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Punk is dead and so are we

bananapeel.substack.com

11–20 of 213 posts

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#11
Seems like punk as it would be today wouldn't be particularly visible. If alternative or countercultural ethos is based on an antithesis to something else then it's always subject to whatever that something else is. But if it's based on some deeper desire, truth or idea of which the "counter" part is only a symptom then it might just seem like it no longer exist because mainstream culture has moved beyond the original target of the counterculture.

As a pithy illustration: If I'm trying to hit a tree with a ball and that tree just happens to be in between some goalposts and someone comes along and moves the goalpost, I can still hit my target even if I don't "make a goal". To a casual observer it might look like I'm playing the game and I am. But the game in my head is not the game in yours.

edit: I didn't have this in mind when starting this comment but maybe that's the deeper desire behind punk and other countercultural movements; the desire to play your own game. And maybe capitalism is the end of history in the sense that it has adapted to make it easy for people to play their own game and keeps pushing the edges of what would have been counter previously. Want to drop off the grid and make everything you use and consume with your own hands? There's a hundred youtube channels about that. If you want to conquer Rome, you're still gonna travel there on roads the Romans built.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#15

I think the author misattributed who the modern era punks would be. At least based on the described framework of what punk counter-culture was about and what it was countering. Given how much of the mainstream is organized around overwrought advertising, influencering, guruing, and being terminally online... it seems like the modern punks would be the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private, and…

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Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#19

I think the author misattributed who the modern era punks would be. At least based on the described framework of what punk counter-culture was about and what it was countering. Given how much of the mainstream is organized around overwrought advertising, influencering, guruing, and being terminally online... it seems like the modern punks would be the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private, and…

- "the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private" Punk's not dead; it's just camera-shy?

All the best punks are on insta...

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#20

I think the author misattributed who the modern era punks would be. At least based on the described framework of what punk counter-culture was about and what it was countering. Given how much of the mainstream is organized around overwrought advertising, influencering, guruing, and being terminally online... it seems like the modern punks would be the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private, and…

I'm not sure this is the same "type" of group.

There have always been those who neglect to adopt the technology of the day or buy heavily into the culture, without also buying into some sort of counter-cultural movement. Today it might be those who eschew social media and being terminally online. In the 90s perhaps it was those who limited their TV time.

In my view, it would be inaccurate to describe this group as "subcultural franchise[s] putting on against-the-grain airs" in the way of the punks and the goths and the "blue-haired pronoun bearers."

If anything, these are more likely to be people who've spent some time adopting and evaluating what the dominant culture has to offer, then wisely adjusting their participation to healthy levels (which may mean zero), despite societal pressure.

They're more "opt-outs" than "opt-againsts".

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