A big part of being a teenager is trying to figure out who you are and what exactly you find a solid interest in. For some like me, it’s finding that solitude in punk rock and its subcultures within the counterculture. But as much as this specific community is about being open with yourself within it you can find people trying to control who exactly gets to be a part of it. This can be known as gatekeeping and its gatekeepers can be found literally anywhere. Whether it's a musical counterculture and there are people who are blasting new fans at a show for not knowing an obscure artist from 40 years ago that will condescendingly tell you that they are “the forefathers of punk rock and if you don’t know who they are then you should have thought twice before putting that band tee on because they are basically who they pulled inspiration from.” Or whether it's online and it’s attacking someone who could be a fan of literally anything else. No matter where you turn there will be someone who knows more than you do about something and tries to shame you for it. It’s wrong since most of the people who get trapped within it are younger people or just new fans that take a genuine interest in a topic and I personally feel that takes away the right from people to explore things that they wouldn’t normally get to be a part of. And they don’t get to see what lies behind a community of common interests that are being pushed out by angry people that want to take ownership of a hobby.

Now people who may defend this may think that what they are doing is keeping people who won’t take what they claim to understand and enjoy seriously and that all an outsider would do is make a mockery of the beloved creation in mind. But the irony of it is, by not letting people be involved in the communities as these communities were made for people to enjoy and spread the word around they are the ones that are making a mockery of what they claim to love. People create things to get their words, their opinions, their thoughts out into the world and by road blocking a writer, or a musician or an artist from doing that takes away potential support that fans usually want for them. Especially since a lot of these people will talk about how the bands the like are too underrated but fail to spread the word in case a “poseur” will look into them and “taint” their down to earth image.

And as someone who has a deep love for rock and roll, and has also been berated for “daring to like something that I am so unqualified for” is outrageous. I cannot count the number of times that I have walked into a Guitar Center and told to get out of the guitar section and into the bass section because some guys think that I couldn’t possibly play guitar when I have been playing for over two years now. This isn’t protecting anything. It’s being a mean spirited bully and being counterproductive towards the things gatekeepers say that they enjoy. Why make a teen girl feel bad for looking at guitars other than to stop anything but growth and the possibility of being a new voice out in the world? Or spam a stranger online with horrible comments on how they are wrong because they haven’t read Edgar Allan Poe’s first story. Because within their web of snobbery, lies a deeper fear that they will get showed up so they put others down in spite of their own insecurity.

As much as not caring is the “cure” to gatekeeping, it’s easier said than done. To impressionable teens their first interactions with a community shape how they see it. Someone pushes them out they either push other people as a way to make people hurt the way people made them hurt or they reject it completely and make fun at people that enjoy the space. But as a whole when it comes to anything is just let people like what’s in front of them and enjoy similarities without the expectation of knowing anything else that way there isn’t any pressure to make people feel bad for liking something that there normally wouldn’t be any issue liking. With this, taking part of bigger events like conventions and concerts can be a place that anyone can gather and feel equally apart of without the “big mean bullies” taking away the fun for everyone else.

Nonetheless, its human behavior to group people into what we will and won’t find acceptable, but it’s our job as people to better ourselves and move past that and improve ourselves.  And wanting to find peers who have similar interests shouldn’t be attacked just because they haven’t been here forever. This comes down to a greater matter of letting people coexist.