selfdefensemusic.comMysterious Guy Hardcore is, like skramz, a half-joking term coming from within the culture. Like skramz, it’s now less jargon and more common usage.
It’s typified by people talking out of their asses and saying things like, “the second half of My War is easily the best Black Flag material” or “hardcore should be dangerous and for outsiders, not jocks”. Basically, parroting hyperbole for the sake of persona. This isn’t me overanalyzing; an afternoon on any hardcore messageboard makes this plain.
Like any subculture music, the sub-subculture terms are still umbrella. Some Mysterious Guy Hardcore is fast, some is slow. If you’re stupid, you’d think it was very different from each other. However, it takes only moments to find the similarities: A commitment to the retrogressive; a feigned danger barely hiding the feckless nerdery beneath; a wholesale buy-in on the idea of imagery being a cultural unifier. “Individuals” marching in step. The “mysterious” part of it is really beside the point now. It came from every fool thinking a clumsy theft of Fucked Up’s approach to music marketing would take them to the same heights. A lot of “playing” with the listenership and “not making it easy, because this shit should be for those who love it and put the time in to find the bands” etc, blah, etc.
Look for these people dressing exactly alike (punk uniforms in the shape of late-80s hardcore simulacra meets bike messenger chic) and spending time and money on the internet buying the musical equivalent of Pokemon cards (vinyl with music of little merit). The art they gravitate to is photoshop versions of Xerox creations.
Basically, every dickhead lawyer you’ll have to do business with later in life is living in a punk house right now acting like a culture lawyer in some online community. That nerd is mysterious.
