ABSTRACT
Moshing in the mainstream punk context, also known as push-moshing, refers to the disorienting communal dance practice wherein concertgoers slam their bodies into one another. At hardcore punk shows, however, moshers rarely touch. Instead, dancers singularly traverse the open pit, aggressively windmill their arms, kick-stomp the ground, and propel themselves from the musicians’ stage. While whiteness, heterosexuality, and masculinity are not inherently negative characteristics, their supremacy in social value systems enacts violence against those who identify outside of the domain. The author identifies the values embedded in hardcore moshing’s distinctive technical vocabulary as a manifestation of this racialized and gendered stratification that, when embodied, alienates community members who identify as Black, LGBTQ+, non-male, and/or people of color, increasingly homogenizing a purportedly inclusive subculture. Hardcore’s progressive rhetoric, such as the pre-show dedication that opened this study, suggests that the intent of hardcore moshing is to achieve communal autonomy by physically rebelling from the mainstream.
