Punk is dead and so are we

107 点作者 pickledish大约 1 年前

39 条评论

bee_rider大约 1 年前

It is funny to note that “Punk is Dead” came out in 1977, but all the action in the article WRT punk is happening in the 90’s and beyond. The author acknowledges this in a way, though:> the only visible instantiation of a subcultural franchise putting on against-the-grain airs similar to those of the punks and goths of the 1990s (who had all been thoroughly domesticated by that point)[…]Anyway, I’m not sure who the “blue hair & pronouns” (as the author puts it) crowd is. If it is actually queer and trans people, I don’t think their motivation was ever to be counter-culture really: they are just intrinsically attracted to or identifying with the opposite gender, and would like to be mistreated less frequently for it. It isn’t a punk movement, it is one trying to get social acceptance.If it is straight or cis people who are sort of associating with that culture, I suppose there might be some counter-culture aspect to it. But there’s also a strong element of just, like, authentic human empathy and allyship. I think that’s more important.

评论 #39514393 未加载

评论 #39517123 未加载

评论 #39513827 未加载

im_down_w_otp大约 1 年前

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 being whatever the opposite of "fake it 'til you make it" would be called. Genuine and modest?

评论 #39513142 未加载

评论 #39513018 未加载

评论 #39512772 未加载

评论 #39513248 未加载

评论 #39512577 未加载

评论 #39512615 未加载

评论 #39514528 未加载

评论 #39512750 未加载

mchinen大约 1 年前

There is a sort of nihilism that emerges when you look deeper at counterculture and it's conformity. Neo recognizing with horror the other neos is a great example. (In that case it only worked out for him because of hollywood's love of love - because he loved trinity so much he was really different from the rest.)I've often wondered how the leaders of the hippie, punk, and more modern movements would compare to classical and romantic leaders of counterculture, like Thoreau or Voltaire, or even music like Chopin or Palestrina. We do have writers today like David Graeber that do seem against the grain. I suppose a major difference is that infuential people back then didn't seem as concerned with being famous and viral (which makes them more punk than punk), and there were less people that tried to follow them. On the other hand, when you look closer, maybe the difference can be explained by how media and money flows today.At the extremes, it can seem like the only 'genuine' counterculture is self-sacrificing civil disobedience (e.g. self-immolation, not blocking traffic) or truly destructive (terrorism), because these are not scalable within mainstream culture. There should be a middle ground, but somehow I'm having trouble recognizing it. Perhaps this is because having a sustainable counterculture requires tacitly playing within the rules of the mainstream culture.

评论 #39513109 未加载

评论 #39513895 未加载

评论 #39513143 未加载

评论 #39513068 未加载

评论 #39513512 未加载

评论 #39514411 未加载

评论 #39513151 未加载

评论 #39513275 未加载

ryukoposting大约 1 年前

This is a wonderfully-written piece, and it articulates the paradoxical nature of countercultures better than I've ever been able to. Punk Rock is dead, long live Punk Rock.I think there are real artistic countercultures out there, but they exist on the margins of art and society (as they must, innately). They're hard to discover, and even when they are discovered, they're inaccessible, bizarre, and disquieting (as they must be, innately).I'm reminded of my record collection, and one record in particular: an autographed copy of The Great Annihilator, by Swans[1]. Besides the music itself, the peculiar thing about this record is the way it's autographed. Michael Gira signed it on the back, tucked away in the bottom corner. I've always wondered why he did it this way. Maybe it's a way of saying "here's my signature you materialistic loser, have fun trying to display this overpriced souvenir." Maybe it's a way of saying "appreciate the art as it was meant to be appreciated, don't use it as a display piece." Maybe I'm reading into it too much, and it means nothing at all.[1]: They're a bit better known than they once were, but for anyone who doesn't know about them, go listen to some Swans. It's abrasive and uncomfortable, and you'll probably hate it. But it doesn't exist for the purpose of being abrasive and uncomfortable, and that's key. It's an artist's unfiltered creative vision. Incidentally, Cobain was a big Swans fan.

评论 #39514054 未加载

ozzcer大约 1 年前

British counter culture is still alive and well. The free party scene never went away. While dance music entered an unprecedented era of commercialisation under the likes of Carl Cox and Fatboy Slim, the underground kept rolling along. Still today one can ( and many still do), find themselves off the beaten track in the South Downs, Welsh country side, or Cornish hills. Even in London, in unused warehouses & train yards,stacks are brought in and people flock. The only real change in the free party scene is how lines are distributed. Burner social media accounts are much more common than your classic call this number operation. We're still fighting '94 public order act, there's just a lot more obstacles nowadays.

