“Anarchy in Woolworths”

Definitions of punk inevitably revolve around the subculture’s provocative, political, or subversive conventions. This chapter outlines the ways in which punk’s embrace of comedy and humor—through strategies including satire, hyperbole, parody, self-deprecation, and profanity—is central to an understanding of its language and practice. Comedy also embraced punk—taking punk’s media storm as a supposedly easy target for ridicule. This chapter highlights some of the overlaps and distinctions between external commentators and the internal discourse of the subculture. Punk and comedy are closely connected, though the often caustic and abrasive nature of punk’s internal discourse may obscure its humorous intent for observers outside the subculture.