I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, ever since a similar one went up on the old Hardcore community on the now defunct waveform.social. Basically an introduction/why are we all here, and what’s the point?

Why Punk_Rock?
Like many of you (I assume), I moved over to Lemmy after watching Reddit slowly (or sometimes rapidly) go to shit over the past decade+. From Front Page of the Internet to Digging it’s own grave for that sweet ad revenue. I started this sub-lemmy for two main reasons:

1. At the time, most of the other punk subs on Lemmy hadn’t had new posts in half a year or more, and/or had almost no active members. I wanted to create a sub that was actually active and enticing to people during the great Reddit exodus(es).
2. Most of the punk subs on Reddit were, well… boring. I mean, I get it, for some people listening to Teenage Bottlerocket on repeat for weeks on end has a certain comforting appeal. However, there’s more out there in the big wide world than US Top 40 punk. Reddit has always been famous for headline readers, and it seemed more often than not, that’s all the punk subs were too. Bad Religion or the Interupters get hundreds of upvotes in minutes, likely from people who don’t even click through to listen to the music, but anything unfamiliar would get ignored, or worse, downvoted. That lead to a painfully repetitive catalogue. Some subs tried blacklists or posting guidelines, but it often didn’t seem to make a big difference.

Rules? What do we need rules for?
That’s not to say that you can’t post Bad Religion or whatever else you like here. Feel free. I’d like to keep this place as rules-free as possible. I think, as a whole though, we can do better. What I was always looking for on Reddit was new music. Something I hadn’t heard before. That’s what I’m trying to do here. I want to help people find new favourite bands that rip as hard as what they’re used to. That said, in this sad world we live in, basic ground rules almost always have to be stated:

1. Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Basically just don’t be a degenerate.

There, that was easy wasn’t it?

A quick note about Spotify
Yeah, yeah, it’s convenient. It’s also absolute shit. Spotify is bad for artists, it’s bad for listeners, it’s bad for the internet. You know who Spotify is good for? Spotify shareholders and executives, that’s about it.

That said, I obviously don’t expect everyone to stop using it. Post Spotify links if you must, however there are better alternatives out there. One of the big ones is Bandcamp.com. Users get all the free streaming they want, there are apps in addition to the website, and most importantly, over 80% of the money, on average, goes directly to the artist or label putting out the music. That is why all of my posts (where possible) feature a Bandcamp link. Help support the artists you love whenever you can.

Holy fuck this is wordy
Yeah. Sorry about that. At the end of the day, I never really aspired to mod a community again, and I’m hoping the amount of actual moderation required remains minimal. If everyone sticks to the golden rule Just don’t be a degenerate, we should be fine. So have fun, find new music, post news, scene updates, favourite songs, whatever you’d like (that’s punk related), and hopefully we all come across new and exciting music along the way. Invite your friends, the more the merrier!