The essence of punk is countercultural: we did this for ourselves, and we are proud that you hate it and won’t accept it.
This, of course, results in a cyclical identity crisis: can a utopian value punk maintain both their values and their punk identity in a post-punk world, where the utopian values have been realized and made mainstream? Which one will they go for: do they turn against their previously held values in an attempt to uphold their punk-ness, or do they shed their punk status now that their punk values are no longer punk?
Considering how much extraneous identity burden punks often carry in style and music, I find it unlikely that solarpunks would be content in a mainstream solarpunk world. They would prefer to maintain their punk identities and seek out a new punk.
And that is why this ”solarpunk” may yet throw its baby out with the bathwater if its message gets interpreted as a holistic lifestyle instead of what it is: an art movement.
Well, one tends to see many more mohawk-and-studded-jacket punks crawl the streets than cyberpunk or steampunk enthusiasts. That punk went mainstream long ago, everyone is sorta aware what that raggedy-arse looking fellow is about.
Examples of persons adopting a cyber- or steampunk identity do exist, however, in eye-catching forms as well. They just do not get appropriately identified as such, because mainstream culture has not explicitly acknowledged those punks.
Worse, the mainstream has appropriated and exploited the aesthetics of both, and thus the cyberpunk gets misidentified as some anime hackerman and the steampunk is maybe going to a costume party somewhere?
It is thus not possible to externally identify as any kind of otherpunk: general social acknowledgement of aesthetically alternative lifestyles is generally not there at all. What follows is ridicule and exclusion.
This, of course, results in a cyclical identity crisis: can a utopian value punk maintain both their values and their punk identity in a post-punk world, where the utopian values have been realized and made mainstream? Which one will they go for: do they turn against their previously held values in an attempt to uphold their punk-ness, or do they shed their punk status now that their punk values are no longer punk?
Considering how much extraneous identity burden punks often carry in style and music, I find it unlikely that solarpunks would be content in a mainstream solarpunk world. They would prefer to maintain their punk identities and seek out a new punk.
And that is why this ”solarpunk” may yet throw its baby out with the bathwater if its message gets interpreted as a holistic lifestyle instead of what it is: an art movement.