Anaïs a few years down the line - my first full illustration of the year, as I have mostly been working on my Anaïs-centered comic!!

[Image: a black-and-white drawing of a pale character with a black hair to just above her shoulders, short bands cut in a straight line. Black make up on the lips and around the eyes, a nose piecing, and a spider tattoo on her left shoulder.

What she's sitting on isn't drawn but the small three-legged chair she's tipping to the side with her right foot is. She's smiling and leaning to the side, supported on her left hand. Her right hand is raising a middle finger.

She's wearing black tank top that's cropped, tight leather trousers with her belly spilling out above the waistband, and high leather boots with thick soles. Several short necklaces, a cropped leather jacket that's slipping off her shoulders, fingerless gloves, black nail polish.

/End description.]

[ID: The handshake meme with "wearing your favorite clothes until they turn into literal rags" in the middle. To either side are "punks" and "autistics". End ID]

Knowing that “punk” was basically a synonym for “faggot” has me fucked up. Imagine the alternate timeline where they switched places and we have genres like “faggot rock” and “cyberfaggot”.

and with your help, we can make this dream a reality <3 

“so what’s your style called again?”

“oh, i’m a faggot”

[ID: A tags saying “pansy division” /end ID]

Reblogging not just for the wholesome content but also because goth hijabi is a good aesthetic.

I love this. Partially because yeah, goth hijabi is amazing, and partially because I love when people are surprised by punks doing nice things. Punks are literally the nicest people. I love them.

[Video description by @waitingforthecat: a TikTok by @notyourabg showing a person holding their hijab in place with one hand looking around searching for something. Text on the video reads: “Me freaking out in the dining hall because my hijab pin fell out and I can´t find where it went” The same person playing a different persona taking out a savety pin and holding it out, the text on the video reads: “a punk guy i´ve never spoken to before offering me one of his safety pins” The first persona taking a savety pin thats been handing to them, still holding their hijab with one hand. The text on the video reads: “me thinking about it for the next 3 years” the camera zooms in on their face, they say “I love you” the words also appear on the screen.

The music in the background is Dead Kennedys “Holiday in Cambodia”/end Video description]

the punk scene is incredibly unwelcoming to jewish people because everyone is either a nazi, or puts their hatred of nazis above the safety of jewish people. in fact, most of these anti-nazi punks don't know anything about jews and hating nazis is just a convenient target of their anger. in this essay i will

here's the essay. most anti-nazi punks do not give a single fuck about jewish/roma people. in fact, they threaten us when we speak up about how the way theyre handling being anti-nazi actually hurts us. they are not anti-nazi for us.

for example: the crossed out swastika patch. widely used by goyim, widely hated by jewish/roma punks. super triggering for jewish/roma people! i don't want to see a hate symbol widely used in my spaces!!

and here's the thing: white punks do not care. they dont give a fuck. ive literally been told "this patch isnt for you" and "if it triggers you the punk scene isnt for jews." NOT FOR ME? WHY ARE YOU ANTI NAZI THEN? if your hatred of nazis isnt out of love and support for jews and roma its coming from the wrong place!!

support and protection for minorities ALWAYS has to come before hatred for and antagonizing our oppressors!! ive literally been threatened by white/goy punks for saying they dont get a say in how a hate symbol targeted at jewish/romani people is handled.

white/goy punks do not care about us. they do not support us. they do not listen to us. we are not protected by them.

It’s such a shame that so many people forget that the -punk suffix on cyberpunk and solarpunk referred to anarchism and/or anti-capitalism and it’s not just, like, -stuck but for alternate history

Also steampunk although nobody EVER knew what the punk meant there

Steampunk has never been punk. It’s just “wouldn’t it be nice if I was a rich victorian capalist and aristocrat but also with access to a doomsday machine.”

Steampunk was a complex movement centered around proving how the problem wasn’t technology but social customs that kept us divided. Most optimistic steampunk fiction that occurs in a high science fiction setting is either idealized (full automation) and/or an actual commentary on capitalism and classism.