JKCalhoun大约 1 年前

I don't piss on anyone, regardless of their age, for looking out at the world and wishing for something different, something better.Even approaching 60 years old I am still doing the same kind of searching. It's not a fashion for me, I don't wear it on my sleeve. But perhaps even because I am older, I am increasingly unhappy with the bed that was already made for me when I was born.So often I find myself wondering (sometimes aloud), "How did the world get to the way it is now? If you were to design, plan a society you would never have made it as complicated as this."It's as though we begrudgingly go along with it because what else can you do? I think when you're young you try to fight it, and therein lies the punk spirit. But you eventually muster out of the revolution and, tired of tilting against windmills, you instead try to make it work for you.Regardless, I still don't like it and still try to envision what changes would make the world a better place.

评论 #39524513 未加载

gedy大约 1 年前

I can only comment from my sort of involvement in 80s SoCal punks - most folks were not "political punks" and rejected all authority whether left or right (listen to California Uber Alles), and the clothing and music aesthetics were totally unconventional and abrasive.Even then there was some internal-ish pressure to align the punks with leftist ideology, but most could really care less and wanted to drop out of society, not "fix it", etc.Things started changing once the styles and sound started influencing mainstream, and it was no longer seen so outlandish. And it's hard to live outside culture esp if drugs are involved. (Though respect to the Straight Edge movement[0])If there was a "new" punk-like movement today, it'd need to be "exclusive" in that normies would not want to show up to your gigs or parties, due to aesthetics or beliefs. I think you'd need that feeling of making a choice to drop out of society, so you'd need something really different, almost like Amish punks, ha.[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge</a>

poszlem大约 1 年前

My main issue with articles like this is they're packed with so much bookish, social and literary theory that they exaggerate their capacity to accurately describe reality.To put it simply and honestly, we're so caught up in our own culture bubble that we can't see different subcultures for what they are (as has been the case ALWAYS). Instead, we write them off as deviations and psychological anomalies. If you want to get a real sense of these groups, you should observe which groups are overlooked by mainstream media, which ones are derogated for their beliefs, and considered undesirable.For example, I really think that because of a bunch of reasons, like the threat of a world war and rapid social transformations, we will witness a significant shift towards military-oriented, ultra-masculine groups in the years ahead.These groups will embrace a nihilistic outlook (the same "no future" slogan we see so often), they will be labeled as incels and fascists (and they largely will be that), yet they will represent truly alternative subcultures to what the mainstream culture presents.This is btw. not a praise of such groups, it's merely my attempt at pointing out the authors obvious blind spots.

kevinsync大约 1 年前

I'm convinced that Juggalos are one of the only real countercultures in American society today.

评论 #39513905 未加载

评论 #39515739 未加载

vehemenz大约 1 年前

The author sort of alludes to it, but I will cast some doubt on the "every generation" theory that seems to prevail amongst most educated people. As the theory goes, every generation is just as tasteless, naive, foolhardy, ignorant, and as impatient as the last, and the perception that each generation actually _is_ getting worse in measurable ways is born from lack of experience or lack of wisdom.There's no reason that this should be taken for granted. Institutions, governments, political parties, and entire cultures rise and fall due to local and global economic circumstances, wars, religious extremism, or even complacency. How odd would it be if young people were entirely immune to these effects?

tekla大约 1 年前

Punk isn't dead, they just don't post it on Instagram

rglover大约 1 年前

Punk (in the conception of anyone born before the internet) is dead because bohemian degeneracy is mainstream. If we go by the standard of "being against the mainstream," today's punks would be people following the advice of the topless antagonist in John Prine's Spanish Pipedream [1]:> Blow up your TV> Throw away your paper> Go to the country> Build you a home> Plant a little garden> Eat a lot of peaches> Try and find Jesus> On your own[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwq0YoOy4g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwq0YoOy4g</a>

评论 #39513456 未加载

评论 #39514802 未加载

tomtomistaken大约 1 年前

Funny. I was at a concert at a punk place last weekend and I thought: Punk is now mainstream and alive as ever! Punk statements and practices are now everywhere!

