D.I.Y.- The Do It Yourself ethic
As the 1970's punk rock movement got going, many bands found no professionals wanted to book their shows, record their records, or write about their scene, so they did it themselves...
This is the cover of my 1990 self-produced BMX freestyle video, The Ultimate Weekend. Very simply, nobody was making the BMX videos that I wanted to watch. So I made my own. I did it myself. This one of my early DIY projects. The cover is simple, zine style art that I did myself. It’s black and white to save money on printing the boxes. #steveemigphotos
The “Do-It-Yourself ” idea or “DIY Ethic” is a simple idea. There are a lot of things the majority of people grow up being told are things “other people” do. Things like recording music, making art, writing books, making TV shows or movies, or starting your own business, many of us grew up think were not options for us. This was more true in the pre-digital world of Baby Boomers and Generation X. The internet has changed this thinking for a lot of people, but not for everyone. The reality is, a motivated person who is willing to do the research and work hard, can do most of these things, if they’re willing to commit to finishing the project. In the majority of cases, you don’t really need anyone’s permission, and you don’t need superhuman abilities. You need to be willing to learn as you go, and then make it happen, step by step. This concept was not invented by punk rock, it’s been around through history. But the DIY ethic became a core idea in the late 1970s punk rock culture, and grew with the rise of hardcore punk in the 1980’s.
Way before it became a marketing gimmick for Home Depot to sell you the supplies to remodel your bathroom, or build a closet organizer. “Do-It Yourself” was an idea that turned into an “ethic” in the early punk rock world. The thing known as punk rock today began around 1974 in the streets of New York City, at clubs like CBGB’s and Max's Kansas City. A scene that began with bands like the Patti Smith Group, The Velvet Underground, Television, Suicide, The New York Dolls, Blondie, The Ramones, The Cramps, and several others, got labeled “punk rock.” The scene began to grow in a few clubs in NYC. It had energy to it, and quickly spread to the U.K., and elsewhere. There are all kinds of documentaries about those early days of the punk scene on YouTube to check out.
While some of those bands got signed to major record labels within a year or two, many others did not. The early bands inspired other bands to form, and by 1977 there were dozens of bands in the punk world. In most cases, the mainstream music industry didn’t want to book their shows, record their records, promote their tours, or write about their scene. Being creative and motivated people in general, different people in the growing punk scenes figured out how to do those things themselves. Some people started new bands, some figured out how to record songs and gain expensive studio time (no computer recording back then), some figured out where to get T-shirts printed, how to make single and album sleeves, and some people started self-published fanzines to cover their local punk scene.
There doesn’t seem to be any particular time when this happened. It seems “Hell, let’s do it ourselves,” became an informal motto in punk as the late 1970’s progressed. There was a lot of young and creative energy in New York City in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Besides the punk rock scene, graffiti writers tagging their names was morphing into a major art movement. By the late 1970’s graffiti was starting to be shown in art galleries, and by the early 1980’s, documentary books and movies were being made. At the same time, hip hop and rap culture was forming, with the Sugarhill Gang, Fab Five Freddy, and others. In addition, graffiti spawned other types of artists besides tag names, like Keith Haring and Jean Michele Basquiat. A lot of creative things were coming out of New York City’s street culture in those years.
As for punk, some bands bought synthesizers and skinny ties and morphed into New Wave bands, which gave them much more of a chance to get signed to a record deal, particularly with MTV just getting going on cable TV. As all of that was happening, a whole new group of younger people, inspired by the first wave of punk bands, started forming their own bands in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Many of them had no idea how to play music, they just wanted to get in on this action and the punk energy. By that time, the informal motto in punk of “do it yourself,” had become the “DIY ethic.”
That second wave of punk bands, some of which formed the hardcore punk scenes of the early and mid 1980’s, took the DIY Ethic to heart. They recorded and put out their own indie singles on vinyl, they started indie record labels, booked and promoted their own tours, got stickers, pins, and T-shirts made to sell to support their tours. With the hardcore punk movement came more zines, as scenes formed in New York City, Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles area, and several other places around the United States and in the U.K..
