take 2
August 28th, 2021 @ 1:25 am
touching on the last post… i just read a guy’s zine i recently purchased and he mentioned about people who wear band merch being “a signifier for teenagers and a way of finding people like yourself”. howeverrrrrrr, i’m still stuck on this – adults can still do this too. i think we should be able to. i mean, i still go to shows, and i like talking to people and finding new friends with that interest. some of us haven’t outgrown the subculture we blossomed our social lives in, or the music.
a lot of my friends were getting married and having kids, so i need to replace them with other people since apparently that life automatically = no more going to shows. i am not married and absolutely do not want to have children (at least the natural way, and even then, the window is closing and i don’t feel ready financially, but i digress…), so that does not stop my desire to go to shows and have fun.
he didn’t touch on it the pissed off way that i would, mainly bc he was talking in the past tense, but i just wanted to clarify and add to the last post, since i just sounded like a large asshole (which i am, and i don’t regret what i said, i just wanted to add to it).
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if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. if i see someone with crazy dyed hair and a specific band shirt, one would think i found someone in my subculture to befriend. i am not saying i’m not friends with plenty of non-punk/alt folks – I AM… sports folks, preppy folks, emo folks, parental folks, old folks, etc. – but if i see someone with a misfits or joy division shirt (popular examples of exploitation of *eDgY fAsHuN* or the ol’ “i just liked the design”), i want them to know wtf it is. if i talk to them, i want them to have an opinion about glenn, the M25 lineup days, graves, samhain/danzig and what they thought of the reunion shows. i want someone to talk to about the different versions of “ceremony” and songs other than “love will tear us apart” THAT ISN’T EVEN FUCKING ON UNKNOWN PLEASURES.
i wanted to add slayer tees into this mix, but i feel so betrayed finding out tom araya is a practicing catholic that i just can’t even with them anymore. it was as bad as finding out robert smith’s favorite season is the summer while reading lol tolhurst’s book about the cure.
THE SUMMER?! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?
(it’s supposed to be autumn, duh.)
anyway, this is how we build friendships in my subculture. when a person is wearing these things and not knowing what they are, it’s misleading and annoying. it legit takes two seconds to google what a shirt means. if you can’t understand that, you are a bonehead.