I had a meeting with the frontman of 2 Litre Superpunk recently, a Calgary-based punk rokc band, and we ended up deep in a conversation about how pop/punk rock has been resurfacing in the mainstream since post-COVID. He told me how he wanted to keep that image attached to the band, and it made me realize — he’s right. With so many bands reuniting for tours and a wave of Gen Z kids discovering artists who ruled the early 2000s, something’s happening. But why these artists? Why this sound, this culture, right now?

It’s funny how culture swings like a pendulum. At the moment, the internet is drenched in clean girl, beige-on-beige, matcha-sipping, Glossier-wearing minimalism. It’s polished, curated, and smells faintly like influencer-approved SPF. But underneath all that soft, neutral calm, there’s a rebellion brewing — and it sounds a lot like 2000’s punk rock.

Back then (when I was like, five?), it was messy. Loud. Unapologetic. Think smudged eyeliner, safety pins on everything, chain wallets, ripped band tees, and MySpace bios packed with Fall Out Boy lyrics. It was angst, outsider energy, and a big middle finger to pop culture’s glossy perfection. And now, in 2025, people are craving that chaos again.

Why? Because too much perfection gets exhausting. Culture always loves a reaction, and this new wave of punk rock revival is the perfect antidote to the filtered, algorithm-approved world we live in. People want color again. They want chipped nail polish, low-rise jeans, and songs that feel like teenage heartbreak. Gen Z and younger millennials are rummaging through older siblings’ burned CDs and old skate shop hoodies like it’s buried treasure.

And it’s not just about the sound — the attitude’s back too. DIY zines on TikTok, underground shows popping up again, garage bands blowing up on Instagram, and people embracing weirdness over carefully curated aesthetics. Punk was always about rejecting the status quo, and in a world obsessed with calm, beige control, that chaos feels like freedom.

Which brings me to Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan. A joint single from them wasn’t something I saw coming in 2025, but when it landed, it felt weirdly perfect. As someone whose pop-punk obsession was heavily influenced by Avril, hitting play on “Young and Dumb” made me feel 13 again.
And honestly, that’s something I’ve been telling people lately — when you hit 23, you secretly rewind to 13 year-old default settings, but with less shame.

The track sounds exactly like classic Avril. She’s one of those artists who’s never drifted far from the genre she helped shape, and you know what? We never got tired of it. Young and Dumb reminds me of Here’s to Never Growing Up and Rock n Roll, songs I remember blasting on a tiny plastic radio I owned as a kid, as if those songs were my entire personality.

But Young and Dumb isn’t just a throwback for the sake of it — it feels like a tribute to the past and a battle cry for the present. It marks a moment in music history where a so-called “old culture” is being reborn from the ashes to challenge the dull, minimalistic modern media we’ve been fed. And it’s winning.

As Avril put it herself:

“This song is for our fans. It’s a tribute to the past, but also a celebration of the present. In our hearts, we’re still those same kids, and our love for music hasn’t changed. It’s about friendship, nostalgia, and the way music has kept us connected through the years. I can’t wait to share it with you live this summer.”

I’m actually working on a whole other article about the punk rock renaissance, but for now, let’s just say Young and Dumb perfectly marks this moment — a beautiful, messy, loud reminder that no matter how many clean girls sip matcha in their linen sets, pop-punk kids never die.