The popularity of the EMP’s recent exhibition Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses proved that Nirvana indeed might have taken punk to the masses. So what does punk mean to the masses? I asked people on the street and the internet what punk means to them, and 60 percent of those asked were happy to respond. Age is noted when it was provided, but a lot of people sure are bashful about saying how ancient they are.
Elias N., 27, Austin, Texas: “15-year-olds throwing up behind a barn.”
Johnny, 37, Sodo: “Punk? That’s the kid we used to beat up.”
Erin P., Bothell: “Individuality, even though most of the time everybody has the same dress code. It was different when I was back in high school. I graduated in 2001.”
Stephen P., 11, Everett: “I think it’s a kind of music with the yelling, right?”
Gordon M., Central District: “A movement that came out of the ’80s. It was basically a counterculture. People were guided by a sense of anarchism. They gathered together in collectives, they lived kind of a squatter lifestyle. I remember seeing some documentaries about it.”
Sandy, 17, Butte, Montana: “Hot Topic. Punk is a really hot topic.”
Carrie, 38, Seattle: “Punk has many different meanings. You can be punk’d by Ashton Kutcher or you could be a punk kid, a thug.”
Ruben M., 31, Seattle: “Not giving a fuck.”
Rich, 19, Capitol Hill: “I’m not entirely sure, honestly. I never quite got into the genre.”
Justin, 17, used to live in Seattle: “Punk means black fucking people Mohawks intense dancing hiphop jumping white guys skinny jeans.”
Jordan, 25, Queen Anne: “Punk is making all the choices and taking all of the responsibilities to lead your life the way you want to lead it.”
Ian, Madison Valley: “Punk is a style of music that originated in the late ’60s and early ’70s and is based on amateurism and rebellion and I guess conventionally thought of as having an anticorporate ethos.”
Ozone, 26, Rainier Beach: “My understanding is that punk is a culture that started in England, around the late ’60s, early ’70s; groups like the Ramones and things like that spearheaded the movement. To me, to put it bluntly, it’s the white version of hiphop.”
Wyatt, Kenmore: “Punk is not really giving a fuck. Or pretending not to give a fuck and trying to act like it.”
Bree, 27, Seattle: “No. No, no, no, no, no. I just took a Xanax. I can’t answer that.”
Gregory J., Chicago, Illinois: “At its best, aesthetic incompetence.”
Hugh E., West Hollywood, California: “CBGB, Vivienne Westwood, the Sex Pistols, safety pins, spiked Mohawks, Patti Smith, the late ’70s, tight plaid pants, fuck off.”
Michelle H., Seattle: “Being grounded for watching Sid & Nancy in the eighth grade, Minor Threat back patches, and Robitussin.”
Oliver W., 6, Seattle: “Like pumpkins?”
Dre G., 34, Seattle: “Fuckin’ shit up!”
Faith, 51, Windsor, Ontario: “Sex Pistols. That is all.”
Nathan L., 28, Norman, Oklahoma: “It doesn’t mean much, really.”
Erol C., Chicago, Illinois: “Three chords and anger.”
Tressa S., 37, Chicago, Illinois: “Knowing it all. Everyone else is dumb. Bad choices.”
Heather R., 37, Strongsville, Ohio: “Pink Mohawks!”
Amy B., 30, Seattle: “Frenching my Sid Vicious look-alike boyfriend on his mom’s couch while The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle played in the background. He was wearing leopard-print briefs, I think he only had like one pair of underpants or something, circa 1996.”
Darcy, 17, Seattle: “Punk means not caring about anything.”
Adam R., 38, Pleasant Grove, Alabama: “Punk means anything. Literally. It means do whatever you want, when you want. It’s not a sound or a look. It’s a state of mind.”
Tony M., Chicago, Illinois: “Pasta. Rejection and being rejected. Terrible housekeeping. Trying too hard. Sloppy smiles. Transient.”
Suzie S., 32, Seattle: “Making out in or against a Dumpster.”
Owen P., Sydney, Australia: “Never having to say you’re sorry.”
Coco H., 42, Seattle: “Smart people with good taste.”
Elli C., Seattle: “Fucking Jesus in the ass with a crucifix.”
