354: This One Is For My Gull Girls

[Boots Raingear]

[Captain Fargle]

"Salvia Plath" made the soda I was drinking come out my nose so thanks for that.

[Puppy Time]

This is the episode I'm the asshole for because I understand and appreciate the distinctions between all of these. I also have opinions on several different vaporwave subgenres. I haven't felt this attuned to an episode's subject since the root beer reviews episode.

I am extremely wedgieable.

Can you explain the difference among core, wave, and punk, because I'm not convinced there really is one

I'd also be interested in the distinction between, say, goblincore and witchcore, which seem to both be "I like to go hiking and bring home neat rocks."

I kind of vacillate between being supportive of kids making up weird shit for their own sake and being an old person and shaking my cane at them for coming up with increasingly byzantine divisions of subcultures that all seem to be the same.  And/or coming up with labels for things that already have names just those names don't have a silly suffix.

[KingKalamari]

Can you explain the difference among core, wave, and punk, because I'm not convinced there really is one

I'd also be interested in the distinction between, say, goblincore and witchcore, which seem to both be "I like to go hiking and bring home neat rocks."

I kind of vacillate between being supportive of kids making up weird shit for their own sake and being an old person and shaking my cane at them for coming up with increasingly byzantine divisions of subcultures that all seem to be the same.  And/or coming up with labels for things that already have names just those names don't have a silly suffix.

I'm as in the dark as you regarding most of your questions, but I can at least answer what makes the "-punk" suffix distinct (At least in the way it's used on the wiki).

So this completely predates Tumblr and the subculture responsible for this wiki, instead being rooted in the world of speculative fiction, specifically cyberpunk.

The term "cyberpunk" was originally coined in 1983 by author Bruce Bethke to refer to a new generation of "punk" teenagers affected by the technological progress of the Information Age. The term was quickly picked up and used by Bethke's contemporaries (including William Gibson, Neil Stephenson and Bruce Sterling) to refer to their own movement of post-New Wave science fiction that focused on dystopian, post-information age societies that explored themes of anti-authoritarianism as well as societal upheaval and change.

Once cyberpunk rose to public prominence in the late 80s - early 90s, derivative genres began to emerge that also used the "-punk" suffix. This was understandable at first, as most of these early derivatives maintained the anti-authority, "punk" ethos of the original genre but dealt with different varieties of speculative technology. "Biopunk" is probably the best example from this period as its stories typically kept their focus on disaffected or outsider protagonists fighting against deeply authoritarian, technological societies, but with a focus on bio-engineering as opposed to digital technologies.

Where the terminology starts to lose its original significance is Steampunk. The term was originally coined as a joke in the late 80s to refer to the Victorian-themed, retro-futuristic works of authors like Tim Powers, James Blaylock and K. W. Jeter, but sort of took on a life of its own as more authors started to explore similar ideas. While the genre was initially more of a cult-classic within the realm of speculative fiction, it gradually gained in popularity through the 90s and into the early 2000s. While the earliest steampunk works maintained some degree of the original "punk" ethos inherited from the cyberpunk genre, this aspect would slowly become muddled as it became more popular with the genre's visual aesthetics and spectacle (Top hats with gears! Zeppelins! Handlebar moustaches!) garnering far more attention from imitators than the political ethos that originally the defined the "-punk" derivative genres.

The popularity of steampunk would end up affecting the general naming conventions of retro-futuristic speculative fiction and led to a rise in genre imitators that applied steampunk's whole "Science fiction technology derived from Victorian-era engineering and aesthetics" to other historical eras. Thus you had things like "Dieselpunk" which focused on the interwar period of the early 20th century; "Stonepunk", which focuses on early humanity; or "Sandalpunk", which focuses on the classical era.

And that is how the "-punk" suffix evolved from something that was used to refer to works specifically inspired by the ethos of the original punk movement, to something you stick on the end of a word you like to make your amateur speculative fiction seem more distinct and interesting!