People like to dress up and use the aesthetic because they enjoy it, and as of yet there is no other word (to my knowledge) for the aesthetic side of it.

Also, steampunk has a lot of branches/derivatives as well. In dieselpunk, the focus is on limited resources and the futility of fossil fuels (think of the video game Frostpunk). Atompunk is all about humanity’s doomed obsession with nuclear energy and weaponry (the entire Fallout series). Stitchpunk is just meant to be pretty plainly creepy and dark, bridging the old-fashioned with the modern to create Things That Should Not For The Love of God Exist (Coraline, 9, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) in the eyes of society and then going on to either use that instinctual revulsion as a symbol of evil or to smash down the consumer’s prejudices about the character/item.

Punk addressed more topics than just anarchism and anti-capitalism. It also tackled prejudice, classism, human arrogance, etc..

punk is also an angry retort to current norms. it’s not a coincidence that steampunk took off in the 00′s, when the digital age was closing in around us and all of our consumer electronics got harder to understand and even more boring to look at. technology did more for us than ever, but it was an awful combination of cheaply made and expensive to purchase, you couldn’t build it or repair it or save it or even understand it, and it generally looked like a sleek plastic block. the iraq war was going on, scientists were starting to scream about global warming, everyone wanted to suck apple’s slick white dongle, the new century was fucking terrifying. everything was hot and loud and cheap and plastic and scary and oversimplified ultrasleek ugly and new, new, new! 

steampunk borrows imperial aesthetics, and that’s a shame, but it’s specifically a romantic escape from the new millennium’s minimalism and consumerism, as well as an interrogation of the class divides any imperial power maintains within itself and the nature of consumption itself.  people, machines, money, dreams. 

there’s a reason gears became the central symbol of the genre, aside from looking cool: we wanted authentic interiority, as everything around us turned digital. we wanted authenticity. we wanted machines we could take apart and touch, and we wanted beauty. we wanted machines made of iron and wood that you could fix with a wrench, lush costumes with layers of embroidery, the promise of freedom and adventure on your airship while you looked dope as shit in your fancy corset. 

steampunk was only as shallow as the aesthetic slap-a-cog on it edges appeared. the center of it was punk. 

There’s also a growing movement within steampunk to reject the more overt symbols of imperialism (like refusing/rejecting incorporating things like pith helmets) and make it more accessible/welcoming to a wider variety of people by boosting marginalized voices in the community

I recommend watching the documentary “vintage tomorrows” about steampunk and what makes it punk.

-FemaleWarrior

i hate big fashion shows & publications doing “punk style” or “punk inspired show” etc bc they really don’t even see the irony in it like that couldn’t be less punk if you tried. you’re just stripping down punk in it’s entirety and taking the aesthetics (while butchering them anyways) and leaving everything else behind that makes punk punk. how is a multi million dollar company dressing up some pretty white girls in plaid pants and expensive tailored leather jackets that are distressed just the right amount to look edgy but still digestible enough punk?

this is the stuff that really killed punk; commodifying the aesthetics and the “edgy attitude”, but only as long as it doesn’t actually challenge the establishment or make people too uncomfortable, while stripping away all the actual history and views on society and politics that make punk what it is, in order to make it consumable bc capitalism can’t handle people challenging any of its ideals

Afropunk

the only place for racists, fascists or otherwise in the cottagecore + naturecore + other environmental tag is in the compost as fertiliser, and that’s that

This is the most performative bullshit I have ever seen in my life. Like...that’s you!!!

