Subgroups in a culture? Wait, subcultures? What?

Upon reading Warren's and Koy's blog posts on "Asians and Subcultures", I found really interesting the 'categorization' of certain groups to go so far as being called 'subcultures'. I personally agree with Koy that Asians as a 'subculture' may not exactly be fair. I believe the terms group, subgroup, or clique maybe more fitting. Chris's comments on Koy's blog, "But can't we keep dividing 'groups' into smaller and smaller subdivisions? Does this *ever* stop?". I too ask the same questions, and have decided no to both.

I grew up in San Francisco and attended middle and high schools there. My schools had a relatively diverse population however did have a good number of Asian Americans. Since middle school, I noticed a lot of 'groups' and 'subgroups' even among Asians. In middle school, there were different groups that hung out together during lunch. There were the kids who played Magic Cards, the kids who hung out at the computer lab after school, the kids who played basketball at lunch, and the 'smart' kids who took honors classes together. In another middle school I knew of both boys and girls who were Asian but didn't know anything about each other immediately became friends in the first week of school. In high school, my cousin who just migrated from Hong Kong at that time immediately made friends with other people who were not born in America. My friends and I called them the HKs. Then there was a group of 'cool kids' who didn't seem to care too much for school, and would come late to class and others would smoke on campus. There was another group of kids who seemed just 'average' however had high opinions of themselves. Then of course there were always one or two diverse groups which included Whites, Mexicans, Asians, and Blacks. Then there was my group, the Track runners. There were other groups that formed because they played the same sports, or perhaps they were friends first before they joined the team. Out of all these groups I have mentioned above, with exception to the diverse groups, they were exclusively Asian.

The forming, finding, and fitting into different groups seems just natural. People become friends and inadvertently form groups when look for others who they can share interests with. They may also form groups if they feel they have some sort of common ground, or even are born around the same area, or look similar in terms of height, hair color, and skin color. Even 'rebels' who do not want to fit in to 'mainstream' society or groups somehow form their own groups. People who are genuinely disinterested in socializing with others too are labeled a certain way and have some sort of culture of their own. The more people seek an identity and a group they belong to, the more groups are formed. As Chris comments on Koy's post, "maybe we just need to accept that humans *do* form groups, but also be cautious not to see these groups as ever rigidly defined", it is true that a lot of groups are not quite defined. I labeled groups above based on how I perceived them. I don't think a lot of them formed with rules, or guidelines, or based on a rigid definition of who they are or what they stand for. Groups just happen, and as how I may have unfairly labeled some groups, other groups will be unfairly labeled as well ("fresh fobs", the "not-so-fresh fobs"-Carol's comment on Warren's post). This seems to be a very complex matter I can't quite grasp my mind around. These are what my thoughts consist of:
-people form groups for a sense of identity and a place they belong
-sometimes these groups were formed without knowing, other times they are intentional
-some people perceive themselves in a group, others do not feel aware
-these groups or 'labeled' by 'outsiders' and many times can be seen as inaccurate, stereotypical, or an unfair categorization of this group of people.

People may form groups in search of an identity or to feel like they belong. During this process they seek both a 'group sense' and individuality'. They hope to be unique individuals however not so 'different' as to be seen as abnormal. Thus, some get offended when they are labeled or categorized in a certain way. Is there really a way to recognize that different groups do exist, and not rigidly define or categorize them? The interesting paradox of this is, perhaps we all long to be different, but not too different. We long to fit in a group, but be seen as individuals at the same time. Is there a way to be part of a group without bearing stereotypes of that group?