[Puppy Time]

While I appreciate the effortpost I still don't understand what distinguishes it from the other suffixes :(

Edit: Unrelated, but I'm distraught that they had a perfectly good opportunity to say "unicore" and instead went with the wet fart of "unicorn core"

Edit2: Oh, there's a question I know the answer to!

"Pick Mes" are a weird trend I understand originates from the Black community of the US, sort of the Extreme Femme cousin to the Not Like Other Girls. A Pick Me likes to put down other girls by bragging about how she's amazing at both looking attractive AND doing Wife Things, as well as ready, willing, and excited to completely subsume her entire identity into serving her husband, and therefore clearly the superior choice for girlfriend, because you don't date people for their personality. Tends to be incel-level bitter that she hasn't gotten picked. 

Here's a fun video on the topic

[Mix]

I can answer a bit about the other two!

x-wave originates mostly from chillwave, which was a genre of music back in the 2000s that was basically taking stuff like electropop, new wave, shoegaze, etc, but with a more relaxed, nostalgic vibe. The actual term itself was coined as a kind of joke about how a lot of this music sounds like the stuff you'd hear from 80s tv marathons or vhs tapes or what have you. it was one of the first musical genres to develop primarily online (compared to a lot of the stuff that inspired it), and was pretty much the origin point for a lot of other stuff that would follow, most notably vaporwave, which is literally just chillwave but, like, ironic.

x-core also has musical origins, specifically hardcore punk music, which was distinct from regular punk rock because it was a lot faster, more aggressive, and "harder"- leaning closer to stuff like metal. When this genre kept expanding a lot of musical artists kept the 'core' part, mostly because of what had influenced them, which is how we started getting stuff like metalcore, synthcore, breakcore, and so on- its kind of like how there's all those genres of music with 'step' at the end (techstep, darkstep, etc), because they share a similar origin point but use the first half of the genre to differentiate themselves.

The thing is, these differences were pretty much only important to actual musicians who wanted to make it really distinct what they were trying to go for, whereas the average listener isn't really going to care what the differences between drum and base, jungle, breakbeat, or happycore are.

[EYE OF ZA]

There's no coherent difference between -core, -wave and -punk, because these genres tend to be self-defined, so they'll use idiosyncratic but similar terminology. A good example: the "synth" in synthwave is different from the "synth" in dungeon synth. Synthwave is 80's pop/power metal, dungeon synth is old-school computer RPG soundtracks. But there's rough trends you can make out in each of them:

"Core" can mean some kind of relation to hardcore music, or more generally an aggressive mood ("witchcore" would be hardcore but applied to witchy stuff, for instance), but mostly it's the suffix you append to the name of your genre, because it is "core" to being whatever. Like it's saying "this is core-essential witch content."
 
"Wave" is what softer or more pop-influenced genres get named. Synthwave, vaporwave and sovietwave are all specifically doing pop music nostalgia, from 80's action soundtracks, 90's muzak, and 70's/80's Russian disco-pop. Sometimes it's an ancestral trait: fashwave is named that because it's fascist-themed synthwave, like how laborwave is leftist-themed vaporwave.

"Punk" is the most vague, because it can be coming from punk or punk rock music like folk punk ("I like Woodie Guthrie and I have an abrasive voice, here's a song about boycotts."), from a punk-influenced genre like cyberpunk ("I like synthwave, but slightly queerer."), from a genre that happens to have punk in the name like steampunk ("What if I sang a rap about an airship?") and from something you just came up with, like mythpunk ("This song is about Persephone but she has tattoos.") The clearest thing I can say about -punk is that it makes things grungier.

Although I've never heard goblincore, I imagine it's more nihilistic and ironic than witchcore. Goblincore is having a hoard of shiny rocks, witchcore is collecting twigs to sell as sigils; witchcore would be darker and more mysterious, while goblincore would have more kitsch.

[Deep 13]

I'm genuinely loving the music discussion, as I've often wondered the difference between -core, -wave and -punk.

