Today's Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk

[Coventina]

“Mr. Mitchell, how do we access the punk?”

That’s what a student asked at Emerson College in Boston after a recent screening of my 2006 film, “Shortbus,” which chronicles a real-life bohemian New York City art and sex salon scene that flourished before most of the college-age viewers in the hall were born. When the film was rereleased a few years ago, I sensed that members of this younger, judgier generation loved it but felt: There’s got be something to cancel about it! Last year a young woman asked me if the story of an Asian woman, the protagonist of “Shortbus,” seeking an orgasm was “my story to tell.” I replied, trying not to sound defensive, “Through the alchemy of writer and performer, it became our story to tell.” She smiled, but only with her mouth.

This year’s students felt different: more scared, more open, potentially more radical? They know they need new skills to confront the very real possibility of a post-democratic America. In other words, they need to find their sense of punk. And I was here to help.

I self-booked (I used to be a tour de force; now I’m forced to tour) a 14-college speaking tour for this spring semester, armed with my films “Shortbus” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and my newer podcast sitcom, “Cancellation Island,” in which Holly Hunter plays the founder of a rehab for canceled people. It satirizes a form of mob justice that quickly breaks down in the face of the existential threat of Hurricane Taylor — renamed Hurricane Beyoncé, “in the spirit of impending diversity.” I played excerpts; the professors laughed too loudly while the students appeared politely confused.

The tour kicked off after President Trump’s second inauguration, and the professors who’d invited me were in a panic. They were risking their jobs to discuss the arrests of student protesters and funding threats, but they also found it difficult to talk about the disunity that’s resulted from a well-intentioned culture that has fetishized a progressive purity not found in nature and sought to slice us up into ever more specific identities carefully ranked by historical oppression. As one professor whispered to me, “We did Trump’s work for him: divided ourselves so he could conquer.” After all, you can’t cancel an aspiring despot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/opinion/gen-z-punk.html?

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Donning my kevlar panties now......

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. lol there is a LOT going on in this piece. Many young people have a thriving DIY/mutual aid/community building ethos

...but parachuting in to campuses and telling them not to cancel each other is not exactly the way to plug into it.

[JI7]

2. There is a problem with not talking normally about things

and the whole oppression thing. There are many cases where you can and should just say this was wrong in itself but becsuse the aggressor/victim are part of certain groups it's turned into some analysis of why this isn't what it is.

I remember there was a story of a young white guy referring to his friend who was also white with the n word ending in a. I thought it was stupid but was it being racist or just how some young people talk. Yes. it sounded stupid but does it have to go beyond that ?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. .

I thought it was stupid but was it being racist or just how some young people talk.

Why not both? Could be both!

it sounded stupid but does it have to go beyond that ?

It's okay to tell someone they sound racist and then say you don't want to hang out with them anymore because they are or sound racist. Not sure if that's "some analysis of why this isn't what it is" tho

[JI7]

4. The example I gave is guy friends saying it to each other

They don't say it to others and if they did then that would be different.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Some friends say racist shit to each other all the time.

Are they "talking normally" with each other or not?

[Sympthsical]

6. A position that is dogmatic, puritanical, and unpopular.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. What is -- saying something racist, or saying "hey, that's racist"? Is "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" not punk anymore?

[Sympthsical]

9. There's nothing punk about dogmatism

Particularly when it disallows for humanity.

It’s the opposite of punk, and a tragedy when some embrace such an inversion without clarity.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. Walk me through how saying "hey, that's racist" disallows someone's humanity.

It’s the opposite of punk, and a tragedy when some embrace such an inversion without clarity.

Speaking of clarity, could you also walk me through what an "inversion of clarity" is, as well as why calling out racism is the opposite of punk? This is fantastic.

[Sympthsical]

12. Busting out Nazis for that example is ridiculously out of proportion

And has no regard for how humans actually exist. No one likes it.

Righteousness for the sake of righteousness is for the sake of the bearer rather than the enrichment of others. It makes no progress, it knows no pragmatism, it proactively disforgives people for being people.

It is like vigorous masturbation that believes a baby will result. It feels great, but it’s still going straight down the toilet.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. dude I'm just quoting a punk song that people did actually like

Righteousness for the sake of righteousness is for the sake of the bearer rather than the enrichment of others

If someone says “hey that’s racist,” and it both pisses the other person off AND helps them realize they said something racist, is that truly righteous or unpragmatic disforgiveness?

[Sympthsical]

8. We have given young people liberal politics with a reactionary disposition

And so when dogmatism reigns and that temperament veers towards a more natural home in reactionary politics, we’re surprised.

Not sure why. We trained this generation to be this way. And as they drift starboard, we tear out our hair and ask what captain has obliged this.

But it’s our hands that have been on the till a long while now.

[misanthrope]

11. My nominee for the new played out pop culture word of the decade: "punk"

I hear it thrown around all the time and in such general ways that I can already sense it losing any specific meaning. Before long, it will become a punch line. As someone who remembers when The Ramones first entered mainstream consciousness, please just make this new trend stop.

[Beastly Boy]

14. I also laughed too loudly reading the article,

and then went on to reading some apparently confused responses.

Life imitates life.