This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.
You may not know it, but if you are reading this, you are a punk. Probably. If you are a frequent reader of our site, you definitely are. 🤘🏽
‘Ready, Steady, Go’
I am currently enjoying Matthew Worley's remastered for Punk’s 50th anniversary, No Future: Punk, Politics, and British Youth Culture, 1976 - 1984. And reading the introduction (Teenage Warning) motivated me to finally write this article. I have been considering it for a while.
FYI, punk rock lyric quotes are in block quotes like the sub-heading above. 🎤
So to start, let's examine some quotes from this enlightening book.
Matthew writes:
"... punk served to open up a cultural space in which to fuse musical styles; to inject new sounds and lyrical content into popular music; to explore new ways of expressing emotions and, given punk's negative impulse dark (emotions).
... it evolved in different ways. ... But it was also a product (with a) DIY message inspiring local scenes to develop around venues, shops, fanzines, squats, labels, and bands. (This provided) ... a loose network of contacts that proved able to sustain and inform punk as a fractured-but-distinctive subculture …
... punk's adoption of political signifiers and tendency to social commentary invited divergent interpretation and expression.
Punk, in its music, language, and aesthetic, deliberately set out to provoke, disrupt, and subvert. ... dissent was often focused on a media and cultural industry that competed to define, appropriate, and channel youth's innovations.
(It) ... actively documented itself from the bottom up. Fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue were designed to provide an alternative to a (commercial) weekly musical press deemed far away from the kids.
... punk was quick to splinter into multiple subsects that often conflicted with each other, but continuity existed in at least four ways: a stated opposition to a perceived status quo; a disregard for symbols of authority and established hierarchies; claims to provide a voice for the marginalised or disaffected; and an emphasis of self-sufficiency and overcoming obstacles that prevented access, expression, or autonomy.
And this part is key.
Punk, therefore may best be understood as a cultural process of critical engagement rather than a specific musical or satorical style."
Matthew writes about the London scene but similar development's occurred first in New York and slightly later in Los Angeles.
On a personal note, I came into my adulthood at the tail end of this period and have been a punk as I define it for 42 years. And defining yourself is the essence of punk. I also had the incredible good fortune to participate (as a rare quasi-punk) in the golden age of Athens, Georgia’s ‘southern gothic’ music scene. This was one of the best scenes of all times. It was almost on par with the New York, London, and Los Angeles’s punk explosions. Although it was not punk musically or aesthetically (it was more varied), it was philosophically and artistically "punk", well within its nebulousity. Athens is an academic town with few rough edges. Like Oxford or Cambridge, it could never have birthed punk rock. The majority of its scene members were students and townies. Still, the events in the book resonate with me and bring back fond memories. 🎸
Anyway, if you are a recurring visitor of this site, you will notice some familiar words: subculture, network, subvert, dissent, explore, autonomy, DIY, voices, expression, alternative publications, etc.
Another familiar word is anarchy. Anarchy in the UK is the definitive punk song after all.
The premise of this article is that developing or using ActivityPub tools, participating in the Fediverse, publishing to the Indie Web / Open Media Network, and adopting the arsenal of the Techno Anarchist Manifesto are the new punk.
They are the new “venues, shops, fanzines, squats, labels, and bands”.
And they are on today's equivalent of local, low-wattage radio stations.
Sorry, but ATProto and the Atmosphere are New Wave and that's a separate article. Except for Blacksky, which is Rap and I’m not qualified to write about it.
Obviously, the original punkness and open media / open social participation are not exact equivalents. But, they are pretty fucking similar.
So, let’s see if my premise is full of it.
The Sucky 70s are back
'Everything sucks today'
Thank the gods, most of you did not have to live through the 1970s. Curse the gods, you are alive today. Unfortunately, they are incredibly similar (and both suck, although the later less so). I know because they are the bookends of my life.
The corrupt, incompetent, moribund, soft-fascism of the seventies has reanimated its rotten corpse in the 2020s.
It’s the same ‘everything sucks’ cultural miasma. History always repeats itself. The horseshit timeline we are living in today is similar to the one that birthed punk rock. Your experience will vary by country.
Now, is this why the Fediverse exists? Maybe. Similar bullshit composts into similar soil ripe for new growth. The Open Media Network and Fediverse are informal, messy, and slightly chaotic, as was early punkdom. Both phenomenon were unintentional, unplanned, and unorganized reactive combustions ignited by the shittification of mainstream culture and media.
So for this article, here is the mental framework: musical culture equals the web. Rock and Roll’s origins equal Web 1.0. It’s 1970s enshittification as appropriated, homogenized, white, top-40 garbage equals the corporate siloed Web 2.0. ActivityPub, the Fediverse, the IndieWeb / Open Media Network, and the TAM equal early punk rock rebelling against that.
KISS
The basis of punk rock music is three chords and an attitude, competence be damned. That’s as "keep it simple stupid" as it gets.
Hence the equivalence of self-publishing via:
the IndieWeb, Open Media Network, and simple personal websites
RSS
and the Fediverse
If you are a follower of this site, no further explanation is required. Those are your three chords.
DIY
The central premise of punk music is that anyone can make, record, and share it. Virtuosity be damned.
Hence the equivalence of self-hosting and creating websites via:
Opensource languages
SSH, FTP, VPN access to hosting servers
with RSS feeds
and Fediverse integration
And developing KISS tools with the 4Rs.
Self-hosting code you write (without AI) is true punkness. 😈
The Scene / Network
The original punk network was your local scene. There were few national touring acts to see (in the U.S.), much less international ones. If you lived in a large city or college town, you might get to hear them on the radio.
Today, your open social / open web scene is based upon the FOSS world with a few limits. It’s wherever you find your tribe on the Fediverse.