I’m literally indigenous ❤️

So like...you get it then how fucking damaging the concept of cottagecore is....

used as a colonial/settler concept? absolutely. the concept of taming ~new land~ or otherwise is extremely fucked up and harmful to indigenous people everywhere. generalised european farming is also terrible for most environments it’s been introduced to and is strip mining them of essential nutrients and biodiversity.

at the same time, cottagecore has been used as an overarching term by multiple different marginizalied groups to express their desire to not constantly live in distress or an environment that is consistently damaging for them and i don’t begrudge them that. i personally find most people saying they’re anti cottagecore to be performative.

the majority of the cottagecore community aren’t planning on going on to colonise and continuously oppress local people, and are actively trying to engage with indigenous voices, permaculture, environmentalism and other necessary concepts for the continued health and survival of literally everyone. the people who want the trad wife/manifest destiny/white supremecist “cottagecore” literally don’t give shit about explanations of why term/idea may have harmful connotations to certain groups, and they’re not going to stop regardless.

all that’s being done is that 1) people are abandoning an aesthetic to be co-opted by those racist/misogynistic fuckers 2) people move onto another concept/aesthetic without actually engaging why the way they view land or these issues are problematic. shaming people for enjoying cottagecore doesn’t do shit, and instead we should be pushing for reframing of concepts and education about why certain ideas are harmful and damaging, and where improvements can be made.

This isn't performative: this is how you keep the fash out! In the 80s literal nazis tried to make a place for themselves in punk scenes. Now why do you think punk isn't seen as a nazi thing these days? Because at the very least people were willing to stand up and say "nazi punks get fucked" and many others were willing to help fash lose teeth and earn broken bones.

We should be helping people get fash trash out of their space, not accusing every individual who has any sort of interest in any of the things we label "cottegecore" as an imperialist colonizer or fascist. People outside communities shouldn't be giving entire communities, aesthetics, genres, etc. to the fascists. They need to be helping the people in those communities excise the fash rash they've picked up so they can get back to enjoying their interests.

Tl;Dr: quit giving stuff to fascists. Start making them regret showing their faces anywhere and everywhere.

@nubs-mbee

being gay is just like. damn it tattoos are expensive. damn it piercings are expensive. damn it getting your hair dyed professionally is expensive. damn it combat boots are expensive. damn it therapy is

One of the weirdest things as a Millennial is explaining DIY to younger generations. Like, before we were couture, punk/alternative/goth/gay fashion was cheap and lowkey crappy. Army surplus boots and Doc Martens hurt to break in. Black was a popular hair colour because you didn’t have to bleach your hair first so you could do your own hair in the bathroom sink. You sewed patches onto a jean jacket because it was cheaper than buying a custom graphic t-shirt. If you wanted jeans ripped, you ripped them yourself. The point was fashion that was accessible to kids in Middle America.

But now the bar is so much higher and nobody gets Home Economics anymore. :/

tbh, this is something a lot of Alt kids need to learn, and need to learn NOW. 

Shit was cheap because that’s what we had access to. Cheap n dirty and now. 

You picked up jeans second third or even fourth hand and yea they had tears in them. Don’t know how to sew, that’s fine, use safety pins! We used waxed floss to sew on our patches because we knew it was stronger than thread but ALSO we had access to a random needle left lying around and the floss in the cabinet. 

It didn’t used to be High Fashion. It was us, in our basements and our friend’s rooms, doing things we saw other kids doing…. but ALSO, it was just… part of the lifestyle. We didn’t know leather care like we do now, but we know it NOW because of Gay Leatherfolk for the most part. We used red and black hair dye, yes, because we didn’t need to bleach it. We also used really dangerous methods to bleach our hair…. don’t do that. 

Learn from what’s available to  you now and be safer definitely, but don’t forget the DIY roots of the movement. You don’t need to be decked in Blackcraft and Dollskill to be cutting edge. You can paint your jacket yourself and use fabric modpodge to seal it, y’know? Then it’s truly one of a kind…. not the same jacket you’ll be seeing on a thousand other alt people at the next concert.

It’s crazy to me now seeing people get their green hair or whatever at a salon for like $100+. I remember in high school someone would get a bottle of developer and everyone would get whatever color they wanted, and we’d all do our hair in someone’s kitchen (whoever had the best sink sprayer, usually). Like, back then, if you wanted a COLOR you usually couldn’t get it at a salon. You had to buy the colored dye at the record store.

