Alternative scenes and the death of shock-value.

Before you read this; please understand that this might be a controversial take. If you do not agree with something I say, bring your own opinion into the comments respectfully. If anything I say is naively ignorant, let me know.

Nothing about this is supposed to be discriminative, complacent in discrimination, etc. And I am willing to hear out other opinions and maybe change my own.

This was prompted by seeing a video of someone talking about the time Siouxie Sioux wore a Swastika armband, as seen below;

And I think that people in the modern day have become too comfortable in their punkness. And what I mean is that many of the people today have not faced an actual protest, actual means of change, etc.

Younger punks today are comfortable in calling themselves punk. Comfortable in changing their pfp to ‘fuck ice’ and posting a black square for BLM.

They have not faced the means of real oppression, real protest, real violence, real punk.

And this falls comfortable sense of punkness falls apart when faced with something that is not within their bubble of ‘safe’ punk. The same way many people turned around when Charlie Kirk died and started spewing ‘he had a family!’ after claiming to be Anti-Nazi and leftist, etc.

When they’re forced to step out of their comfort zone, to confront real world problems and punkness, to face something that does not fit into their idea of what is ‘okay’ punk and ‘too much’ then they fold and backtrack and regress into their originally ingrained ideals that are still in there but dressed up in spikes now.

Siouxie Sioux did not wear a Nazi armband in acceptance of Nazi’s. Siouxie did not write that song in agreement of what Israel was doing. She wrote the song in opposition, and she wore the armband as a subversive symbol and for shock-value.

Because when people are shocked, they listen. When they see the horrors of war on tv, they think more about the lives being lost because they are actually being brought into it and not distantly hearing it.

She used it as a way to provoke people and to criticize the WWII generation, not to endorse.

And that is something now under scrutiny in the modern eye, because I’ve seen people talking about now she wore the armband and how that was still a crazy and bad thing to do even if she didn’t mean it in a positive way.

We cannot be afraid of symbols. We cannot treat every bad symbol as something that should never be seen. That will do us more harm than good.

We cannot coddle this generation, especially when we’re already regressing in history and once again need punk to be a thing.

Provocation is something we cannot be afraid of. Shock-value is not something we should be afraid of.

We need shock and disgust and gore if we want things to change because going up to the facist leaders and asking nice to ‘please stop destroying the country and bombing everyone’ doesn’t fucking work. Sorry to tell your little crayon brained self, this isn’t second grade anymore.

You are too comfortable. You are too safe.

You yell out ACAB and then cry when a cop gets hurt because they were ‘a good one’ or ‘they didn’t deserve it.’

You spout that it’s okay to punch Nazi’s and then cry at the headstone of one who got taken down.

You say ‘all ice melts’ and then get out of the way the second you hear ‘obstruction of Justice.’

Would you die for your cause? Would you go to jail? Would you stand in the front lines as someone of privilege so that the people they’re targeting can be in the back where they’re safe?

Or do you want to stay at home, in the comfort of safety, pretending you mean anything or know anything when you can’t even bother to open your narrow minded view and understand that these issues aren’t linear and are no longer able to be taken care of ‘cleanly.’

Extra; check out my friend XxBull3tsSl4mming1ntoD33rSk1nxX and his blogs/bulletins. He’s on a break right now, but he often posts stuff similar to this, though geared more towards the metal community. (Also check his Tumblr, which has extra stuff.)

He’s one of my favorite people on here, very well informed, very funny, makes good points and is always ready to argue with you.