Becoming Different: A Concave Subcultural Pattern

Abstract

I am standing just outside the provisional entrance to the university gym that will soon host seven punk bands. The group of participants organizing the show is wary, three of the bands playing are from Malaysia and Singapore and they are afraid that the “punks” will give the organizers a bad reputation. “Punks” is the word they use to refer to other kinds of participants who do not share their vision of what punk should be, including those who have given punk a bad name through parties and fights. Yet now, most of them are here, a bunch of them sitting in the stairwell below me, drinking, singing, and laughing. Emas, one of the organizers, is also watching them, shaking his head in disbelief. Clean shaven, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, he looks like one of the students who we met when we unloaded the equipment. He does not drink, and neither do his friends; one of the main arguments for this is that they believe that drugs and alcohol, just as a focus on style, have destroyed punk and turned it into something it is not supposed to be. Just before the doors open I see the punks in the stairwell loudly pass a bottle of arak around while putting on their leather jackets and getting ready. In front of me the group of organizers has gathered in the hallway, quietly passing a black marker around, drawing large Xs, the sign for being straight edge, on their hands. For them the separation between groups is now established; for the punks in the stairwell, it is just strange (Field notes, Indonesia, Jan. 2005).