chains, concert shirts, leather studded wrist bands, and medium to long hair (or a mullet hairdo).

The stereotypical burnout indulges in rowdy anti-authoritarian behavior, including drugs and alcohol, vagrancy, vandalism, truancy, smoking, petty theft, violence and wild "pit parties" typically held in abandoned construction pits in wooded areas outside of suburban neighborhoods.

John Bender from The Breakfast Club was referred to as a burnout.

Favorite music of burnouts includes New Wave of British Heavy Metal groups such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Ozzy Osbourne, as well as hard rock / heavy metal and other wild or radical bands such as AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rush, The Who, The Doors, Van Halen (with David Lee Roth), Guns N' Roses, and later in the 80s, death metal, thrash metal, and speed metal groups including Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, and Venom and hardcore/punk music such as Stormtroopers of Death, Sex Pistols and Suicidal Tendencies.

In the early 1990s, bands such as the Melvins, Nirvana, Mr. Bungle, Supersuckers and Butthole Surfers would champion the "burnout" aesthetic, although the stereotype quickly faded into obscurity as alternative music and grunge music changed the cultural landscape and previously "burnout" characteristics were assimilated into mainstream youth culture (typified in the film Kids).

In popular culture, the Ramones, Lemmy of the band Motörhead, the character John Bender in film The Breakfast Club, the bully on the album cover of A.C.'s Everyone Should Be Killed, Beavis and Butthead, Crispin Hellion Glover's character in the film River's Edge, the teenage Earl J. Hickey portrayed in the television show My Name Is Earl, the 1980s lineup of Guns N' Roses, the 1970s rock band The Runaways, the album cover of The Who's Who's Next, various characters in the films Dazed and Confused, Over the Edge and Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, and the character Buddy Revell in the film Three O'Clock High typify the "burnout" image. The rock band Redd Kross wrote the song "Burn-out" for their 1982 album Born Innocent. The stereotype can be traced back to leather jacketed 1950s juvenile delinquents and bikers portrayed in films such as Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild One.

The term "burnout" originated in the late 1960s hippie era, referring to youths/dropouts who had "burnt out" from excessive drug use, and dressed in the unkempt hippie fashion, opposed any authority and preferred a raucous lifestyle and louder psychedelic and emerging heavy metal styles of music. In 1960s rock, early "burnout anthems" included Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" and The Troggs' "Wild Thing". Early "burnout" icons include James Dean, Jim Morrison, William Burroughs, The Stooges, the bandit in the film Rashomon, and Charles Manson.