In the final week of Anti-Matter's anniversary month: I ask: Is our rush to conflate hardcore’s “tough guy” aesthetic with the threat of real violence keeping us from realizing just how tough we are?
I don’t know why I have never made this connection before but maybe all of those years going to hardcore shows, navigating violence and aggression, gave me the foundation for my career in education. It’s really interesting because I work with autistic students, many are limited or nonverbal. Often the violence and aggression of my students is their communication, and I am continually working at giving them verbal language to express themselves. Some of these kids are two and three times bigger than me with superhuman strength and I am never scared or get burnt out. I love everything about it…now I know why! Thanks for the clarity.
I'd never really thought about how toughness in hardcore emerged from necessity before, but on reflection it makes complete sense. I had a safe, stable home life and didn't grow up in an especially dangerous neighborhood, but I think about all of the shit my friends and I would get for being different and violence (or the threat of it) *was* omnipresent. It took a really long time to move on from that feeling of constant vigilance.
On a lighter, t-shirt related note: When I was in high school, I came to class one day in a Minor Threat t-shirt with the "bottled violence" illustration from the back of the first 7" on it, and one of my teachers expressed concern that it might be glorifying alcohol abuse. I don't think they knew why I laughed so hard at that.
I remember that shirt and the drama surrounding it... sad that our community was connected to such a terrible situation.
"...hardcore did allow me to access parts of my psyche that were, at the very least, tougher"
Agreed. I wasn't tough until we started our own S.H.A.R.P. chapter in Virginia Beach to combat our local Nazi and Navy thugs that came to shows and needed our teenage fists to slow them down a bit.
Thanks for tackling this topic, it's a really tough and complex one.
I'm interested to read Thursday's interview. I do have some preconceived notions about Speed and what they represent, but I hope the interview will complicate my view of them in a good way. Looking forward to it.
Great article as always. Really interesting to think about Speed trying to counter media and public stereotypes of Asians as weak, thin, etc. Pretty rad.
I remember the controvery around the shooting and SOIA but don't think I ever read that LTE. They killed it. It almost reads as a manifesto for SOIA.
I don’t know why I have never made this connection before but maybe all of those years going to hardcore shows, navigating violence and aggression, gave me the foundation for my career in education. It’s really interesting because I work with autistic students, many are limited or nonverbal. Often the violence and aggression of my students is their communication, and I am continually working at giving them verbal language to express themselves. Some of these kids are two and three times bigger than me with superhuman strength and I am never scared or get burnt out. I love everything about it…now I know why! Thanks for the clarity.
Now that I have slept on this, I am entirely convinced it is a skillset that should be added to resumes.
I'd never really thought about how toughness in hardcore emerged from necessity before, but on reflection it makes complete sense. I had a safe, stable home life and didn't grow up in an especially dangerous neighborhood, but I think about all of the shit my friends and I would get for being different and violence (or the threat of it) *was* omnipresent. It took a really long time to move on from that feeling of constant vigilance.
On a lighter, t-shirt related note: When I was in high school, I came to class one day in a Minor Threat t-shirt with the "bottled violence" illustration from the back of the first 7" on it, and one of my teachers expressed concern that it might be glorifying alcohol abuse. I don't think they knew why I laughed so hard at that.
I remember that shirt and the drama surrounding it... sad that our community was connected to such a terrible situation.
"...hardcore did allow me to access parts of my psyche that were, at the very least, tougher"
Agreed. I wasn't tough until we started our own S.H.A.R.P. chapter in Virginia Beach to combat our local Nazi and Navy thugs that came to shows and needed our teenage fists to slow them down a bit.
Thanks for tackling this topic, it's a really tough and complex one.
I'm interested to read Thursday's interview. I do have some preconceived notions about Speed and what they represent, but I hope the interview will complicate my view of them in a good way. Looking forward to it.
Great article as always. Really interesting to think about Speed trying to counter media and public stereotypes of Asians as weak, thin, etc. Pretty rad.
I remember the controvery around the shooting and SOIA but don't think I ever read that LTE. They killed it. It almost reads as a manifesto for SOIA.