Punks come from all culture and economic classes. Compared to some subcultures, punk ideology is much closer to
gender equality. Although the punk subculture is mostly
anti-racist, it is overwhelmingly white. However, members of other groups (such as African Americans, other
black people, Latinos, and Asians) have contributed to the development of the subculture. Punks often form a local scene, which can have as few as half a dozen members in a small town, or as many as thousands of in a major city. A local scene usually has a small group of dedicated punks surrounded by a more casual periphery. A typical punk scene is made up of punk and hardcore bands, fans who attend concerts, protests, and other events, zine publishers, reviewers, and other writers, visual artists illustrating zines, and creating posters and album covers, show promoters, and people who work at music venues or
independent record labels.
Squatting plays a role in many punk communities, providing shelter and other forms of support. Squats in abandoned or condemned housing, and communal "punk houses" often provide bands a place to stay while they are touring. Punk houses are often centered on certain political or personal ideologies. It is not uncommon for a punk house to be anarchist, strictly
straight-edge, or
vegan. Punk houses serve as backdrops for local
scenes; punk houses often provide overnight shelter to touring
punk rock bands, and sometimes serve as a venue for shows. Bands or record labels sometimes form in a particular punk house. Many punk houses have associated
punk zines that sometimes share the name of the house. There are some punk
communes, such as Essex's
Dial House. The Internet has been playing an increasingly large role in punk, specifically in the form of
virtual communities and file sharing programs for trading music files.
Authenticity In the punk and hardcore subcultures, members of the scene are often evaluated in terms of the
authenticity of their commitment to the values or philosophies of the scene, which may range from political beliefs to lifestyle practices. In the punk subculture, the epithet
poseur (or "poser") is used to describe "a person who habitually pretends to be something [they are] not." The term is used to refer to a person who adopts the dress, speech, and/or mannerisms of a particular subculture, yet who is deemed to not share or understand the values or philosophy of the subculture. Never one to shy away from criticising the music industry and even punk culture, in Chickenshit Conformist Dead Kennedys opined that "Punk's not dead It just deserves to die When it becomes another stale cartoon...Ideas don't matter, it's who you know.", saying punk was in danger of becoming a "meaningless fad" because people had stopped caring about what they saw as the core values of punk ("Change and caring are what's real"). In particular, metal bands, which were seen as an offshoot, they saw as not only as a sell-out, but as morally repugnant to the core values of punk saying labels were making money by signing "the most racist queerbashing bands they can find." While this perceived inauthenticity is viewed with scorn and contempt by members of the subculture, the definition of the term and to whom it should be applied is subjective. An article in
Drowned in Sound argues that 1980s-era "
hardcore is the true spirit of punk", because "after all the poseurs and fashionistas fucked off to the next trend of skinny pink ties with
New Romantic haircuts, singing wimpy lyrics", the punk scene consisted only of people "completely dedicated to the
DIY ethics". Proto-punk bands such as
the Who,
the Stooges, the Velvet Underground,
Pink Fairies, the Deviants, and
Edgar Broughton Band came out of garage-rock during the late 1960s. Usually, white working-class boys are credited for pioneering the genre, however, there were many women (
Patti Smith,
Siouxsie Sioux) and people of colour (the Specials member) who contributed to the original punk sound and aesthetic. Because the original subculture meant to challenge to the mainstream, and punk movement became major it was brought to the mainstream. If punk is commercialised, it is far from street culture. This is the paradox of punk; as a subculture, it must always be evolving to stay out of the mainstream.
Punk Girls written by
Liz Ham is a
photo-book featuring 100 portraits of Australian women in the punk subculture, and it was published in 2017 by Manuscript Daily. Discrimination against punk subculture is explored with her photographs in the book; these
girls who are not mainstream, but "beautiful and talented". ==Interactions with other subcultures==