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Punk is dead and so are we
- 5fvu75cji75d 3y ago[flagged]
- roflyear 3y agoPartly, I guess in effect at least, but I would reject people are embracing lgbt rights because it is "cool" on the whole. It's more like, would you say women's lib was this type of fad? Or black rights? Etc.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoI think the author is writing specifically about fashion and pop culture as a component of capitalism. The author would probably say that making pants for women was an effort to expand into a new demographic of customers, not to expand women's rights. Essentially, all movements are merely a product. Civil rights are the byproduct. And following that theory, the author predicts that LGBT culture, as a fashion product, will fade. For example, we'll probably stop seeing the force feed of obligatory LGBT scenes in film, to be replaced with obligatory <insert pop movement> scenes instead.
- u32480932048 3y agoIt has absolutely become fashionable in the past few years, as evidenced by things the author (or maybe Hunter Thompson) wrote about, like having their own section in Target and ostensibly having support from Lockheed Martin (and every other company that wants to sell more products each June). The risk of yesterday is greatly diminished; "being LGBT++++" is now mostly a process of buying the right pronoun pins from Amazon or Etsy before swinging by Target for an unironed pride flag before the Bank of America-sponsored "protest" march. The gay and lesbian community that literally fought for basic rights is now being pushed out by a demographic that thinks anything but their idea of straight, vanilla missionary for the purpose of reproduction deserves a new gender. Gay men are basically straight men these days, especially among white kids who can afford to take university degrees that don't translate to jobs and would never be caught dead in a place resembling a 2005 gay bar. It's borderline cultural appropriation. Most of the fighting occurred well before most of today's fashionable TIAQW@(#)SDFKLSJDF+ were born: - DSM removed homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973; WHO in 1990. - The rainbow flag first flew in 1978. - The lessons of the hyper-aggressive response to the AIDS epidemic have all but been forgotten among the "blue hair & pronoouns" crowd. - Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2000. - Lawrence v. Texas was 2003. Obergefell vs. Hodges was 2015 (nearly a decade ago). Nah, they're not doing it because the cops shut down the one bar they could hang out at and be themselves, or because the government and half the country is conspiring to keep them and their one true love apart. Everything I've seen points to a combination of attention-seeking and shoehorning their mediocre white suburban existences into the Oppression Pyramid, because that's the only way to signal that they're not Evil Colonizers. It's sad.
- u32480932048 3y ago[flagged]
- roflyear 3y ago> Everything I've seen points to a combination of attention-seeking and shoehorning their mediocre white suburban existences into the Oppression Pyramid, because that's the only way to signal that they're not Evil Colonizers. It's sad. If you attend a pride event, even in mostly white areas, you'll quickly realize that the majority of people there are not white.
- u32480932048 3y agoIt's definitely not a majority-white event, but I've never been condescended to by a Black, Asian, or Hispanic gay man or lesbian woman - or even a trans person, for that matter. One or two acute mental health episodes aside, they're all pretty chill. I can't say the same for a certain class of white, know-it-all college kid who insists I must be a semihemidemiqueer or somesuch because I can both iron my own clothes (no man can do this) and change a tire (no woman has ever succeeded). I'm old enough to remember a time when women were allowed to enjoy beer and football and men were allowed to like wine and TV dramas, because fuck gender roles and stereotypes. Now, we hold the stereotypes constant and assume we must have a oh-so-special gender because I like wine and beer, hate TV dramas, tolerate baseball, and can change a tire and iron my own clothes. It's poorly-conceived bullshit, and no number of secret downvotes or unreproducible social science studies will convince me otherwise.
- roflyear 3y ago> I can't say the same for a certain class of white, know-it-all college kid It's rich privledged kids, man. Not white kids. Just like crime is not colored kids, it's poor kids.
- steve918 3y agoNo, it's mainstream pop culture. As the author alludes it's trendy even for straight people to emulate gay culture.
- actualwitch 3y agoI'm sorry, what? It seems to me the reverse is true, manosphere is mainstream and it rejects anything woke, while even mentioning anything lgbt related on any mainstream platform is enough to get a bunch of people to try to remove it via death threats and false reports.
- kibwen 3y ago> No, it's mainstream pop culture. This is highly dependent on context. In much of the world, it's dangerous to be openly sympathetic to LGBT causes, let alone openly LGBT. Even in much of the US, being openly gay is dangerous, and being openly trans is even more dangerous. A non-binary 16-year-old was murdered in Oklahoma this month; meanwhile, nobody's out here killing Swifties (at least, not yet).
- xcdzvyn 3y ago>murdered That is an utter fabrication. >Police in the Tulsa suburb have not released a cause of death but said this week that the teenager did not die as a result of injuries from the fight.