As for all the crazy variations in the episode, the closest I'd come in to contact with a lot of this before now was youtube going "Hey, you like this song? What if it was a sea shanty? What if it was in medieval style?"

Great episode, and I loved the Intern's diversion into the exciting world of slime products.

[ham burger]

two things about this episode:

• i have never felt more like i was leaving my body during an episode of the f plus than during the intern’s diversion into slime products, it felt like reality was breaking down around me or my brain was dying or something, absolutely transcendental
• something about the people who wrote this wiki makes them so much more contemptible to me than basically any other subjects that have ever been covered. i think it’s the like... intense pretension and stupidity of all of it. i generally find fiddly niche genre obsession absolutely exhausting to begin with. i djed at clubs for over a decade and wound up trapped in so many discussions with nerds who wanted to spiral into these intense discussions about the lineage of music that was largely just utilitarian untz untz that really didn’t have staying power, so i feel like i’m super sensitive to this specific variety of annoying. it’s fabulous that you’re playing finnish speed kazoo garage and tending towards soy latte 2-step, yes, this is very interesting. what do i play? me? music, probably. that’s the plan tonight at least.

while i don’t deny there’s value in categorizing stuff, a lot of this intense detailed obsession often feels like making up for a gap in just having the experience and taking it for what it is. i think it’s a lot harder to get tangled up in fiddly details when you’re just like, at a show, and you hear something, and you’re trading tracks around with folks. it was always the bedroom dj kids who would have these insane encyclopedic knowledge, and they’d be super obsessed with things like the specific bpms of tracks or whatever and get lost in the sauce of showing that all off. nobody would dance.

[Puppy Time]

Having lived through the time when a bunch of kids were making up niche genders, I'm a lot more forgiving of kids making up niche aesthetic subcultures, even if their apparent differences are on the level of, "No, that one's 'eggshell,' this one's 'off white.'"

I will say I have no idea what sovietwave aesthetic looks like but the music is lovely.

[ham burger]

Having lived through the time when a bunch of kids were making up niche genders, I'm a lot more forgiving of kids making up niche aesthetic subcultures, even if their apparent differences are on the level of, "No, that one's 'eggshell,' this one's 'off white.'"

I will say I have no idea what sovietwave aesthetic looks like but the music is lovely.

that was a very dark swing for the internet. even by internet standards, it flew past “acceptance and understanding” and directly into “appropriating in a way that actually sets real people back in being accepted and understood” in absolute record time.

[Puppy Time]

I mean, I don't disagree, but I'm also not sure that it's okay to lay all the responsibility for that on dumb 13 year olds who are trying to figure out this gender and sexuality shit, which is what that mostly was.  I feel like a lot of the people who would refuse to accept a gender/sexuality because "look at these dumb teenagers over here" were probably not all that inclined to be accepting in the first place and were just looking for an excuse. I really don't think that we'd be in a significantly different place as a culture if that hadn't been going on.

At the end of the day, kids are going to do really boneheaded stuff because they barely any idea what's going on and they're trying to figure it out for themselves. They definitely should have it explained to them when they're fucking up, but at the same time I feel like it's something we should be a bit more kind about.

And also probably gently poke fun at them because they're being silly.

[Macho Masc Sangy Savage]

So what would FPlus core be? Red, black, green, lots of circles, clean crisp vectors paired with blown out artifact text.

And dolphins, of course

[Muffinator]

oh no I know what a bunch of this stuff is

it's me, it took years, but the fplus came into my home and shot me in the face

[jim and the mammograms]

Same tbh. Had a strong impulse last night to write a "okay i KNOW cripplepunk sounds bad but at least in my sensible corners of the internet it mostly just describes actual disabled people working their assistive devices into their fashion instead of having a Look and also an ugly boring cane they hate so i feel like it's more quote unquote valid than a lot of shit on here" comment, but then had a moment of self-reflection and went to lie down for a bit.