What makes a punk, 'punk'??

Question

I'm doing an assingment on punks and I need to be able to define it. I cant do that though!!!

Answer 1

Well that is the idea.
There isn't a definition of "punk". It is the essence of nonconformity, individuality, anarchy, etc. It cannot be defined.

Answer 2

An anti-establishment, f**k you attitude. Anarchism, usually. And apparently a punk isn't a punk without the fashion, unfortunately. A cigarette and alcohol addiction helps, too.

Man, I don't miss my punk years. My liver is permanantly f**ked. I do (slightly) miss the comeraderie, the loud music, and the cheap/free shows in dirty warehouses. Any my hair was pretty awesome. I didn't dye it much, but I got to be a pro at big libery spikes. That crap doesn't fly when you're taking your kid to school, though.

Answer 3

I assume you're talking about the British Punk movement of the 70s (which went off to America in the 80s)

One word definition = INDIVIDUALITY

Answer 4

However this got in this catagory i dont know, how i found it i dont know, but im not gay bisexual or lesbian.

Anyways to the point. A punk really is a person who has there own ethics, mostly against of for certain things, stands up for what they believe in. U dont have to dress punk to b punk. I would do an internet search for more because im not going to waste my time telling u all i know, anyways search punk culture and punk history, mayb use somethink like wikipedia or google

Answer 5

Punk became the musical equivalent of the Dadaist movement in art. Punk was the reaction to the times where rock 'n roll became a sedate, bland, folk love-fest with little passion and even less rebellion- Joan Baez and Simon & Garfunkle were considered rock-n-roll (!) Punk tore down everything and fundamentally re-tooled rock music into its original spirit of rebellion and anti-authority. It is also important to note punk came from the working class of England- this is a group where, if you're born into it, you stayed there until you died. They don't have the upward and downward mobility we have in the States. This seething frustration about life and art culminted in a fireball of no-BS rock and roll.

While there is a certain je ne sais quoi attribute to punk that makes it hard to define- this was not a movement based on orderly creation- we can isolate certain concepts that might get us close to the necessary and sufficient conditions needed to define punk.

Among the more notable attributes:

-DYI (Do It Yourself): The true essense of punk. IMO, 99% of all punks never received formal training in what they did. Self-reliance and your own two hands were what was important. You didn't take handouts, go on a corporate payroll, and kept a clear line between you and 'the establishment'. None of the musicians were classically trained (decidedly different than, say heavy metal bands).
-Chaos reigned. There never was a coda for bands; the attitude made you punk. Therefore, quality between bands could vary widely. Listed to what passes for alternative today: Songs are appromiately the same in length, the lead singers mainly sound like teenagers at the point their voices change, and the tempo goes slow-fast-SCREAM REFRAIN-slow-fast-SCREAM REFRAIN-guitar solo-fast-fast-SCREAM REFRAIN-end song. Punk, however, did commonly keep a very simple 4/4 time without much fanfare, in part because of the "No BS" credo and in part because of the lack of training.
-Politics: Left. Of course, there were the Nazi Punks (N.B.: Not all skinheads were Nazis) and the Oi! Bands with Far Right philosophies, but overall the politics of punk were decidedly on the left, with anarch and maximum freeedom the marching orders of the day. In many ways, punk did the same thing Public Enemy did in the eighties- told the world the crap that was going on behind the facade of civilized society and began to fight it. While the overwhelming demographic of punks was straight, white and male, racism, sexism, homophobia et al. was decidedly decried and derided. Ironically, Hippies probably were the most archetypical subculture that punk rock 'fought' against, even though they had a lot of overlap in what they fought against, how they fought it brought them into direct confrontation and, as said before, hippie and folk culture was a lot of what punk rock rebelled against in the first place.
-Violence. Punk rock is VIOLENT. No way to get around it. Forget Good Charlotte. Forget Yellowcard. Forget MyChem. That's the kiddie pool. Check out Agnostic Front, The Minutemen, Black Flag, Bad Brains, Charged GBH, the Exploited, Fear. Violent, spartan, stripped-down music, concerts taking place in little more than a concrete box, broken bones, blood seeping from your joints, and wearing about 9 pounds of your body in the form of sweat-soaked clothes. I remember being in the pit and so jacked up on the music I felt I was in war frenzy. Someone could (and did) clock me on the jaw and I wouldn't feel it. That's the part of punk you just can't put down on paper. You don't know what it is like to see a corpse until the smell hits you; you don't know punk until you feel the war frenzy.
-Clothing: come as you are. We're talking the poorer sections of town (D.C., CBGB on the Bowery, Kings Road in London) so clothing was what you could get your hands on: dad's old military uniform, consignment shops, general knick-knacks you could put on yourself like spikes, buttons, etc. What ever made you stand out from everyone else.
-Organization: None. Flatline. Zero. Because of this, punk ultimately was doomed to die. It exists in the recesses of counterculture, but the situation was self-terminating. What is interesting is, for something as small as the movement was, for as short as it was, punk germinated and infected almost everything that has come after it.
Favorite Drink: Beer. Touch the wine coolers and you're the pinata.
Drugs: Whatever. You don't even have to do drugs. (cf. Straightedge) It's all about making your own decisions.
Religion: None. We're rebelling against authority, and the Church is probably the one institution held in lower esteem than the Government.

Answer 6

punk it can be a style a way of life just a fashion sense .music.or someting toatlly differet.. u cant really define punk

Answer 7

I'd say anti-thought.

It goes beyond thinking outside the box, to thinking against the box.

Answer 8

in your reprot say that you cant define punk because thier are so many sections of it

clothin/lifestyle/music/.....sexual promiscuity

if thats even a word

Answer 9

Uncombed hair, pants hanging off of their knees, boxers showing, basically the "I don't care" attitude.

Answer 10

Spiky clothes.