Neutrality Is the New Punk Rock

These days, neutrality itself is counterculture—just look at the discourse around trad wives, clean living, quiet luxury… the Sydney Sweeney of it all. It’s giving eugenics too late in the game. It’s got the majority of us rubbing our eyes and double-checking our calendars. It’s 2025, right?

Now let’s all imagine Sydney Sweeney, floating above the peak of attention she’s earned in this late stage capitalism we found ourselves in. She sees the game clearly—who’s on top, who’s flattened at the bottom. She’s got “dry your tears with your twenties” problems, the kind you only get when fame collides with fatigue. And then, in that iconic vocal-fried drawl, with those recessive-gene eyes looking straight into us, and shrugs: “It is what it is.”

Is she wrong?

The Record Shop

I walked into a record shop the other day.

It started with a simple question: CD or vinyl?

I expected a few recommendations I could Google when I got home, and unexpectedly left an hour later, with my mind spinning in our conversations around technology, gender, God, and what it means to be alive together.

The shop owner—French, tattooed, a little punk rock—called himself “square,” which made me laugh. He’s been running that store since the 90s, paying attention to the complexities of life longer than I’ve been alive. We talked about the intimacy of asking someone to shift their home dynamics in order to combat gender inequity at work.

What an intimate ask indeed—proof that everything is political.

When we shook hands at the end, I noticed how rare that’s become. Since the pandemic, boundaries have tightened—literal and figurative. A handshake felt radical again.

Momentum of Thought

That conversation didn’t end when I walked out. It stayed with me—not as a neat takeaway, but as a kind of hum. Something that carried forward, shaping what felt normal, what felt radical, what felt neutral.

Thoughts are like currents: once they start, they run. They linger in the background, tuning the dial of how we experience the world.

My dad once asked his phone, “Hey Siri, what are vibes?” What sounded like a punchline turned into a real question. Because that’s what vibes are: the invisible current between us, the resonance of a room, the radio dial we all tune with our attention.

And when you start listening for those currents, you notice how easily the dial gets hijacked—by culture wars, by capitalism, by our own habits of labeling everything before we’ve even let it breathe.

Which brings me to neutrality—my own tepid take. Here it is: nothing is actually neutral. But some things can be approached with neutrality, if you give them a little space. It’s not glamorous. It’s not a TED Talk. It’s just noticing when you’re reaching for the label maker too fast.

Because that’s what neutrality feels like in 2025—not apathy, not avoidance, but choosing to pause before stamping a word on something. Sometimes it means letting a moment just be a moment. Sometimes it means remembering that contradictions coexist: privilege alongside marginalization, anger alongside compassion. Neutrality isn’t passive—it’s more like standing still long enough to watch the current without immediately trying to redirect it.

And yet, some currents are so strong they pull the whole room. For me, that’s what Gaza feels like right now.

The Gaza Reflection

Another tepid take: I don’t believe war ever works, no matter how holy the fight is supposed to be. It’s always a losing battle, because I choose to believe we’re all God’s children. Watching Gaza feels like watching the Cain and Abel story unfold on a loop—brothers who can’t suspend their belief in separation long enough to remember they come from the same family.

What’s heartbreaking is that those of us who believe war never works aren’t given a real platform for action right now. Instead, we’re asked to pretend our collective heart is our collective brain—to act from fear, denial, and certainty, rather than grief, compassion, or doubt.

Neutrality, in this context, doesn’t mean looking away. It means holding both the horror and the humanity without collapsing into vengeance. It means refusing to stop seeing every human as a sibling, even when the current of violence is screaming for you to pick a side.

And I don’t mean for that to be the period at the end of the sentence. Neutrality should never be used to dull out what you know to be right, especially when right is anger. I mean it as an opening to repair. Neutrality is a tool in your toolkit. Sometimes it clears the space for sadness. Sometimes it steadies you so you can get angry. Sometimes it clarifies why a boycott or protest is necessary. Neutrality doesn’t erase emotion—it gives you clarity so that when emotion rises, it’s grounded, not reactionary.

Dakota Johnson Neutrality

Which brings me to my queen of neutrality: Dakota Johnson.

When I’ve found myself in rooms that tried to sway me toward hierarchy—toward respecting a title instead of someone’s integrity—I think of Dakota on Ellen. That moment when Ellen tried to tease her about not inviting her to her birthday party, and Dakota just looked her in the eye and said: “Actually, Ellen, that’s not what happened.”

No yelling. No grand performance. No tidal wave of opinion. Just calm, plain, surgical truth.

And the wild thing? It was the beginning of the end for Ellen. Not because Dakota proclaimed how Ellen made her feel, but because she told the truth, cleanly, in public, without flinching. Actually, that’s not the truth, Ellen.

That’s neutrality as punk rock. Not louder, not flashier, not more extreme—but steady, undeniable, cultural jugular.

Punk Rock Neutrality

So what does that look like in daily life? Sometimes, neutrality is cosmic. Other times, it’s tiny and personal: letting your mistakes just… be. Saying “I don’t know” and standing still long enough to feel the shame soften. Or even saying “I don’t have a strong opinion on that,” and letting yourself be recused from the performance of having a take. In both cases, your attention—the hottest commodity we have—returns to you, and becomes the medicine.

Neutrality is about personal boundaries, personal space, personal freedom.

And sometimes, it’s cathartic. A muttered “what a weirdo” can be enough to cut the tension, to give a moment some bite without turning it into a battle. No labels, nobody but you. You can always turn the dial up or down—whatever keeps you curious. You don’t have to start walking. A pivot is enough.

I get it. I’m pissed off too. But punk rock was born of being pissed off. In the Reagan years, censorship marched under the banner of “values,” used to harm the most vulnerable. Punk screamed back. Now? It’s time to get neutral.

And maybe that’s the counterculture we need most right now. Not louder extremes, but steadier ground. In a world addicted to polarization, neutrality and objectivity might just be the new punk rock.

Closing

That’s what I think of when I remember shaking the record shop owner’s hand—two strangers spending an hour together and ending with a dignified handshake. After years of tightened boundaries, after the season we spent trapped in our homes wiping down cereal boxes, it felt radical again. Maybe that’s the invitation: to listen for the music, to find neutrality where we can, and to keep the vibe alive, even in the most unexpected places. Because an eye for an eye really does make the whole world go blind.

And neutrality—steady, unfashionable, unsexy neutrality—might just be the new punk rock. Ask Dakota Johnson. In a single calm correction, she showed how neutrality doesn’t shout, doesn’t posture, doesn’t need to perform. It simply tells the truth and lets the current shift. “Actually, Ellen, that’s not what happened.”