“Off Topic is an exploration of growing up on punk and high school in the 2000’s. I went to a high school with a strict dress code, and never owned “punk” clothes, but spent my free time reading zines and listening to punk from decades past. I always wanted a checkered belt from Hot Topic but my parents would never let me dress 'unprofessionally'. Some of my clearest memories from high school are of shows. At the time, Warped Tour and emo bands were hugely popular. Listening to earlier punk like Black Flag and Crass hooked me on the idea of punk, but our punk was different. Hot Topic was in malls across the country and bands like Brand New were later outed for abusing fans. In school, my health class focused on abstinence and reinforced gender binaries and our history classes glossed over protest movements. I often think about how that lack of information, combined with Warped Tour culture, negatively influenced me and reinforced the same gender roles Eve Libertine railed against in Crass. I engraved this necklace with lyrics from Nirvana’s Come As You Are - a song about accepting people for who they are. I spent a lot of time unlearning the bad parts of Warped Tour punk, and re-learning older songs that started my love of punk. In making this necklace I wanted to explore what growing up with progressive health teachers and a music scene focused on community instead of mall clothing would have been like.”

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