Are you part of an alternative community? Queer? Goth? Metal? Punk? Any sort of not-particularly mainstream? LEARN TO DIY.

When I was in school, we used Kool-Aid unsweetened packets to dye our hair. You can use it to dye wool yarn (an animal protein fiber) and it lasts forever, and hair is also an animal protein fiber, so it dyed us just as easily. If you wanted extra longevity, you mixed it with a little vinegar. Goth accessories didn’t appear in stores before Hot Topic, so we made our own with second hand clothes and scads of black lace.

Make Do and Mend, the subcultures edition.

If one did want to learn some DIY sewing skills, you coulkd try:

https://gothfashion.info

OMG, it’s still online! I remember that site from my early internet days–it was an absolute lifeline for me back when I was a hapless spooky kid whose ambitions for my Look far outstripped my pocket money.

but just to address op’s first two points, definitely DON’T try to DIY tattoos or piercings.

Sharing for any baby alts/etcs that need this as much as I needed it when I started going punk/goth

Somebody plz translate this

Thigh high socks and femboy stuff used to be heavily associated with trans people, but due to its “anime” aesthetic and popularity on YouTube internet fascists have latched unto it. The same is starting to happen now with cottage core which originates in a desire to push back away from alienation born of capitalism by like living in a house with your close ones where you grow your own stuff, away from the city. Fascists are using the same aesthetic to promote traditionalist values, in a way that’s like, they attract unsuspecting people by using the aesthetic, dilutes in their nauseating ideologies in a discrete way and progressively radicalise people. Same for ecofascism, they use the general climate of fear and anger at governments’ inaction regarding climate change to propagate their ideas on eugenics among other things.

Basically they know how to identify codes and trends that resonate among the younger internet users on the most popular social networks, repeat them while adding in their ideologies and thus slowly recruit more people.

This is exactly why people need to start fighting and taking back their things, whether it be their comfort places, culture, or symbolism.

It’s so nauseating seeing something like this happen constantly, and it does. From minuscule things like memes and online culture to more serious like cultural symbols and ideals, fascists and the alt right in general keep stealing it, and instead saying “that’s enough”, people react with “well, it can’t be helped, we now can’t use that anymore.” and let them completely perverse something that belonged to others completely to serve their shitty ideals.

Ask yourself, how often do you internally feel red lights go off when you see, lets say, pagan Slavic symbols like the kolovrat? Or a lot of Nordic mythology symbols and runes? Do you associate these with the current neo-nazi and alt-right movement? As a Slav, do you know how much this fucking hurts? They stole from us. They stole our culture. I refuse to let them do that anymore. I imagine a lot of Scandinavian countries feel the same about their own culture being perversed.

Remember the “ok” hand sign suddenly turning in to a dog whistle? Remember how Pepe, against all wishes of the original author who created him as a loving cool character, turned in to a symbol of the alt-right? Think back and remember each time this has happened and realize just how often it does.

I see it happening as well, I see the people worming their way in to the witch community and trying to make it the same way. Look at TERFs, they’re trying to appropriate the Witch aesthetic for their own. Fuck them. They don’t deserve it. I won’t allow it.

Stop letting them steal. Stop letting them get away with it. Take the shit they stole back. It isn’t theirs.

Don’t Let THEM Immanentize the Eschaton! 

 Neo-nazis tried to latch onto the punk movement - hey, it likes noise and rage and not following rules, so it’s perfect for them, right? Fuck no. Punk was and is anti-racist.

Remember that tolerance is not a moral precept - it’s a peace treaty. People are tolerated when and while they agree to tolerate others. People who are actively exclusionist, people who want to drive out others or hurt them - lose access to the tolerance TOU. 

And tell those assholes they’re not welcome. That they should find a new hobby if they’re not interested in the values that inspired this one. That “pretty house pictures” may be welcome but accompanying messages implying that the residents need to be white and Christian are not.

