Reflections on the outside, looking in

this is me ten years ago, dont laugh, you was young once

I’m at the back of the scuffed wood pub, currently frequented by pea-cocked haired emo fasionistas looking gangly and uncomfortable in their skinny fit cardigans, the music is anonymous metal, just like the rest of the clientele.

Looking round I can see a cross section representation of this whole subculture. I admit since the nineties the lines are blurred, the edges of one group will nap overlap the others but one thing can be said to unite them; their otherness. This subcultures paradox can be summed up by the popular T-Shirt “You laugh because I am different, but I laugh because you are all the same.” The irony being the person wearing the t-shirt is probley a cookie cutter version of the person next to him and most others in their social conclave.

Next to me sit a group of regulars swapping stories of outrage and persecution; it seems weird to me how the rock community choose to belong to this oft sneered minority just to spend time railing against being treated different.

Which begs the question; do we really choose to join this subculture? And when I say we, I include myself, because I have aligned myself this way since school, I went right through the many shades of “rock” Goth, Punk, Hippy, Skater, Greebo and sometimes combinations of them all. Or is it not really a choice at all? Are we born with an inate desire to swim against the mainstream?

A lot us, bullied for petty differences, seek out the company of others, music fuelled by anger and angst become the perfect vent for assumed role of outsider. Others, victims of their own knee-jerk teenage rebellion, fall victim to a corporate constructed “alternative” buying the products, wearing the over priced clothes and drinking the cola that tells them they are “different” or “edgy”. Then there are the genuine freaks, sincere in every atom to the deviant ideals that go hand-in-hand with the dark imagery that most blindly wear as uniform, these fuckers are dangerous and charismatic because of their sincerity but end up mad, dead, or grey husks burnt out by excess. A lot are driven to find family away from their own broken past; they find a pub network of friendly face to replace their abusive and flawed history.

Or is it something simpler? Like the most basic human desire to belong? I grew up in bars like this one, I know the uniform, the dialect, and was even there for some of its history, I know some of the old guard well and even some of the more prominent characters too well. I’m comfortable amongst the freaks where others would be intimidated, and that makes me smile.

I think I was able to write this because I am outside looking in, but was inside looking out. Straddling the line that both sides think is thicker than it actually is.