#this may not be as specific or as clear as i like fjsnf.

[petewentzisblack1312]

gateway punk?

[NODS] GATEWAY PUNK

so punk isnt just a genre, but also a subculture and ideology built specifically on deconstructing the unjust society we live in, ie anti racism, anti fascism, working class solidarity. punk is not just hardcore music, but also an ethos of doing whats right by the people.

the thing about that though is that anti establishment is a hard sell when everyone grows up explicitly being taught to trust the establishment, right? the reason punk is difficult to mainstream is that saying The Establishment Is Bad is obviously not popular with the establishment, which very much controls the distribution of things. most mainstream anti establishment music isnt explicit in its messaging, instead gesturing to the specific point, basically dogwhistling the actual message (note: dogwhistling is in and of itself a neutral phenomenon, you can dogwhistle anything). saying it with your chest makes it easy to ignore and censor, but saying it in a clever way makes it so that the people who want to hear it will. this is how green day usually operates (think american idiot) and imo a lot of people in punk and on the left in general see people dogwhistling ideology and think of it as no longer being proud of their beliefs when its actually just being smart with messaging so it doesnt get censored or turn people off by being too challenging. the problem with that though is that occasionally people will miss the message so bad that they interpret it as being for them as the opposition (ie conservatives who think american idiot is for them and not about them) and will be surprised when they stop dogwhistling and start saying the quiet part loud (think the no trump no kkk no fascist usa reaction).

fall out boy operates a little differently, in that they do dogwhistle their beliefs but in a much vaguer way and more subtle way, and they also very much arent asked about them often. like their image is cultivated as being largely apolitical despite them not actively trying to be apolitical, however their projects outside of fall out boy and preceding fall out boy and influencing fall out boy are all political, when asked directly (which they never are) they are political, its not a matter of hiding their politics as much as it is a matter of their music being popular, and so they use that to be political. like their music is mainstream and they use that to mainstream causes they care about, they talk a lot about the stuff that interests them and often that is, at least subtley, influenced by their politics, theyre a gateway punk band in that they use their music to lead people to their message as opposed to using it as a vehicle for the message itself. andy hurley himself has said it better than i am right now, i gotta find that podcast again. while there are still people who are surprised when they "get political" theyre far more casual fans who are uninterested in the people who made the music, because there is hardly any political message in the music to misinterpret, but there are politics from the people who made it associated with it.

i have never personally met a fall out boy fan who doesnt eventually become some flavour of leftist, and the only other kind of fall out boy fan is the kind of person who gets mad at any artist for talking about politics ever. its extremely important for people to have a first easy non judgemental step into challenging their beliefs, and green day and fall out boy both do that really well. a lot of other bands are just selling a rebel without a cause image (which imo is anti leftist propaganda as part of the recuperation of alternative subcultures) and that often leads to the broader scene and may also lead to a genuine dedication to anti racism, but those two and fall out boy especially have a very solid pipeline to anti establishment sentiments by just posing a question, either through the music or through the people performing it, about whether things should be this way.

and thats important.

#dils declares #dils dissects #i wrote a lot of this between talking to my therapist and im Very Tired so please bear with me #this may not be as specific or as clear as i like fjsnf.