It’s hard work, because yelling at people rarely works. Instead, you have to foster the kind of community you want, so that bigots won’t feel welcome. When they make their “hey it’s just a joke” racist or transphobic comment, nobody laughs, and someone says “ugh.” When they use a culture’s symbols to connect to their bigoted ideas, someone says, oh, the traditional meaning is ____ and the people who live in that culture wouldn’t agree with your biases.

Don’t let them take away the symbols and hobbies that inspire you to be a better person. 

So there’s another person trying to argue that solarpunk isn’t punk, and in responding to them just now I had a thought about the punk aesthetic, and why solarpunk isn’t deliberately grungy. (Not that solarpunk’s grunge-averse – I don’t think anyone would say that – but you can definitely look pretty mainstream, if very weird, and still come off as vividly solarpunk. At least so far.)

Punk had an aggressively anticapitalist aesthetic. The grotesque, unfinished, hostile appearance of punk art and fashion was meant to make it unmarketable, beyond the reach of capitalist reconceptualizing.

That didn’t work. Punk has been packaged and labeled and sold. Punk’s not dead, but its wardrobe might be. 

Punk clothes were chosen as a political act, but the clothes themselves weren’t inherently political. And as I realized this, I realized that we’re already responding to that problem in solarpunk very effectively.

Solarpunk style and aesthetic guidelines and goals may not be uniquely resistant to marketing – the sale of punk all-but-proved it’s impossible to make manufacturable things unmarketable on purpose – but that’s okay, because the politics are sewn right into the fabric.

Solar cell umbrellas, piezoelectric running suits, UV resistant shawls, plus a strong interest in encouraging individuals to be socially conscious and avoid appropriative or exploitative styles wherever possible – if the system wants to market solarpunk styles, that means it’s gonna have to start caring about the ethics and utility, because that’s not an afterthought in solarpunk clothes. That’s thing-number-one. 

(For the record: I don’t think that’s incompatible with my comments in “Solarpunk fashion; fantasy; function” where I defended the value of non-functional solarpunk props: I think anyone in the community can recognize the difference between the aspirational work of an individual limited by resources and reality; and an exploitative work by a corporation, preying on a community’s desire to pursue change.)

The grotesqueness strategy of 80′s and 90′s punk failed to guard against commercialization. Maybe the solarpunk approach is to infect the commercial institutions with incentive toward ethics, instead.

I have a question for solarpunk/environmental activism stuff - i’ve seen tons of things about buying used clothes from thrift shops and i’d like to do that more, but is there an issue with a non-impoverished person buying from second-hand stores since they’re made for people on really tight budgets? if so, how can i work around it?

If you can afford to, maybe look into businesses that have more sustainable and less exploitative supply chains. None of them will be perfect, and as the saying goes there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, but the process will teach you a lot about those fields and then your fashion choices can also be an education opportunity when you get to gush about all the thoughtful decisions you put into assembling your wardrobe.

If you can’t afford to do that, go ahead and thrift. A lot of work goes into making poor people feel like they aren’t poor enough to deserve the help that’s out there for “real” poor people. If you have little enough money that you can’t afford to make your firsthand clothing purchases on any metric other than cost, then you aren’t a poverty tourist when you’re thrifting, you’re the target audience.

Apart from that, visible mending is a great way to keep the clothes you already have in service longer, while making them cooler and more punk with every stitch.

Fake Punk: I don’t care about catching coronavirus

Real Punk: I should take precautions to help protect the oppressed groups who are vulnerable to this epidemic like low-income households, homeless people and people with disabilities.

This isn’t “punk” it’s just being a good person

Contrary to what many people would have you believe, being a good person despite societal pressure not to be is kinda what punk is about

punk isn’t just skinny. punk isn’t just perfect mohawks or aesthetically pleasing jackets. punk isn’t only listening to dead kennedys or black flag. punk is being an individual, having no respect for our fascist authority, sticking up for the little guy even if you are the little guy. punk isn’t just a look or a music scene.

i literally made this because nazis and the alt right can’t be punk

Stop bringing politics into music genres lmao

stop bringing politics…….. into punk????

