To answer the question “How does one be punk?” one would first have to determine what punk is. This seems to be the topic of much controversy, and debate. Often times between Avril Lavigne fans attracted to an MTV fashion, self-proclaimed skate punks who rock out to NOFX, and goers of local and regional hardcore shows who only listen to bands no one’s heard of, all with their specific notion of what Punk is. In reality most sides in this argument seem to be mistaken in their perceptions. Punk is something that never existed in any tangible form. This can be proven only by examining that which is on full consensus considered a representation of Punk.
Punk as musical genre simply can not be defined to any capacity. There are no sonic trends amongst bands associated with punk. From The Clash to The Ramones, and Bad Brains to Minor Threat, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Patti Smith, and the Cows; there is absolutely no audible homogeneity. All these bands which bare the undebatable moniker of Punk sound nothing alike, so Punk can’t be a musical genre.
Well, if it’s not the music that is Punk, perhaps the term, and specifically the term as the basis of this inquiry is in reference to the fashion. Once again you run into a very obvious lack of synchronism. Punk was in many ways completely experimental with it’s fashion, and in other ways completely unremarkable. Some bands, and people within punk might wear simple jeans and t-shirt, while others would devise elaborate bondage based outfits, or multi-colored hair. But there certainly is no norm for what these people looked like. Another dead end.
With the conclusion now in our hands that Punk is neither a musical genre to be emulated within the context of starting a band, or a type of fashion sense that one might adopt to wear out, one must ask, what exactly is this thing called Punk? The only way to link together those bands, parties, people, and places universally accepted and understood to be punk, is chronology. All of what is inarguably punk occurred within a specific span of time spanning from the mid-seventies to the late-eighties. Punk is a particular era of social and artistic happening.

Thus, the very nature of asking “how to be punk” is automatically paradoxical. It implies that there is something called “punk” to be; the result of a misunderstanding that seems to surround the term. Punk refers to a period of music, and the social movements involved with that music. Being punk, or being a punk, would be defined by your involvement in the punk movement. You very clearly either were or were not a participant.