When I first got into punk, I—like most people—fell for it hard. I got the clothes, listened to the music, and absorbed the subculture however I could, whether that be going to shows, record stores, or reading any zine I could get my hands on. I took my new found subculture seriously and felt that I had finally found a place where I could belong.

In the summer of 10^th grade, I was riding high on a wave of tapes swapped with friends and new records that I bought with my own money. Sure, most of the music I had was crap, but I had found my place. At the time, I accepted a few things as truisms in punk: 1) that the punk scene was free of the gossip and social hierarchy that existed in high school (it wouldn’t take more than a few more months to realize that this wasn’t the case and that punk has its own hierarchies based on who is in bands, who does shows, and who buys alcohol for the underage kids); 2) that all punks were straight edge (this illusion of course came crashing down when I attended my first basement show); and 3) that pop punk was the greatest music genre of all time (with ska shortly behind).

And pop punk (by this I mean what is referred to by The Mr. T Experience’s phrase “songs about girls”) it was. If it was released on Lookout Records or Mutant Pop, you can be sure I had it somewhere on tape. What teenage misfit wouldn’t resonate with bands like The Queers, Screeching Weasel, The Mr. T Experience, The Connie Dungs, and Sicko. I found the soundtrack to my miserable high school life in those bands. “I was a High School Psychopath” by Screeching Weasel captured the rage that I felt towards (most) of my classmates, The Mr. T Experience sang forlorn songs of unrequited loves, The Queers’ sang “Punk Rock Girls,” and Digger sang “Geek Love” about the popular girls that would never look my way. I even glossed over my lifelong atheism to embrace MXPX’s “Move to Bremerton,” while Weston held it down for the unpopular “clumsy shy kid” and Homegrown was a daily listen.

What amazes me now is how offensive a lot of this music was. At the time, I didn’t really realize it, although you would have to think that it should have been obvious. In most of this genre, women were reduced to objects who were subject to never ending objectification and male gaze. It was OK—according to these songs—to leer and lust at women at shows, they were objects of affection and desire, not active participants in the scene. Women were largely stripped of their identities—they were simply “girlfriends.” The “problems” of the adolescent male—no doubt middle class and white—were the defining issue and those problems mainly concerned women. And of course, hetero-normitivity was the rule. If I listen to a lot of this stuff today, I cringe. While I thought that I was learning new ways of thinking, I was really just absorbing stereotypical male gender roles in a slightly more underground package.

I wish I could say that one day I just woke up and realized how pointless most of this pop punk was, but it wouldn’t be that easy. It took a few years of listening to it before I would come to this realization. All my friends liked pop punk and they had more access to music than I did, so that is what I heard. But things slowly began to change. I got a Bad Religion CD—from the library of all places—and started to realize that punk could be about something more. If pop-punk songs about girls struck a chord, political punk songs resonated more. I began to notice that a lot of the alienation I felt in high school wasn’t just about high school social politics, it was about the structures of society. I began to question the segregated nature of my high school (we were the “smart” kids given the best the district had to offer while the “bad” kids were housed next door in a decaying old building) and I began to notice the extreme poverty in the neighborhoods where the punk shows were. Moreover, I noticed that police harassment wasn’t just something that “the punx” had to worry about when they were drinking in public, but that it was a system of social control that primarily targeted people of color.

While it was hard to get political punk in my social circle—most of it rejected the “p.c. punk” of “the crusties,” I would occasionally get something and each time it was a window to a new world. A friend gave me a Propagandhi record—it was too political for him—and it blew my mind. They didn’t just sing about political topics (many of which I had never considered before masculinity, the occupation of Palestine, the G7), but they advocated active involvement. The ska band Against All Authority was popular in my circle, although I kind of doubt that my friends actually listened to the lyrics. But it provided me with a rudimentary introduction to anarchism. At the same time, involvement in the zine underground exposed me to radical politics and political projects undertaken by punk kids. Someone even gave me a Crass tape—I couldn’t really take the music—but it did get me thinking about feminism.

Of course, living in Grand Rapids, being in high school, and having friends who loved pop punk all made it hard to get involved beyond the music. I eagerly attended protests when I heard about them—for example against Clinton’s bombing of Iraq in 1998—but they were few and far between. Again, being Grand Rapids, the protests tended to be disempowering affairs featuring predominately older folks leftover from the sixties with few people my own age. All we did was stand and hold signs, but it felt good to be standing up for something for the first time in my life. I attended a couple anti-police brutality protests after they were promoted in the punk scene and was truly inspired by those. Seeing folks my age or a few years older takeover the streets made an impression—and it was a significant break from the stale and predictable protests that I had attended before.

In the intervening years, I would have less and less time for pop punk. “Songs about girls” seemed so trivial in light of what was going on in the world and as I delved deeper and deeper into political punk, I grew to appreciate the DIY network of bands, publications, political collectives, and punk houses. I started to develop opinions about political and social issues, I actually began to read, and I began to consider how my behavior as a white male-bodied individual could silence and oppress others. I started to think about my ecological footprint, I rode my bike more, I became vegetarian, and I shunned consumerism. After missing out on the Seattle WTO protests (nobody to go with), I would finally get involved in anarchist politics.

Thankfully, I eventually grew out of the pop punk phase. Political punk turned me on to new ways of living and gave me the push I needed to finally fight back against this destructive culture. It was the political bands—Fifteen, The Broadways, Antiproduct, Antischism, Conflict, Oi Polloi—and a host of others that had the most profound effect on my development. They convinced me that we can say “no” to what this society offers and that we can create meaningful alternatives in the here and now. That DIY punk can be a force for change, not just a way of alleviating teenage angst. That punk should be positive and left leaning rather than reactionary and nihilistic. And through all of what I have been lucky enough to do in my life, it has been those bands that have been playing in my head. I’m glad to be humming Fifteen in the garden, Oi Polloi’s “Anarcho Pie” when I’m cooking, and thinking of Aus-Rotten lyrics while dodging tear gas.

If I was still listening to pop punk, I suppose I’d still be crying over that girl in study hour who wouldn’t give me the time of day.

Note: To those who know me, I do of course still listen to genuine pop punk and consider many pop punk bands—Crimpshrine, Operation: Cliff Clavin, Pinhead Gunpowder, and Dillinger Four—to be among my favorites. But, thankfully I no longer find a connection with bands like The Mr. T Experience and th