Just A Reminder

25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people

Since littlecourse is back:

Minor-identifying headmates should have all the same rights as any other adult-bodied individuals.

The idea that some headmates can't consent because of the age they internally identify by is rooted in the same ableism that tries to argue people with intellectual disabilities can't consent.

This is not an issue with merit on both sides because system rights should not be a debate, and systems having equal rights regardless of how they identify internally should not be something to compromise on.

People who would seek to limit the rights of other systems are not only unsafe to be in the system community, but also other mental health communities.

I'm so serious about being kind above all else. it has genuinely changed the way I interact with the world on a fundamental level and has made me so so much happier.

"wait but how can that work ?" instead of asking how their queer identity works, and how can it be valid, maybe ask them their experiences. ask how it feels to themself being a mspec mono, or lesboy, or turigirl, or whatever. instead of getting angry at queer identities which dont fit your standard, just perhaps let it go and ask them as a person what their identity means to them. stop policing identities and open up your mind a little.

“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”

― Robert Louis Stevenson

Source: Grow Your Garden Instagram page

do you have a website ?

We do! It's under construction though, but once it's up we will make a dedicated post about it as well as add it to our pinned! 😊🪷

That TV show wasn't created by Netflix it was created by workers exploited by Netflix.

That comic wasn't created by Marvel it was created by workers exploited by Marvel.

That video game wasn't created by Nintendo it was created by workers exploited by Nintendo.

Stop giving capitalists credit for things artists make!

It's punk to compost, in a world filled with trash.

It's punk to be fat, in a world that wants you to keep getting smaller.

It's punk to ride an old bike, drive an old car, patch your old clothes with different colored thread, cut up old sheets for rags instead of using paper towels, and make stuffed animals out of scrap fabric, in a world that wants you to just "order it off amazon".

It's punk to tend a messy, overgrown, weed-filled garden. Tomatoes grow right next to dandelions.

It's punk to can the veggies from your messy garden and give your neighbors delicious tomato soup in the depths of winter.

It's punk to make a bird feeder and look out the window to take a break from your screen.

It's punk to wear your "Let Trans Kids Play" shirt to a college basketball game where there are no trans players, because a trans kid in the crowd will see it and maybe (this year) decide to join the team.

It's punk to have wrinkles, when the world wants you to stop aging at 23.

It's punk to go to your local library.

It's punk to take your kids to your local library.

It's punk to take your kids to a pride parade, a sit-in, a land-back ceremony, an accessible trunk-or-treat, a soup kitchen.

It's punk to plant trees. It's punk to PROTECT trees.

It's punk save for solar panels, someday.

It's punk to hope, whenever you can.