You Can't Be Punk and Also Be Racist, Sexist, Homophobic or Transphobic

About

You Can't Be Punk and Also Be Racist, Sexist, Homophobic or Transphobic refers to a piece of art by HE Creative depicting a punk girl in an "Against Me!" shirt pointing to a sign that reads, "You can't be punk and also be: racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic! It's impossible." The artwork began to spread on social media, including sites like Reddit, in August 2020, often inciting debates, arguments and discussions about what it means to be punk when posted. It then became the subject of edits and reposts over the following years as an exploitable meme format and gained an increase in attention in September 2024 after an X / Twitter user made a post calling Elon Musk "punk."

Origin

The "You Can't Be Punk" art was created by design studio HE Creative^[1] on an unknown date prior to August 30th, 2020. The artwork may have been created to advertise a print that they sell on their website^[2] that reads, "You can't be punk and also be: racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic! It's impossible."

The earliest known repost of the art, which shows a punk girl pointing at the print, was posted to the subreddit /r/punk^[3] on August 30th, 2020, titled, "Just a reminder for those who forgot," garnering over 15,000 upvotes in four years. The post garnered over 1,400 comments in the same span of time, many of which were argumentative.

On August 31st, the drama started by the post was notable enough to inspire a Reddit post on /r/SubredditDrama,^[4] titled, "r/punk descends into philosophical debate about what it means to be punk after user says that you can’t be punk if you’re racist, homophobic, transphobic."

Spread

The image garnered viral spread over the following years, also inspiring edits. On September 11th, 2020, an edit of the meme reading, "you can't be punk it's dead" was posted to the subreddit /r/tumblr^[5] that garnered over 1,200 upvotes in four years. On June 11th, 2022, the original meme was posted to /r/lgbt,^[6] garnering over 7,000 upvotes in two years.

On November 12th, 2022, a redraw of the meme was posted to /r/Hardcore^[7] that replaces the text "it's impossible" with "you have to be all of them together," joking that you can't be punk unless you are racist, sexist, transphobic and homophobic, garnering over 460 upvotes in two years.

"Elon Is Punk" Post

On September 16th, 2024, X^[8] user @josiahhughes made a post sharing an AI-generated image of Elon Musk with a punk haircut along with a caption about how Musk is a punk, garnering over 4,400 likes and 3,500 reposts in three days.

Later that day, X^[9] user @ShelleyBWoke posted the image as a quote-reply, garnering over 89,000 likes in the same span of time. The original post was also reposted to /r/punk^[10] the next day, garnering over 5,400 upvotes in two days.

On September 19th, 2024, X^[11] user @josiahhughes posted a piece of art referencing the Musk post, as well as the "you can't be punk" art, sharing a similar artwork in which the punk girl and Musk himself point at a sign reading, "Say no to gatekeeping! Punk is for everyone," garnering over 5,900 likes in under a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References