MINNEAPOLIS — Local man Brian Meddleson, a 20-year-old who has recently gotten into punk music, is openly debating on whether he will be a ‘don’t give a shit’ type of punk or the ‘really gives a shit about everything’ kind, sources close to the man confirmed.
“I noticed that a lot of punk bands had political themes in their songs and it made me want to get involved and help make a change. I started learning what fascism was and its history, but then when I described what I was learning to people I sounded like an eighth-grade teacher trying to seem cool,” said Meddleson. “So that made me gravitate towards the punk music that was just about getting drunk, doing drugs, and shoplifting. But having to smoke cigarettes I found on the ground made me feel sick all the time, so I’m really struggling to find where I belong in the punk sphere.”
A friend of Meddleson’s described his flip-flopping of punk identity.
“It went from Brian saying kind of cool shit like how the system was rigged and how much money the government gave rich people to him researching the emancipation of the serfs,” said Jake Weller. “He sounded like a total nerd. He would go on and on about the government’s involvement in the drug trade and I felt like I needed to take notes for a test. Then the next week he would be so high from sniffing paint fumes he couldn’t remember his name and kept talking in a fake British accent, I sort of regret introducing him to punk, he was more tolerable when he was into ska.”
According to psychologist Susan Miller, Brian’s oscillation between identities is a recognizable pattern that occurs in communities that are critical of the mainstream.
“There’s no specific term but it’s basically an ‘all or nothing’ philosophy. You’ll see it in activist communities or with vegan subcultures,” said Miller. “You will have some vegans that insist on showing you terrible videos of pigs being slaughtered, or baby chicks being ground into a paste. The opposite end is the vegans who just do it for health reasons and couldn’t care less about animal suffering. They are similar on the surface, but very different at their core.”
At press time, Meddleson had already moved on from his punk phase and was found attending a DND marathon listening to Rhapsody and Dragon Force.