评论 #39513267 未加载

2devnull大约 1 年前

Pretty much anything post Sex Pistols is a fashion show. I always sort of felt bad for those kids and the metal nerds. Those I was close to were clearly terrified of the freedom and responsibility of adulthood, and often had tenuous relationships with their fathers, as a rule! My advice: Don’t use music as a form of social identity. Music as music is better than music as fashion.

photochemsyn大约 1 年前

Punk's not dead, it's just that songs like Dead Kennedy's "Lynch the Landlord" and "Holiday in Cambodia" or MDC's "John Wayne was a Nazi" and "Ronald McDonald, Corporate Deathburger" and so on are now deemed to be violently inflammatory and would be subjected to shadowbanning and suppression on every social media and streaming platform, and no consolidated MusicBorg contracts would be likely either. Musical performers today all know that engaging in political activism that's not aligned with elite interests will lead to career destruction. The same thing happened with rap - you won't see Public Enemy-style groups being promoted today.Punk was not noted for musical talent, but that didn't distract too much because of the energy of the performers. There's a Foo Fighter's cover of "Holiday in Cambodia" from about a decade ago that's worth listening to, it does sound better when the musicians can keep time.

iamthepieman大约 1 年前

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.

nemo44x大约 1 年前

The book "Gravity's Rainbow" had this as a theme throughout. That Capitalism will co-op anything that it finds useful. That there's no way to subvert it as it will pick up on, embrace, and exploit it for profit. Amazon selling books on how to dismantle global capitalism, etc. Pynchon's only solution was to completely fly under the radar as much as you possibly can. It makes sense he doesn't do interviews, or distribute anything other than the words in his books.Mark Fisher is an interesting philosopher. For those that don't know he was a part of the ""Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit" [1] at Warwick University led by Nick Land. These guys were crazy but from their insanity some extremely interesting observations and ideas came out of it. In particular, "Accelerationism"[2] which has become very popular in the AI world, e/acc, etc. Fisher was more of the left wing side of it and Land from the right wing. In fact, Land is a reactionary today and their ideas are quite interesting as opposed to the mainstream left/liberal Capitalist ideals of today's mainstream.Nick Land is an interesting fellow.[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic_Culture_Research_Unit" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic_Culture_Research_Un...</a>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism</a>

histories大约 1 年前

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 18, 1992: <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/03/18" rel="nofollow">https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/03/18</a>

评论 #39522182 未加载

PaulDavisThe1st大约 1 年前

One of the problems with TFA's allusions to hippies for me is that it feels as if it is arguing that the hippies were the first of their kind.In reality, groups with the general back-to-the-land drop-out mentality are a persistent feature of western culture, occuring every 40-80 years for several hundred years. They rarely change the entire face of the culture they emerge in, but they typically shift it a bit, at least for a while.And as Peter Coyote once observed, while the hippies lost just about every political battle they purported to care about (war, racism, sexism, industrial agriculture, cars, pollution etc.), they won most of the cultural battles.

评论 #39522295 未加载

TotalCrackpot大约 1 年前

There are actually 2 libertarian socialist/anarchist-inspired revolutions happening in the world right now - Zapatisas and Rojava. There are even more horizontal projects of this nature, you can check the list here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_...</a>If you want to learn more about Zapatistas and Rojava you can check those videos:<a href="https://youtu.be/tqjfqy-2Wv4?si=rVFyuH26G_QVXMTR" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/tqjfqy-2Wv4?si=rVFyuH26G_QVXMTR</a><a href="https://youtu.be/_BQVHb5NYe8?si=vDUuVdWf_nkNvKKJ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/_BQVHb5NYe8?si=vDUuVdWf_nkNvKKJ</a>

skybrian大约 1 年前

Seems like this analysis is mostly based on entertainment and decades-old history, and as such, it’s going to be fairly out of touch with whatever is going on now. I’m out of touch too, but at least I know it.Going on about vague abstractions like Capitalism (whatever that is) isn’t going to help since these are mental constructs, not evidence.A culture based on curiosity and amateur reporting, telling stories about things that actually happened, would probably understand itself better. Many of us are the opposite, keeping anything real private (for understandable reasons) and sharing fantasy stuff, which overwhelms what’s real.

