Generation Lost: Resignation, Rupture, and the Infinite Realities of Post-Future Punk

This chapter explores static temporalisation and the perception of ‘lost futures’ in punk, focusing on how issues of authenticity and resistance in punk are inextricably tied to collective memory and the lived experience of differing generations. What has been traditionally classified as punk and conceived and expressed through punk has been occluded through the proliferation of neoliberalism and corporate commodification. Furthermore, I contend that the ‘conscious linkages’ of neoliberalism and capitalist realism have effectively burrowed in and corrupted the millennial worldview. Put simply, the governing ideology and internal logic of capital is ‘profit over people.’ As the working class and people of marginalised identities—groups which constitute the foundation of punk as an ever-evolving subculture—continue to fall through the cracks, this governing ideology is reinforced. Additionally, our current state of instability and uncertainty in the face of a global pandemic only serves to widen these cracks even further. Using examples of music releases from 2020, I will show how three particular artists, through their music, seek to reclaim punk as a movement for youth culture, one that embraces ideological struggle, the spectre of possibility, and the infinite realities of lost futures.