- bigbillheck 3y agoThey tried to say George Floyd wasn't murdered either.
- cooperst 3y ago[flagged]
- bigbillheck 3y ago> ... she ... My understanding is that Nex Benedict used he/they.
- tekla 3y agoHow? Its literally the dominant one. If Lockheed Martin is flying the rainbow colored flag, I have no idea how anyone would consider it counter culture.
- bux93 3y agoThe President 'pardoning' a Turkey for Christmas doesn't mean we suddenly live in a vegan society, in fact, rather the reverse.
- dionidium 3y agoThe President pardoning a turkey is an expression of meat-eating culture, not vegetarianism -- we eat turkeys; that's why the symbolism works -- and meat-eating is indeed the dominant culture.
- blah-yeah 3y agoTo quote the article: "Regardless of what the social landscape looked like for same-sex attracted or and/or conscientiously gender-nonconforming people fifty, thirty, or even fifteen years ago, at this point “queer” culture is anything but counter. You can buy its swag at Hot Topic—and at Target, for that matter. It’s got its own shelf at the bookstore, a category on Hulu, playlists on Spotify, and representatives in newsrooms and film studios. Nothing intrinsic to it interferes with the general program. It has been neutralized. A space has been provided for it." "Counterculture became subculture and subculture became mass culture." "the culture industry learned to neutralize and exploit radical elements, and how it may have become acclimated to anticipating and guiding their cyclical emergence." "Today’s teenaged and twenty-something “blue hairs” will figure it out, in time—just as most of us learned that being punk or goth or metal or whatever else was essentially a paid subscription for a product line which we were sold on the pitch that we required it to give expression to the Authentic Selves that would otherwise be hidden under a bushel of blue jeans and polo shirts. "But for the most part, it rather seems to me that most modern subcultures aren’t interested in pretending to be anything other than hobbyists, fandoms, and followers of fashion and influencer content. "
- im_down_w_otp 3y agoI 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?
- perihelions 3y ago- "the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private" Punk's not dead; it's just camera-shy?
- pjmorris 3y agoIf an old punk ethic was 'Do It Yourself' (DIY), maybe the modern punk equivalent would be 'Do It Offline' (DIO.)
- blah-yeah 3y agoWhat 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.
- lenerdenator 3y agoWould that make metal the new punk?
- mattgreenrocks 3y agoNo, metal is just another tent underneath the larger tent of rock. It has a defined place to be slotted in.
- lenerdenator 3y agoTrue, though it's subversive in its current form because there's just not much commercial success to be had from it. The kid who's into metal is the weirdo (I should know; I was that weirdo) and the weird are a naturally-limited market. You have to be in it for the love of the game.
- mattgreenrocks 3y agoYep. I’m the middle-aged guy at the small prog metal shows dressed like a preppie nerd. I fit right in despite having zero outward trappings of the subculture (except nerdiness). Love that everyone there chose to be there. Also think metal concerts are too damn loud these days. :)
- TotalCrackpot 3y agoThere 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: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_... If you want to learn more about Zapatistas and Rojava you can check those videos: https://youtu.be/tqjfqy-2Wv4?si=rVFyuH26G_QVXMTR https://youtu.be/tqjfqy-2Wv4?si=rVFyuH26G_QVXMTR https://youtu.be/_BQVHb5NYe8?si=vDUuVdWf_nkNvKKJ https://youtu.be/_BQVHb5NYe8?si=vDUuVdWf_nkNvKKJ
- vehemenz 3y agoThe 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?
- Gimpei 3y agoI 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.
- TotalCrackpot 3y agoAlternative would be libertarian socialism, with economy of some mixture of cooperative economics, decentralized planning, gift economy and library economy.
- colonwqbang 3y agoDo you have any good links that explain more? In my mind the ideas of socialism and libertarianism are polar opposites.
- TotalCrackpot 3y agoIt's probably best to watch some YT videos by Anark https://www.youtube.com/@Anark https://www.youtube.com/@Anark or Andrewism https://www.youtube.com/@Andrewism https://www.youtube.com/@Andrewism on Youtube. Anark is very pedantic which I like, while Andrewism is more chill. Take your time especially with Anark's videos, cause they are veeeeery pedantic and can overwhelm with their information content.
- harimau777 3y agoLibertarian socialism tends to reject both corporate power/ownership and state power/ownership in favor of worker led ownership. They aren't necessarily libertarian socialism per se, but there area also lots of variations of socialism that combine social liberalism with economic socialism or which are fine with greater collectivism but reject central planning.
- 3y ago
- yxhuvud 3y agoDid that guy just categorize EBM as pop/soft? That is .. quite a stretch.
