The first thing about being “punk rock” is probably the most important: ignore the term “punk rock”. Get it out of your head completely. Stop thinking about it as a label, a concept or a state-of-mind. Are you finished? Good, you’re well on your way to becoming punk rock.

The word “punk” was first in common usage in the late-60’s. It was mostly used to describe ne’er-do-wells and people that didn’t conform to the normal standards of society. If you were a young man committing random acts of larceny in 1968, then you were most likely called a “punk” by someone else. It wasn’t used as a musical phrase until 1970 in a Chicago Tribune article and even then it was used to describe something outside of the mainstream aesthetic.

For a while the word “punk” was used to classify styles of music that didn’t quite fit other classification. Bands like The Clash and The Ramones are both considered punk, however their music styles sound quite different. Music critics tried to assign other kinds of labels combined with the word “punk” like “protopunk”, “anarcho-punk”, “post-punk”, etc…and were at a loss to provide a clear, musical reason how all these disparate bands could all be considered “PUNK”.

This ultimately leads to what it means to be “punk rock”. See, being a punk means being whatever it is you want to be. It means following your own path and not conforming to a mainstream path just for the sake of fitting in. It means doing things for yourself and not relying on a “the system” to take care of it for you. The term has become weird and bastardized by the mainstream because suddenly being different meant being cool and this is why the term is losing all meaning.

In the early days of the punk movment, punks were ostracized and rejected by the mainstream. They were told to “get a job” and kids were being kicked out of their parents houses for not fitting in with what their peers were doing. But suddenly, in the mid-90’s, bands like Blink-182 were trying to bring the punk aesthetic into the mainstream eye. And though the way they were doing it was totally punk rock and one of the main reasons the movement has suffered as much as it has, it completely ushered in the mainstream punk era.

To be a punk in today’s world means not calling yourself “punk rock”. It means seeking out and finding music that is not succumbing to mainstream ideals. It means doing things for yourself and creating grassroots movements of art, music, film and culture. It means supporting local music and local artists and rejecting mainstream aesthetics - not just for the sake of being different, but because it’s unoriginal and motivated only by money.

And most of all, being punk means creating art for the sake of art and being different for the sake of creating something new.