RiverCrochet大约 1 年前

> Capitalist Realism’s early chapters touch on what we we talking about last time: the “alternative” youth subcultures at the turn of the century who romantically imagined they were rejecting a bland and soulless Mainstream by eschewing Top 40 musicians in favor of buying and listening to records by NOFX, Korn, Nine Inch Nails, et al.Music is just not a cultural carrier like it used to be.Young people aren't buying music. I don't think music is a cool thing teenagers discover and make it part of themselves anymore in the same way they did in previous generations - there's just too much of it, it's chopped up into too many social bubbles, and no one except established regimes targeting older people can make money off of it. A 13 or 14 year old might obsess over some TikTok artist or band for a minute but it's not going to last a lifetime because the next thing everyone's talking about will replace it quickly.I think we will soon see an era where young people don't care about music. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I don't really know if having rich popular, punk, whatever bands that try to coast on their fame for decades is worthwhile to society anyway.

评论 #39514137 未加载

reactordev大约 1 年前

Punk isn’t dead, we just retired!

corimaith大约 1 年前

One could argue though that being conservative (in a literal sense), is the reactionary "punk" to the ideas of modernism and innovation of previous eras.An interesting phenemenon is the emergence of the extremely popular game based works across different mediums; LitRPGs for Western Fantasy, Isekai/Narou for Japanese culture, and the "Hunter" manwha for Korea. These works tend to have a infamous reputation for being overly similar to each other, and eschewing much in originality and worldbuilding in favour of pure action and power fantasies. In my discussions with those who consumed it, unique settings, character development, etc were all burdens, and instead by using a easily familiar and simple system of a game-rpg they could instead push to the "meat" of action scenes. The same can be also said about the comparison between the leanness of new "shounen" like Jujutsu Kaisen compared to meandering filler of the Big Three (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece).As someone who grew up with the previous era, that kind of thinking is almost antithetical to the reasons why I was drawn into fiction; The whole point of an RPG was to realise a fantasy world, the mechanics were just abstractions to make up technical limitations. Beyond that in other mediums, the idea was to get even crazier and fleshed out settings, to have more realistic characters, all to build that vision of a fantasy world that yet felt sincere. Pushing boundaries was the name of the game. And so it's that funnily enough, many older works like The Five Star Stories could almost be construed as innovative if you were to compare them to modern works today.This is all just about a specific niche culture, so other cultures may be different. But looking at decline in originals and the rise of remakes and endless sequels paints a similar risk-averse outlook for the wider zeitgeist. Well I guess it's a pendulum of reacting ideas; Modernism is the establishment, so Conservative is the anti-establishment. But the current era itself is already running out of steam, so the pendulum may just turn back.

评论 #39514172 未加载

yxhuvud大约 1 年前

Did that guy just categorize EBM as pop/soft? That is .. quite a stretch.

评论 #39514443 未加载

评论 #39513084 未加载

thomastjeffery大约 1 年前

Media is the wrong barometer. Its foundation is copyright, which is antithetical to everything punk.

hooverd大约 1 年前

This guy has gotta read less theory.

评论 #39513183 未加载

0xbadcafebee大约 1 年前

It's easy to link everything to capitalism when you live in the age of capitalism. Cultural phenomena, trends and upheavals happen throughout human history in a variety of ways. The industrial revolution has certainly fueled a new machine for the acceleration and multiplication of culture, but this economic model isn't intrinsically intertwined with culture. Culture is just a product that is sold by capitalism. In communism, culture is also sold, but only one or two varieties are available. The same was true before this, in the West, when christianity was the cultural machine, producing different sects. Before that (and at the same time, in other parts of the world) culture was more ethnic, national and regional. And Folk culture is a constant.

ericmcer大约 1 年前

Really good article. Of course Capitalism will package and sell anti-capitalism if that is what makes money. It will try to mirror societies desires, which I don't think is a terrible thing. What should be feared is efforts to manufacture and control what people desire.

评论 #39517533 未加载

anthk大约 1 年前

Hippies where just loaded people cosplaying as beggars.

0ckpuppet大约 1 年前

Punk is dead. Once I witnessed old punk rockers backing government lockdowns, backing the authorities, and shilling for politicians and political parties, I realized rebellion is now a commodity.

评论 #39514785 未加载

评论 #39514444 未加载

shaunxcode大约 1 年前

hardcore punk is still alive and well. It's just actually underground. Most newer bands are back to tapes and zines, maybe a bandcamp.

Gimpei大约 1 年前

I don’t understand how you can devote so many words to the staying power of “capitalism” and not once give any concrete sense of what the economics of an alternative would look like and how you would make it work. The degree to which people microanalyze culture seems bonkers to me. If you don’t like our current economic system, then it’s kind of on you to come up with a viable alternative using empirical evidence. Nirvana was a great band, but they have absolutely nothing to do with this.