- gpetukhov 3y agoProbably confused with EDM.
- drewcoo 3y agoNo. > And so the goth clubs move the post-punk and coldwave tunes into a side room while the DJs spin EBM and futurepop on the main floor. He's saying Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 were more packaged and refined than something like Suicide or Throbbing Gristle. And that seems spot on to me.
- iamthepieman 3y agoSeems 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.
- hooverd 3y agoThis guy has gotta read less theory.
- zingababba 3y agoYeeeep. Also, he's spot on with his self-assessment of not having a pulse on today's youth. I've been spending time around young tattoo apprentices recently. What I've found is that there is an aesthetic revivalist movement underway just with new hyper forms of expression that often are /extremely/ jarring to normals. Spend a day listening to musical genres like phonk/hyperpop. Everything the new kids are doing is heavily tinted with accelerationism. Honestly who gives a shit about punk anyway, things come and go. Go read some more theory and cry some more about it I guess.
- tekla 3y agoPunk isn't dead, they just don't post it on Instagram
- ericmcer 3y agoReally 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.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago> What should be feared is efforts to manufacture and control what people desire. You think capitalism doesn't do this (too) ?
- mchinen 3y agoThere 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.
- orhmeh09 3y agoSadly, we do not have David Graeber anymore.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago> I suppose a major difference is that infuential people back then didn't seem as concerned with being famous and viral They started caring a lot about this as soon as they had the printing press, take a look at the career of Erasmus for example.
- DontchaKnowit 3y agoIn my opinion, todays true counterculture is conservative religious communities. There is nother more counter to the cultural moment then being a traditionally moral, upright citizen who doesnt do drugs, doesnt lie, cheat, steal, has their libido under control, is reliable, whose existence is profitable to the rest of the world (not neccessarily economically, just mean someone who contributes more than they take : financially, emotionally, etc) Thats about as counterculture as you can get.
- gedy 3y agoI 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] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge
- tomtomistaken 3y agoFunny. 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!
- herbst 3y agoI recently had this realization too. Punk never really went away, I am a 90s kid and there was a lot of punk culture in my place. However for me personally punk seems more alive now than the last 15 years and it's great Especially UK and Germany seems to have a growing punk scene right now in popular music and the 'streets'.
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoIt'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.
- reactordev 3y agoPunk isn’t dead, we just retired!
- corimaith 3y agoOne 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.
- AndyNemmity 3y agoI think that's just differences in opinion in large part. I grew up in the previous era, and clicking through dialog, and ignoring the story was a part of every single RPG I played. My kind of thinking, the fiction was antithetical to the reasons I was drawn into RPGs. The exact opposite of you, at the exact same time. But you are arguing the time is what is different.
- parineum 3y agoI'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.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago> I'm not familiar with the age of the author They say they were in their teens in the late 90's.
- claytongulick 3y ago> why parents are usually nonchalant and a bit dismissive of their children's "rebellious counterculture". Indeed [1]. It seems to be a condition of youth, to a degree. [1] https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/ https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-a...
- drewcoo 3y agoNot all counterculture becomes the new culture. It is carefully curated by gatekeepers. It just so happens that the gatekeepers are backed by money (that capitalism thing). Making it through the gate is known as "selling out" because of sour grapes and filthy lucre. Why am I trying to explain this to someone whose handle is "parineum?"
- wiz21c 3y agoOh 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.
- nemo44x 3y agoThe 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] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic_Culture_Research_Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic_Culture_Research_Un... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
- JKCalhoun 3y agoI 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.
- opyate 3y ago> How did the world get to the way it is now? How is the world now, in your view?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- api 3y agoThere 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.
- poszlem 3y agoI believe we are on the verge of witnessing an unprecedented challenge to Western capitalism, emanating from China. It's becoming increasingly clear that the West is facing difficulties. The capitalist model, particularly in its current form, is failing to deliver. There's also a notable lack of enthusiasm for it in the global south. The Chinese model appears to promise greater, superior, and swifter results, with the price tag for the average individual not being particularly steep—it's merely a bit more of your privacy (which has already been bartered and commercialized in the West) and a few liberties ("people are tired of liberty" was probably the most true quote by mussolini). And boy, can China deliver.
- ryukoposting 3y agoThis 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.
- AndyNemmity 3y agoI was listening to the Swans in the 90s, and I never felt they were abrasive, or uncomfortable. I don't have much to add, I just felt it was interesting hearing them described through someone else's lens very differently than I would. When I listen to them I hear beauty, and my childhood.
- JansjoFromIkea 3y agoI'd say some of the post-reunion (?) Swans material is a lot more consistently abrasive/uncomfortable. Most the 90s stuff to me sounds more like... gothy post-punky vibes?
