A London punk diary on shared faith, real spirit, and the balance the scene taught me
Punk was supposed to be for the outsiders, the ones the mainstream shut out, and this December I discovered the season I spent years sneering at is built on the exact same idea: a thing that belongs to everyone, crosses every border, and shuts nobody out. I am Siobhan, London punk, and it turns out Christmas was more inclusive than my scene ever managed to be.
A story that crosses every border
Punk likes to think it invented the idea of belonging to no establishment and every outsider. But the season got there first. The thoughtful piece on how the nativity figures appear across faiths, including in Islam shows a story that refuses to belong to one tribe, one faith, one gated community, crossing borders and traditions the way a good scene should but rarely does. That is more genuinely inclusive than most punk spaces, which talk endlessly about being for everyone and then quietly police who really belongs. The season’s founding story is shared across faiths and cultures, owned by no single group, which is the most punk thing about it, and something my scene could learn.
I say this as someone who has watched punk gatekeep as fiercely as any establishment, deciding who is punk enough, who really belongs. The nativity does not gatekeep. It belongs to everyone who wants it, across every border, which is the inclusive ideal punk preaches and the season actually practices.
My genuinely defiant personal week
Let me report on the state of me. I called out a scene veteran this week for gatekeeping, for deciding a new kid was not punk enough, and it caused a proper row, because nothing angers a gatekeeper like being told the scene is supposed to be for everyone. I stood my ground. The new kid stayed. That is the punk I actually believe in: the one that shuts nobody out, that belongs to whoever needs it, that crosses every border of who is cool enough to belong. The scene should be a stable with room for everyone, not an exclusive inn.
According to the broadcasters, the most enduring cultural movements are the ones that include rather than exclude, which punk preaches and the border-crossing nativity actually embodies.
The real spirit under the noise
Strip the tinsel off Christmas and the leather off punk and you find the same thing underneath, named plainly in the North Pole’s piece on the real spirit of Christmas. Generosity, welcome, looking after the outsider. That is the real spirit of the season and the real spirit of every good scene: not the aesthetic, not the noise, but the care, the welcome, the refusal to let anyone stand alone. I spent years thinking punk invented that welcome. It did not. The season had it first, and my scene, at its best, is just rediscovering it, loudly, in basements, with worse haircuts.
The real spirit of both is the same: take in the outsider, share what you have, make room. Punk performs it. The season means it. And at their best, they are the same operation, the same refusal to leave anyone in the cold.
The balance the scene taught me
What punk actually taught me, underneath the noise, is balance, which the North Pole has a gentle piece about, on finding balance in a crazy world. Balance is holding the anger and the care at once, the defiance and the welcome, the loud rejection of the establishment and the quiet inclusion of the outsider. A scene that is all anger and no care curdles into cruelty. A scene that is all welcome and no edge goes soft. The balance, the anger in service of the welcome, is what makes punk worth anything, and it is exactly the balance the season strikes: the fierce rejection of the worried king and the tender welcome of the outsider, held together.
According to the Royal Parks people, London’s shared winter spaces belong to everyone, which is the establishment stumbling toward the balance punk and the season both know: fierce about inclusion, tender toward the outsider.
Gatekeeping is just a worried king in a leather jacket
Here is the thing that took me years to see. The scene veteran deciding who is punk enough is doing the exact thing punk was invented to oppose. He is a small worried king, guarding his little territory, terrified of the new kid the way every frightened power fears the newcomer. The gatekeeper in the leather jacket and the tyrant on the throne have the identical psychology: both are so anxious about losing their grip that they shut the door on whoever might threaten it. And the season’s story sees straight through both, siding always with the outsider at the door, the traveller turned away, the one the frightened establishment has no room for. Real punk, like the real spirit of the season, is on the side of the one being shut out, not the one doing the shutting. Every time I catch a gatekeeper policing who belongs, I see a worried king in a bad jacket, and I remember that the whole point was to keep the door open, not to appoint ourselves its guards.
Where the punk lands
So I will keep calling out the gatekeepers, keep making room for the new kids, and keep noticing that the season I sneered at is built on the most punk idea there is: a thing that belongs to everyone, crosses every border, and shuts nobody out. The nativity does not gatekeep. The real spirit is the welcome. And the balance, anger in service of inclusion, is what punk and the season both, at their best, get right. I like Christmas. I like it inclusive, border-crossing, defiant about welcome, with room for everyone in the stable. The eyeliner stays on. The door stays open. And nobody gets shut out on my watch.
For more scene chaos, The Hard Times keeps the door open.
