Making this post to gauge how many people are on the same wavelength as me in this regard because I’m toying with the idea of making a community. It’s also just a conversation to be had, I think.
Is anyone else kinda disappointed in the mainstream fandoms of nerdy things and alternative / punk / metal music these days? Honestly the nerd scene always harboured incel types but it’s been quite depressing to see that the alternative scene (at least online, where people are more honest and less polite) has swung conservative. The alternative spaces on mainstream social media are largely people who think there’s been no good music since Metallica, or a game of punk or Joe Rogan fan, goth or Harry Potter fan. And sadly even here on Lemmy, it seems to be on the instance that half of Lemmy is defederated from for right wing shit. And honestly the old guard of artists has been pretty disappointing too. Either apathetic with nothing to say after decades of preaching punching nazis, or making the news for signing bombs or misunderstanding Bruce Springsteen or calling for Charlize Theron to be arrested.
As far as nerd shit goes, the discussion for comic book media and games are an absolute dumpster fire, now more than ever. One that has escalated ever since Gamergate or the Captain Marvel movie. I’m not going to pretend that Supergirl didn’t have any issues. But I’m also not going to pretend that it was bad enough to warrant the extreme reaction, or that I didn’t predict that reaction the moment it was announced based on the pattern, or that the majority of the ‘criticism’ I saw wasn’t basically just men complaining about not finding Millie Alcock personally attractive.
In short, the alternative scene is getting fucked by honorary boomers that would’ve been looking the devil in heavy metal records alongside the republicans and christians in the '80s. And the nerd scene is long overdue for a grrrl riot.
Alt people and nerds have always been kinda overlapped in circles that I’ve been in. And Lemmy is really too small to have a seperate community for every little thing. So I’m thinking of a Blåhaj friendly space for fans of nerdy shit and rebel to post a mix of: music they want others to hear / sci-fi or fantasy or romantacy books they’re reading / comic book related media discussion / gaming discussion without the COD enthusiasts. A safe space for: women, LGBTQIA+ people, non-conformists, metalheads that are more likely to say “we’re not gonna take it” than “don’t tread on me”, punks that prefer Joe Strummer to Johnny Rotten. And an unsafe space for: manosphere dick bags, terfs, conservatives, 'phobes, pearl clutchers, bootlickers, church people, nerds that are terrified of cooties.
Does this interest anyone? I’ve even thought of a cool comic book related name for it. “Danny the Street” is a character from Doom Patrol, a sentient genderqueer street that teleports from place to place, picking up people along the way. The Dannyzens that live on Danny are largely drag queens and trans people and gender non-conformists but also misfit metahumans or anyone that feels like they belong there more than anywhere else. Their enemy is the Bureau of Normalcy, a government agency that seeks to stamp out and eradicate anything that doesn’t conform to white christian cisgender neurotypical standards.
Only problem is that I’ve never made a community or moderated before. And I can’t promise I’ll be around to punch nazis 100% of the time, easpecially if I find a job. So I’ll be both learning as I go along and possibly looking for help if it ever gets busy. It’s a niche of a niche though, so it’ll probably be quiet. I would love a space like this personally, if there are any others like me.
Ok so I think it’s maybe a bit too much to combine all of this stuff together. Comic book spaces here probably don’t need stepping on. I don’t really intend to step on any existing community.
I still think Lemmy could do with one community for rebel music in all its forms. Kind of a sibling to !eternalplaylist@crazypeople.online, which seems like the best friendly spot for general music.
The problem that I have with seperate communities for metal / punk / alternative music personally, is that things cross over and in punk and metal scenes particularly, there tends be a sort of purity checking, and fighting over definitions, and snubbing the crossover subgenres of subgenres that they didn’t grow up with. And general neckbeardism.
So I say fuck that noise, we need a spot for the in betweeners and the general ‘alt’ people and their shitty music tastes. Maybe it’ll just be me and my shitty music taste.
But socio-politically speaking…
Here is how I see punk these days. Particularly the old guard. The 1976 version of Simon Cowell hijacked the emerging rock music scene, and put together a boyband of booger eating crackheads to model fashion and cash in on the next big thing after hippies. This lead to decades of purists arguing about the definition of punk rock and gatekeeping anyone that left the garage. While the truest punk band is actually Blink 182.
The Clash was the exception, not the rule. Joe Strummer is dead and all he managed to do was cast a long shadow. Now we’re left with John Lydon and christian Misfits. I kept hearing Green Day be accused of being posers, now they’re the only rock band I ever see making the news for the right reasons. The most punk musicians with an actual platform that I’ve seen in the last decade are Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish.
And here is how I see metal. Ozzy died and Sharon and Jack immediately flew to white house to shake hands with christian nationalist pedophiles, before announcing AI ghost Ozzy. Phil Anselmo was photographed doing a nazi salute, then Pantera headlined tours. David Draiman signed Israeli bombs. And a lot of metalheads seemed to trade rebellion for the manosphere with ease because it’s still a dick swinger club that never really had a riot.
So yeah, I kinda do want a guaranteed safe space, from the same kind of people that I was escaping from when I got into loud, angry, rebel music in the first place.
After my tour of mainstream social media these last few months, I think the whole alternative scene is in need of a civil war. People spent so much time gatekeeping subgenres and yelling at the kids on the lawn, that they forgot to gatekeep the jocks and bigots and religious fruitcakes.