- AndyNemmity 3y agoI would agree that it is much more gothy post-punky vibes to me. The Swans just had a lot of very differing material. Perhaps that's why I don't quite get the description.
- photochemsyn 3y agoPunk'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.
- 0ckpuppet 3y agoPunk 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.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago[flagged]
- thomastjeffery 3y agoGiven the overall context, I don't think there is a more reasonable way to put it.
- MSFT_Edging 3y agoAppreciated.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoYeah, because what punk was really about was always contrarianism in the face of authority. No, wait. That has absolutely nothing to do with what punk was about, other than some mainstream media story about punk, designed to terrify everybody else. Punk rockers in 1978 were shilling for politicians in London. They were cynical and honest and clear-eyed about it, but they were still shilling. ps. on HN I try never to vote comments down, I just try to reply instead. But I had to make an exception here.
- angelsbrood 3y agoFisher 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.
- rglover 3y agoPunk (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] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwq0YoOy4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwq0YoOy4g
- silverquiet 3y agoInterestingly, the article mentioned Voltaire as a countercultural figure (which I had never considered). But if you were to read "Candide", it would largely agree; the moral is basically to eschew philosophy and cultivate your garden, which could be construed as a metaphor for whatever your garden may be, but in the story is actually a homestead type situation. If you replaced Jesus with "the deity" or something like that, it would also fit.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoWhy do you think "being against the mainstream" is the standard of what punk is?
- rglover 3y agoBecause that's what it is: a commodified version of "f*ck you mom and dad" rebellion with DIY window dressings. I grew up in punk culture (my house in college was a DIY punk club [1]) and at the core, that's all it is [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJ60dAHyc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJ60dAHyc4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefQjTeaUDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefQjTeaUDI
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoI don't know what punk was like anywhere in 2008. It wasn't (just) that in London in the 1970s, and there is non-commodified version of it that continues to exist in many places (or so it seems).
- kevinsync 3y agoI'm convinced that Juggalos are one of the only real countercultures in American society today.
- SleepilyLimping 3y agoMy benchmark is how much social capital one stands to lose by admitting to be a member. If you're still admitting to be a Juggalo despite knowing what's associated with it, and how the mainstream is going to treat you, you're fine with those people being "your people" without anyone else.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoExactly. If mainstream accepts you, you aren't counterculture. Real counter-culture isn't "cool" . Im sure there are other countercultures besides Juggalos; US Wahabis, religious polygamists, ect.
- bee_rider 3y agoIt 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.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoIs it possible your affinity to the blue hair and pronouns subculture prevents you from seriously considering the author's analysis of it? To a gay man or transvestite (as they often called themselves, nothing derogatory meant by it) of yore, surely that movement represented freedom from repression. Today, when bigotry towards homosexuals is socially taboo, what does it mean to the allies, warriors and fluid genders? To the stereotypical tumblrites creating new gender symbols and ever increasingly colorful flags in Photoshop? To me it looks exactly like what the author says: mainstream, corporate captured product marketing, in group signalling, an aesthetic subculture feigning angst and struggle.
- RiverCrochet 3y ago> 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.
- AndyNemmity 3y agoAs a person with children, this doesn't seem true. It might be true in the future, but there is still just as much obsessing over artists, and bands, that feels like it will last a lifetime. Basically, I don't disagree with your premise, but my narrow evidence says it isn't true.
- poszlem 3y agoMy 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.
- skybrian 3y agoSeems 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.
- 2devnull 3y agoPretty 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anthk 3y agoHippies where just loaded people cosplaying as beggars.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoOne 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.
- toyg 3y ago> they won most of the cultural battles. That's because the upper echelons correctly understood that culture is largely window-dressing, as long as the fundamental economic ballasts remain the same. They will let us dye our hair blue, what matters is that we keep working in their factories/shops/call-centres/banks/etc, making money for them; and if we bootstrap something else, it will inevitably be absorbed back into the system once a little greed creeps in. What they cared about was killing collectivism, which was the real threat to the economic order, and they largely achieved that.
- ozzcer 3y agoBritish 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.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoMedia is the wrong barometer. Its foundation is copyright, which is antithetical to everything punk.
- shaunxcode 3y agohardcore punk is still alive and well. It's just actually underground. Most newer bands are back to tapes and zines, maybe a bandcamp.
- histories 3y agoCalvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 18, 1992: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/03/18 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/03/18
- toyg 3y agoC&H is basically the '90s in a nutshell. Coincidentally, Watterson himself was very punk: he started drawing for his own sake, got famous, refused to accept the capitalist growth imperative, and dropped out. He never sported a mohawk or pierced his tongue, but was more punk than several generations of punk-rock wannabes.