Here’s Green Day, one of the most popular and well known punk bands.

Wait, but there’s MORE!

Wait, in case you weren’t convinced that the punk scene is political and is all about standing up against fascism and bullshit and racism that America is facing:

shut up. Punk is not just a fucking music genre.

Ok I’m reblogging this again bc when I went to see green day, before they properly started playing they made us make a pledge, at the gig there is to be ‘No racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no donald trump’

Punk has been political long before Green Day existed. The political history of the Punk scene(s) cannot be divorced from the music scene(s) that arose out of them. It is not just about music. It is not just about fashion. The stylistic choices made have meaning and are situated in a social/political context. 

That being said, it’s really important to acknowledge that Neo-Nazis didn’t infiltrate the Punk subculture for no reason. Absolutely, make it clear that Neo-Nazis are not welcome in The Punk Scene. However, part of doing that means confronting how they got there.

Punk music isn’t all about one political stance, though it’s commonly anti-authoritarian. Anyone can utilize the genre to promote their own ideologies, even if a popular intention of the genre is to be anti-authoritarian. Green Day is just one of many bands who use Punk music to spread their ideology. 

It’s not just punk. Music has been used as a form of rebellion against oppression for a hell of a long time. Fuck, centuries even. The people who don’t get this have most likely never been oppressed in their life.

A few protest/”political” songs, and some about specific tragedies, from recent history, that aren’t just punk:

Zombie, The Cranberries

I Know A Place, MUNA

99 Luftballons, Nena

Beds Are Burning, Midnight Oil

Khe Sahn, Cold Chisel

I Was Only Nineteen, Redgum

The Greatest, Sia

Fuck Tha Police , N.W.A

Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire

We Are The World, USA for Africa

Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud), James Brown

Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell (or more recently, Counting Crows)

Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen

Know Your Rights, The Clash

Holiday in Cambodia, Dead Kennedys

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott Heron

We’ve been doing this shit forever, it’s not new. War, racism, fascism, homophobia… if it’s harmed people, it’s been put into music. It’s an incredibly powerful medium that has changed the world before, and to say that politics, hatred, and tragedy shouldn’t be featured is, honestly, simply ignorant.

I cannot deal with the sheer level of numbskull-ery in a statement like “Don’t bring politics into music” as if this is some Silly Tumblr Fad and not something that’s been a thing for over a hundred years

bard is a combat class

bard is a combat class

Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine

That song came out in like 1991 and I believe it was commentary about the state of the LAND.

Rage Against the Machine’s fucking band name is political commentary.

For Your Consideration

Emo: The world is broken, and I'm sad because there's nothing I can do to fix it.

Goth: The world is broken, but there's an odd beauty in the dark parts.

Punk: The world is broken, and I am angry, and I am going to fight to fix it.

which is why you commonly see someone metamorphose down that chain in that order

alright kids let’s break this down one last fuckin time (and this is a breakdown of just aesthetics)-

goth: all black, often very elaborate, gothically inspired (obviously), not branded

emo: still lots of black but much more casual, skinny jeans, certain brand shirts (usually music-themed), converse/vans, jewelry, specific hairstyles, think 2000’s hot topic kids

punk: lots of black again, very elaborate but in a completely different way, studs, chains, patches, piercings, leather, another set of specific hairstyles and bright hair colors, really rooted in anarchical themes

grunge: old clothes, flannels, oversized, layers, ripped jeans, distressed **if you’re buying “grunge” clothes new, you’re a fucking sham, the entire grunge aesthetic arose from garage bands too poor to afford clothes that weren’t thrifted, poorly sized, and already worn out**

additionally, all of these include elements of gender non-conformity and prioritize self-expression as well as identification as belonging to a group

and remember!!! all of these are actual subcultures, not just aesthetics, so when you say you’re “being goth/etc” remember to specify that you mean aesthetically, because its not fair to boil an entire subgroup of people down to just their aesthetic trends