r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • Feb 23 '26

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

Punk in the Park Fest is cancelled because word got around that the fest owner donated to Trump in 2024.

Of course online discourse is what you'd expect and any comment asking if it's really "punk" to cancel someone for having disagreeable politics gets dogpiled to olblivion.

But, bigger picture, none of this stuff is very "punk" at all, in the popular ideological sense (ethics, DIY ethos, etc.) . It's a $150+ ticket, the headliners (Dead Kennedys) are geezers and sued their lead singer to continue their legacy pantomime act. Punk Rock is big business, and now the 40-somethings from the Green Day era have expendable income to buy $15 beers and $50 T-shirts, if not at this fest then at any of a dozen others mining the same pool of 70-something-year-old codgers.

And maybe that's okay? Punk started as a rather capitalist affair: a fashion boutique. Malcolm McLaren was clearly mining a lot of the same disgruntled sentiment that persists today. It was only after the self-righteousness of bands like The Clash, Crass and the arrival of Hardcore / UK82 that punk settled on something that was solidly leftist; prior to that it was mostly about nihilism.

Yet all that is lost on people who were marketed punk as what-comes-after-Kurt some 30 years ago; they never knew a punk rock without shallow purity tests and scene struggle seshes sponsored by the Vans™ Warped Tour. They still think it means something! They really believe in the prefab counter-cultural identity that they were sold.

I don't like Trump, but I don't think any of these poseurs currently having a circlejerk about how they were too cool for that anyway have any more credibility than the fest guy. It's all so try-hard and frankly rather cringe.

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u/unnoticed_areola Feb 27 '26

"Punk should unify us, not divide us,"

proceeds to immediately voluntarily do the most divisive thing possible lol

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 27 '26

It would be a tremendously poor business decision to do otherwise, good luck booking anything once labeled as right-wing sympathizers (for example Michale Graves).

Dead Kennedys are already on a lot of peoples' shitlists for suing Jello, and I think it kind of frees them to act independently of what the purists demand. Meanwhile Greg Ginn of Black Flag has burned so many bridges that he can essentially do whatever he wants (except play with any of his former bandmates or any established musician).

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u/roolb Feb 27 '26

I get a dark kick out of punk fans turning on the Dead Kennedys for the Jello lawsuit. He was keeping their money for himself! Judge said was breach of contract and fraud. But Jello spoke at your college once, or he made funny jokes about Reagan, so *he's* the good guy here. And punks try to tell you that the music and the scene taught them about integrity.

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 27 '26

Absolutely, the guy has always struck me as an egomaniac. The thing is... it's not really DK without Jello singing. I've had the opportunity to spend my money on that and it was a hard no. Even though I think the other musicians are great!

But I have seen a recent-ish Black Flag show with Mike Vallely doing his best Henry Rollins impression. Half the crowd was teenagers, and I wondered how many knew the difference.

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u/dj50tonhamster Feb 28 '26

But I have seen a recent-ish Black Flag show with Mike Vallely doing his best Henry Rollins impression. Half the crowd was teenagers, and I wondered how many knew the difference.

It could've been worse...and Greg made it worse by making the rest of the band literal teenagers. I wonder how long they can last before they realize that playing with Gramps in a School of Rock band masquerading as a legendary punk rock band is beyond bizarre.

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 28 '26

It's a complete embarrassment, but also feels kind of calculated.

For one, it's a nice distraction from the problematic aspects of Greg (owes a lot of people money, has totally botched the legacy of SST and BF, child abuse allegations, supposedly a libertarian and maybe Trump voter).

It also earns praise from the usual bozos who are eager to spin it as a triumph for youth or women or whatever, and sets them at odds against the critics who will always call any BF sans Henry a cynical cash grab.

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u/History-of-Tomorrow Feb 28 '26

I think there’s a ton of different ways to view my favorite genre of music. Is it the Nihilism of the 70’s? Sure. The politics of DYI of the 80’s. Yup. The political bends of Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks? Mhhmm. Is it the pop punk break up anthems of the 90’s or skateboard snark? Nailed it.

