Two Tribes

A recent Guardian article asked ‘are pop tribes a thing of the past?’ Funny, I was just thinking the same thing myself.

When Husband complains there’s no good music any more I tell him it’s got to be there. It’s just that we don’t know about it, because it’s not meant for us any more. On that basis, maybe I’m wrong about the lack of pop tribes. It might just be my age, but young people look alike to me: all skinny jeans, self-conscious hair, and uniformity.

So I’m halfway through the regular punk-versus-hippie conversation that I have with my sister and I stop and ask my niece what there is now. And she says ‘in terms of style you mean?’ And that is exactly the point. It is only about style now. Once, it meant something.


It meant something about the music you liked, of course, but it meant more: an outlook on life, not just a ‘lifestyle’.

My sister dresses like a hippie because that movement was the first thing that was hers; a safe place. I think like a punk because that was the first thing that was mine; a chance to be myself.

I’m still a punk at heart but I don’t need to prove it by what I wear. What’s the point when everything’s normal nowadays? And anyway, narrow jeans only look good on the young and the thin.

I still see some of my contemporaries in punk fancy dress but to me that’s just like the middle-aged teddy boys I used to see in the 70s. Beside the point.

Why not look like a normal person and let your inner hipness shine through? (Well, I can hope... at any rate, I can guard it like a secret.) The point is how you feel. And I feel the same as I always did.