Jillian M., 31, Seattle: “Smoke weed e’ryday.”
Clarita H., 34, Seattle: “I hate you, Ronald Reagan!”
Lele B., 35, Seattle: “It means I don’t always compost.”
Rich E., Orlando, Florida: “Punk rock is giving your mom the finger.”
Rod M., Austin, Texas: “Suede creepers and illegal downloads.”
Pete C., Seattle: “Sleeping in my piss, my old man’s a fatso, spray-paint the walls, bite it you scum, and giving your dog named Razor Jaws stick ‘n’ poke facial tattoos.”
Justin D., Seattle: “Don’t be a dick, except to assholes.” 
A smoldering stick of wood fiber or pulp used to light the fuses on fireworks.
Correct Answer: You don’t have to fuck people over to survive.
MY Answer: Hanging out with a few friends in an abandoned house, smoking black-ish weed that you only have a tiny amount of, while drinking 40’s of Olde English 800. Since there’s only so much pot to go around, you’re hotboxing the bathroom and blowing shotguns in each other’s mouths. Homoeroticism abound… Oh and you taped creepy child’s drawings to the walls of the house earlier in the week to fuck with everyone when they were high.
lame music created by people who haven’t put any work into learning how to play their instrument(s). “I hate the government!!”…..wow, brilliant.
THe first album was great. The second album more polished and good at best, but seemed to lack the intent of the first, therefore missing what made the first great. By the third album everything had gone to hell.
I don’t think punk is dead. I think it’s simply having a nap.
My new response: punk is when you know your response to a query about punk for an alt.weekly article is too highbrow to print, but YOU FKING DO IT ANYWAY, MAN.
I don’t think it’s napping, I think it’s passed out. Too many blueberry wine coolers. We should totally draw the The Dead Kennedys logo on it’s face and shove our pizza crusts in it’s shirt pocket.
@5
if society survives another decade, Time Magazine or somebody needs to write an article titled something along the lines of “Why The Punks Were Right About Everything (Now Go Pierce Your Nose With A Rusty Safety Pin)”.
At least it got to sleep through Oingo Boingo
punk died in 79
Punk is the kid dad used to verbally and physically abuse.
Not giving a shit until you need some of that sweet health insurance.
COCAIN and MALT LIQUOR ™ Someone had to say it…
PUNKS NOT DEAD!!!
But it sure has sucked for at least a decade.
Doing as much as you can with what little you have. Powerchords, shitty equipment picking up an instrument you know nothing about, these are all just means to an end. It’s about creating something and getting out then moving on to the next thing without wasting time thinking about whether it’s any good or not.
shaving with my eyes closed
Blink 182!!!
(Totally kidding).
FUCK SHIT UP!
FUCK SHIT UP!!
Punk rock is letting your freak-flag fly well into middle age, no matter how corporate of an environment you work in, no matter what concessions necessity may demand of you. Punk cannot, and should not, be put in a box with well-defined edges.
Punk is blowing your nose on a piece of bologna that is safety pinned to your shirt and then eating it.
Punk is not possessing any musical talent, but forming a band anyway.
Punk is a term made up by people who have to put a label on something that they don’t and will never understand.
POLY STYRENE!!
Punk was rejecting everything and replacing it with nothing because nothing was what you had and everything was what ‘they’ wanted.
punk was my stillborn future floating in a jar of formaldehyde that I now keep in a cupboard and only ever take out and look at when I’m drunk enough to remember what an authentic world we use to live in.
sex & drugs & rock & roll…definitely with an anticorporate vibe, which is hilarious really, since the band so many people think of as the Godfathers of Punk were basically a producer’s manufactured creation to sell clothing. But they did catch something in the zeitgeist for those of us who were sick unto death of glitter and disco and synthesizers, and who thought hair bands were akin to alien pubic hairs in our salad for aesthetic appeal.
here’s one chord, here’s two more, now form your own band
Indeed, @4. It’s what I call “punk entropy.”
Way to hardly write an article.
@25 actually the word “punk” comes from the name of a magazine that covered these bands in the late 70s who were making slightly sloppy, sped-up rock n roll. Before the magazine, the term was used to refer to someone who gets it up the butt in prison.