"We need white boys to start bands in their parents' garages again," the desperate posts cry—usually in response to some nostalgic resurfaced clip of Green Day or Linkin Park performing in the early 2000s. Sometimes the sentiment appears beneath footage of whatever young, buzzy, and arguably culturally appropriative white rapper is currently having a moment (this summer, that honor went to Ian). Other times it pops up under a podcast clip of a group of white guys opining on modern feminism or offering step-by-step guides to "looksmaxxing" and achieving alpha-male status.
This recurring garage-band demand asks whether we'll ever return to a time when white men in pop culture didn't need to rely on cultural appropriation or provocation to stay relevant. It wonders if we'll go back to the late '90s and early 2000s, when the most influential white male figures weren't subjugating minorities or mining them for their sounds and aesthetics, but instead were committing to guitar-led bands that provided an angsty, pop-punk soundtrack to anti-establishment sentiments that defined the post-9/11 era. And this year, to some widely felt relief, bands like Geese and Wallows, along with artist Djo, have stepped in to fill that cultural gap. |
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