Punk Rock and Social Media

I saw the documentary Punk’s Not Dead at the Three Rivers Film Festival this week and it got me thinking about why punk is the model we social media creators should be following.

Major Similarities Between Punk and Social Media

Punk was a medium created by the disenfranchised youth who sought to rebel against the corruption and groupthought inherent in “the system.”

Punk had a low barrier of entry — most “musicians” had zero training or experience (or, often, talent), but their passion and presence is what made them noteworthy. The punk scene relied on word-of-mouth, grassroots marketing and DIY production values.

Punks regularly refer to themselves as a family, bonded by a philosophy and shared experiences. Punk, like social media, is primarily the playground of white men.

Major Differences Between Punk and Social Media

Social media requires more expensive equipment to create than punk rock does. Social media relies upon digital distribution. Social media can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time — if they have a computer. Social media is looking down the barrel of the “money vs. passion” argument much earlier, and much more publicly, than punk ever did.

About the Film

Punk’s Not Dead is an insider’s look at how and why punk has survived for 30 years. Director Susan Dynner grew up in DC during the birth of the punk scene and has been involved with it ever since. The interviews she conducted for the film mirror the kind of “passionate desperation” found in today’s social media movement, and offer a LOT of correlations for our potential success.

Among them:

• Henry Rollins makes several great points about the hand-to-mouth lifestyle led by even the “top” bands. Everyone looked up to Black Flag as the epitome of punk success, but in reality, they were sleeping on fans’ couches and floors and living out of their tour bus — which, he insists, could never stop moving.

“We were like sharks,” Rollins says. “If we stopped moving, we wouldn’t eat.”

• Ian MacKaye built the Dischord label from the ground up, based primarily on the reality that the mainstream recording industry saw no value (or marketability) in the punk scene. But instead of scheming to find ways to make the MSM notice them, the punks said “fuck it” and created their own labels to sustain their momentum.

(Dynner was on-hand at the 3RFF showing and, during the post-film Q&A, told stories about hanging out at Dischord in the early years, where she – and everyone else on-hand – taught themselves how to hand-package the records and ship them out, one by one.)

• To the people *in* the punk scene, the musicians were both larger-than-life and completely accessible. Casual fans could wander backstage and have a beer with Bad Religion or Sham 69 almost by accident. That kind of “peer” mentality involved the fans of the music in ways that MSM could never hope to achieve.

• Throughout the whole punk lifeline, the scene has consistently resembled a “family” or artists who distrust MSM intervention or any attempts to control or repackage their original intentions.

On the other hand, the nature of speaking truth to power, as punks often did, was seen as the most *mainstream* concept in the world — far more so than the antiseptic POV of the MSM.

• The seminal punk bands were (and still are) happy to play a room of 5 fans or 50. Numbers weren’t the driving force; the need to be heard, and to meet new people who shared their POV, was.
• Again, from Rollins: “We were (metaphorically) standing outside, screaming [pantomimes a loud voice], but to the record labels, it was like [pantomimes tiny, muted voice].”

Until, of course, the “cool kids” noticed, and suddenly punk mutated into something marketable… but *ONLY* after the punk pioneers carved out their own (relative) success.
• To this day, bands like Subhuman, The Addicts and The U. K. Subs tour incessantly, sleeping in fans’ houses and selling their own merch from tables and vans — 30 years after they first took the stage.

Despite the fact that bands who have come along well after the forefathers started the scene are now enjoying exponential success, while the legends who lit the fire in the first place are still living hand-to-mouth, they carry on because they still derive so much pleasure from the endeavor that they couldn’t imagine not doing it.

All of Which Makes Me Wonder…

Will social media have this kind of longevity?

Why are some of us so eager to model our work after MSM — or to garner their attention in the first place — rather than refining our specific brand or shade of originality?

Are modern media creators so passionate to have their voices heard that they’re willing to push through all obstacles, sleep on floors and “tour” endlessly, just to ensure they’re heard by the audience that’s seeking them out? What think you?

story by Justin Kownacki of Something to Be Desired