评论 #39512954 未加载

评论 #39512937 未加载

评论 #39512774 未加载

lenerdenator大约 1 年前

Would that make metal the new punk?

评论 #39512756 未加载

angelsbrood大约 1 年前

Fisher didn't land anywhere near here in his appraisal of the emergent (online/millennial) left and your inability to think past 2011's "anti-capitalism" means you're squarely, exclusively the target of whatever "critique" this is supposed to be. You guys are mortifying.

blah-yeah大约 1 年前

What a great article. Great analogy with the Matrix's architect scene.Reminds me of a recent podcast featuring Will Storr, author of "The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play it", where, to paraphrase, he discusses how those who claim that social hierarchies are unethical... don't actually want to do away with hierarchies but rather simply want to destroy/disrupt the current hierarchy and place themselves at the top of the next one.I really appreciate this section of the article:>"the only visible instantiation of a subcultural franchise putting on against-the-grain airs similar to those of the punks and goths of the 1990s (who had all been thoroughly domesticated by that point) has lately been...>"the “blue hair & pronouns” crowd...>"Where their presence in affluent suburbs or in gentrified or gentrifying urban neighborhoods is concerned,>"...only the most myopic and self-satisfied of the “blue hair & pronouns” set can possibly believe that they’re swimming against the mainstream at this point.".... In terms of alternatives to capitalism discussed at the start of the article-- I think we are seeing pseudo-socialism-mixed-with-capitalism on small scales in cases of sharing economy related companies, some tiny-house communities which involve resource & workshop sharing, and the decentralized finance/media/social networks/ movement.

api大约 1 年前

There are plenty of alternatives to capitalism discussed all over the place. I see them every day. What there aren't are alternatives that are both better and achievable in the real world.Fascism, traditionalism, neo-monarchism, authoritarian forms of socialism, and theocracy are all very real and have both adherents at home and entire societies abroad that attempt to live by their rules. Unfortunately all of them yield a society that is worse in many important respects than Western liberal capitalism. They are stifling, repressive, or lead to poverty. The domestic adherents of these ideas tend to be either angry nihilists and edgelords who hate their own lives and just want any kind of change, or fanatics (e.g. religious zealots) who are obsessed with controlling and restricting the personal choices of others.There are also lots of pure fantasies that are pushed as alternatives to capitalism: neo-primitivism, hand-wavey futurist utopias, new age woo, etc. While these may or may not be better, the point is moot because they are not achievable. There is no path from here to there, or in many cases there isn't even a "there." There's just a vague idea that if we all abandon what we have now and love each other or something magic will happen and we'll get utopia. History shows us that without a real serious workable plan we're more likely to get a slum run by warlords or a new boss that's worse than the old boss.If someone thinks of a serious alternative to Western liberal capitalism that is both better and achievable (there is a path from here to there, and an actual "there"), I think they'll get plenty of attention. There is no invisible conspiracy that will somehow stop people from thinking of this or discussing it. It's just that nobody's done it yet.

评论 #39513656 未加载

wiz21c大约 1 年前

Oh a few years ago, after the fall of the Wall, many people said we had reached the "end of history": capitalism has won and occident will rule the world and bring peace to the world. (I think Fukuyama, cited in the article, said something like that)Interestingly, Putin is still there, Islamism, China too... One could always argue they're a form of capitalism but I'm sure history is full of "our system is the only one" claim.So no, no and no.

parineum大约 1 年前

I'm not familiar with the age of the author but the article very much makes me think they are old enough to have seen the counterculture of their youth become mainstream and die while the next wave of counterculture was "inauthentic and corporate" followed by being too out of touch with the youth to notice the counterculture coming up behind it (and mistaking the mainstream for the counterculture, ie, taylor swift, kanye west and beyonce) but not quite old enough to realize that the "last true counterculture" of their youth was actually just as real and authentic as what followed.I had the same feelings when I was younger but, having seen the pattern a couple more times than once, I think most people come to the same realization that this is just the way it is and why parents are usually nonchalant and a bit dismissive of their children's "rebellious counterculture".I think they author misattributes the mainstream takeover of counterculture to "capitalism finally got them" when, it seem obvious to me, that what's really happened is that the counterculture just got older and are now the ones shaping the mainstream.

评论 #39513389 未加载

评论 #39513087 未加载

评论 #39514583 未加载