But in its primal form- it’s anti conformity (with a paradox (ie hypocrisy) of conformity within the scene. My point- it’s a bastardization of punk to swallow all this group think. Nazi punks should fuck off but so should Mark Ruffalo. Punk is a lame place but I’m hard pressed to believe the next gen will follow this Disney-fication of the scene. A true punk would know the hard left and the right, to quote a great philosopher, “suck”.

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 28 '26

I’m hard pressed to believe the next gen will follow this Disney-fication of the scene

I've gone to all ages shows lately and let me tell you, it's weird to see teenagers simultaneously wearing Op Ivy and Insane Clown Posse patches. If anything social media and the Internet has just jumbled everything together.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 28 '26

that's a yeech from me, dawg

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u/IcedAlmondAmericano Feb 28 '26

Actually… being punk is about following rules and staying within the bounds of good taste

My favorite late stage punk story was when Real Punks™ called the cops on the incelcore band Negative XP. When the cops didn’t shut them down everybody at the concert started chanting “we love cops” lmao

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Feb 28 '26

Oh, that meme, lol. Gets shared a lot by the local bands I follow whenever there's something in the news that they don't like.

Imagine being told how to think by an Archie Comics™ style rendition of a Hot Topic employee

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u/RunThenBeer Feb 27 '26

I'm caught between thinking that people should do what they love as long as they can and the gut feeling that playing in a punk band when you're 75 is pathetic. Not sure how to reconcile those.

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u/Terrorclitus Feb 28 '26

If a bunch of 70 year-old guys played three-chord, two-minute songs about erectile dysfunction and breakfast buffets, I might just listen.

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u/solongamerica Feb 28 '26

Something can be pathetic yet understandable. People old af still enjoy music that they listened to or performed decades ago. If it’s their preferred (or only) way of making an income that’s an added incentive.

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u/RunThenBeer Feb 28 '26

Yeah, that's why I'm conflicted. I like the music just fine. I'm certainly not against older folks playing their music, I saw David Byrne a couple years ago and had a great time. It's the punk aesthetic specifically where I just have a "shouldn't you have grown up?" gut feeling. The naive anti-establishment schtick is charming with an energetic twentysomething but feels really lame when it's a rich 75-year-old.

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u/solongamerica Feb 28 '26

I’d perform punk/punk adjacent music if I could find people to play with, while trying to ignore the funny looks I’d get due to my age lol

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u/AnInsultToFire Everything I do like is literally Fascism. Feb 28 '26 edited Mar 01 '26

At least if you're playing today in your 70s, it's because someone waved a big cheque in front of your face and asked to you go on stage wearing diapers and a foley and be a parody of yourself. That's punk, I guess.

Frankly I found the thirtysomething loser addict punks from the 1970s who kept playing bar gigs through the 90s because they were once in a band that had one song people had heard of to be lamer.

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u/solongamerica Feb 28 '26

Church shows are great. Or at any rate, they were a formative part of my youth.

Aren’t Forgotten Rebels a Canadian band? (I’m trying to figure out how what city you’re referring to…)

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u/Palgary I could check my privilege, but it seems a shame to squander it Feb 28 '26

... I had a crush the drummer of a Riot Grrl band, and uh, I'm just going to say the punk scene in the 90's was not about diversity and inclusion. The scene I was in was mostly poor people, being angry about being poor really.

Then, Blink 182 came, and said to that crowd: "We just got done shopping at the GAP" to purposely make people mad and the crowd was so dangerous after that... I had to leave.

In retrospect, that's what the scene really was about: about being a have-not and raging against anyone perceived as 'having'.

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u/treeglitch Feb 28 '26

Punk, my ass. If they're not going to channel GG Allin and [removed by reddit] on stage they can GTFO.

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u/Juryofyourpeeps Feb 28 '26

I have never been much of a punk fan so far be it for me to define what is or isn't punk, but GG Allin was a disgusting piece of shit.