Making Noise
Opensource software has no equivalent in musical equipment, at least at the birth of the punk era.
When punk was spawning, equipment was all used, salvaged, stolen, borrowed, or whatever you could lay your hands on. And you (legally) acquired it organically as supported by your local scene. Pawnshops, the classified sections of local newspapers, and borrowing from fellow scenesters were the sources.
That constraint inspired creativity. As does having the moral fortitude to limit yourself to ethical tech tools.
In the equivalent of opensource development, you practiced in basements and storage units. You wrote in physical notebooks, alphaed via cassette decks, and betaed on two, four, and at best eight track magnetic tape recording technology. You recored in independent, small studios belonging to DIY engineers. You exported and distributed via reel-to-reel tape and carts. That was your production.
If you were good, lucky, or connected you got played on college radio.
In a rare improvement on past tech, this is now easier for music and the open web. Much easier!
And of course readers / followers were your fellow scenesters and a few fans. They were the equivalent of micro-communities on the Fediverse. Virality was / is a common unknown in both scenarios.
It is still a challenge to have your voice heard. But, the vital point is to share it. Do the punk thing. Make some noise. There is still a world of horseshit to say no to. And there is something better to say yes to.
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto
‘I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist’
You can do more than just say no to the suck. You can mitigate it by building and using alternatives. Just like 70s punkdom was a deliberately created and chosen alternative lifestyle. We can choose to do better.
As you read in our introduction, punk is not an ideology, or for most punks not even a philosophy. It’s an attitude or an ethos. In my opinion, living our TAM is the equivalent of the punk ethos.
Both are loose philosophies, coping mechanisms, lifestyle choices, modes of self-expression, and autonomy-seeking, anarchic resistance / rebellion. Etc, etc.
And with both (as an individual) you adopt what you want / can to carve out some autonomy and sanity for yourself in today’s society. And with this adoption you're telling those in power to fuck off.
If you explore our manifesto, you will see it's more strategic, detailed, and politically opinionated than punk rock’s initial nebulism. But it's not hide-bound. You can do you however you want.
For background you can start here in The Techno Anarchist Manifesto and continue reading up to the Tactics section. Obviously, I hope you will read it in its entirety later. Access or download it here in your format of choice.
To practice techno anarchism you must own your communications, own your data, own your digital identity, own your digital devices, and own your online real estate. Use opensource technology. Use opensource hardware.
And then use the weapons in Techno Anarchism’s arsenal to defeat today’s techshit.
If you're a regular reader, this is nothing new to you.
Avoid this trap
Unfortunately, in later years most “punk rock music” became depoliticized, commodified, and sanitized (like New York and London). This watered-down version was served up at malls to posers and the naive who adopted the aesthetics of punk but not the anarchy. Capitalism and time can fuck any good thing up.
This co-option is what we have to avoid with open social and the open media. We have to preserve the anarchic and truly punk aspects of our efforts. Using OMN terms, let’s stay spiky and avoid the fluffy. Let's remain a means of agency and platform for improving our world, rather than performatively bitching about it.
Authenticity is valuable, even crucial. Real punk is not dead and neither is techno anarchism. Real bands can destroy AI music. Being your true self can protect your integrity against poser influencers. And ethical KISS, DIY, community-focused tech can destroy AI slopdom and techshit in general. Fuck it. 😡
Here's the encore
'If the kids are united, then we’ll never be divided!'
While punk lost much of its pop cultural relevance, it did not die or lose its nebulous social and political relevance.
Matthew notes:
"... avowedly punk-informed scenes dug in to forge subterranean networks - both local and global - that maintain into the twenty-first century. Existing beyond the spectacle and no longer pertaining to be a poision inside the machine, punk continued - and continues - to provide a means of agency and a platform even as its cultural traces are archived, appropriated, and historicised.
At root, punk signified a negation that enabled agency and empowerment, demystifying processes of cultural production in order to do it your-self.
Not only did punk engender creativity, but its inspiration also helped forge cultures that challenged prevailing social and (socio-economic) norms ...
... punk both reflected lives being lived and uncovered portals to other worlds and ideas ...
There was an awarenes of the routines of media manipulation, commercial co-option and cultural appropriation that infused punk's practice and aesthetic.
To understand punk's politics is not to find philosophical clarity or the basis of a movement. Rather, the politics of punk resided in its refusal and its practice ..."
blind acceptance is a sign of stupid fools who stand in line.
Leaving the stage
Finally, I hope I have provided some food for thought in this article and exposed you to one of history's great explosions. I think the open web and open social really are equivalent to early punk. And I hope they will have even more long-term influence.
Let's engender creativity, forge cultures, avoid co-option and appropriation, and empower ourselves and others.
So, continue doing the open social, self-publishing, self-hosting, RSS, open web, true punk rock thing peeps. 🤘🏽
Seriously, it’s very important, whether you identify as a punk or not. The world needs to hear your authentic voice. Be your true, independent self in your chosen communities.
‘Hey ho, let’s go!’
BTW, the quoted lyrics in this article are from:
Generation X
The Descendents
The Sex Pistols
Sham 69
The Sex Pistols
and The Ramones
Oi, punks,
Punkrock History, @historyofpunkrock@sfba.social (though largely California focused) is a great Fediverse account to follow. As is Fedi.Punk.Guide, @FediPunkGuide@mastodon.social. ⁂
Skastodon is a punk-friendly Fediverse instance. ⁂
Punkstodon is a German-language one. Punk Photos is a PixelFed instance. Punktube is their PeerTube instance. Punx.social is their website ⁂
The Counterforce is the Fediverse punk rock website of choice as well as an instance. 💀
Are you in a punk rock band and need an opensource web tool to share your music? Check out Faircamp. It's made for independent musicians. 🎵
Discover and purchase punk music on Bandcamp. 🎵