On a parallel track in the late 1970’s into the 1980’s, skateboarding was evolving from the handstand and early flat ground tricks to a more aggressive style, skating backyard pools in California and Florida, and in then in the first wave of skateboard parks. The punk rock music, energy and culture really struck a chord with many of the skateboarders of that era. The hardcore punk energy and the DIY ethic became a major force in early 1980’s skateboard culture. From there it bled over into the brand new little sport of BMX freestyle, trick riding on BMX race bikes which was evolving in the early 1980’s. Punk rock’s DIY ethic was definitely a force in the great rise of action sports during the 1980’s. From hardcore punk, the do-it-yourself spirit fueled the rise of the third wave of skateboarding, the rise of street skating, BMX freestyle, snowboarding, and aggressive inline skating.
I first heard about zines from an article in FREESTYLIN’ (BMX) magazine in 1984. While I was still listening to Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and I’ll admit it, even Night Ranger, I started my first BMX freestyle zine in 1985. I heard about these things called zines (pronouced “zeens,” as in magazine). I thought about it for months. Then I made one. Then I made 10 more of that series every month. Those zines I published landed me a job at FREESTYLIN’ and BMX Action magazines at age 20. It was when I actually started working at the magazines that the other young BMX editors explained the punk rock, DIY ethic to me. I just thought that publishing a zine would be fun. A year later, I learned that zines were one small part of the whole DIY mentality in punk and action sports. I became aware that there was something bigger going on. To me just doing creative projects was cool, after being a daydreamer that never took action most of my young life. The whole early BMX freestyle world was incredibly entrepreneurial, and I worked with a few of those people through the second half of the 1980’s. It changed the way I looked at the world.
In the many years since, I’ve made another 30+ zines, 15 low budget action sports videos, and more than 30 blogs and this Substack site. I’ve also worked on several bigger projects over the years as as well, ranging from writing a newsletter, to working on skateboard videos, to working on several TV shows as a crew guy.
Punk rockers in the 1970’s did not invent the Do-It-Yourself ethic. In your U.S. history class, you probably learned about Thomas Paine, who published a pamphlet called Common Sense that helped get a lot of Americans to back the idea of the American Revolution. A pamphlet was like a zine of that era. American founding father Ben Franklin self-published many things in his life, like Poor Richard’s Almanac. Well known writers like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolfe, and Edgar Allen Poe self-published some of their works.
In our modern times, Andy Weir self-published The Martian on his personal website, chapter by chapter. The Martian later became a bestselling novel and a movie starring Matt Damon that grossed $630 million worldwide. Amanda Hocking started writing and self-publishing her paranormal romance novels as ebooks when she was only 25, and has become a great success. Those are just a few examples from writing. There are similar examples in many other types of creative work and industries.
There are times in life when it makes sense to take the traditional path. For a large number of people, the traditional path of getting a good education and looking for a solid job to make a good living makes sense. But we are in a world that is changing in all kinds of ways at a rapid pace. The rise of the internet, smartphones, digital marketing, and digital content creation has opened up hundreds of new ways to make, share, and actually sell all kinds of products and content. The DIY Ethic now operates almost as a operating system, in the background of our lives. Our world is full of people doing all kinds of interesting things on their own, and many of them make their actual living doing it. The DIY Ethic that punk rockers latched onto to produce vinyl singles and book tours almost 50 years ago, is much stronger now. All over our society are people who have done small projects on their own, and have had success in one form or another. DIY is an option if you keep getting closed in your face trying things the traditional route.
There it is, a quick look at the Do-It-Yourself or DIY ethic, now a known part of creative and small business culture. If you liked this post, you might like these other Substack posts of mine:
Creativity: The Two Magic Questions for Creative Work
Creativity: Nobody sees the projects you don’t complete
There are no paid links in this post.
