# What defines Punk Rock for you?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-defines-punk-rock-for-you/666396>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 16, 2013, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-defines-punk-rock-for-you/666396 "2013-08-16T08:00:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 80

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**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-defines-punk-rock-for-you/666396/80 "2017-11-30T17:56:38Z")

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> [@Plumpudding](#):
>
> Hah, maybe your should reread your own posts. You seem confused after all your backpedaling. An origin of something (or the original intent behind a movement/genre/you name it) is not the sole defining characteristic of that something, by the way.  
> YMMV. Not much more to say, to be honest. When I regularly went to punk concerts, lots of metal heads would show up. Some metal bands would play. This summer I saw a hardcore punk band mixing it up with black metal. Heck, one time I saw a punk band playing exclusively on commodore’s!
> 
> Was, was, was! It still exists in various forms!
> 
> No, you said punk couldn’t sound “practiced”. That has been refuted several times.  
> I’ve told you what I think punk is. It’s a diverse genre of many different characteristics. Some which you have highlighted in this thread, and others you’ve called “not punk”.  
> My definition (emphasis on “my”) is in my first post in this thread. If you define something solely out of your perception of the origins of something, then yes, it is arbitrary.
> 
> All in all, it is as if you’re arguing all mushrooms have to be red and have white spots, or it ain’t a mushroom.

It’s not arbitrary if it’s “originalism.”

I don’t know where you said what punk is but I bet it’s just as vague as this is, citing “somewhere else”

I never made any proscriptive statement for players. Punk just doesn’t sound practiced to me. Rock has become practiced. Why don’t you just admit you’re rock? Things are not going to be punk to someone else because you need or want them to be.

It isn’t punk to define it and argue on to some kind of thread victory.

That’s “rock.” You need to get comfortable with that. Everything you do and say sounds like rock to me.

Punks DNA is snotty, rude, satirical, outsider/underground/gay, and learning how to play. If it changed to something else and kept the name why is that interesting?

I told you why I think it means something. Why does it mean what you think it does?

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