Since launching Welcome to Earth (the department where we invite extraterrestrials to write in with dumb questions), we have received a lot of letters. Some have been long, some have been short, some impressively articulate, and others have been tongue-tied and borderline indecipherable. The letter we’ve chosen for this issue falls into the latter category and goes a long way to prove that alien intelligence is not always advanced. Chonk writes:
PUSSED,
Me Chonk. What DIY?
Chonk
Thanks for your letter, Chonk. Indeed, what DIY? What mean this? Well, let me start by explaining that DIY is an abbreviation of Do It Yourself, a concept that will no doubt seem odd to you, given that you more than likely come from a place where you already do everything yourself, as there is no one to DIFY (Do It For You). Strange as it may seem, here on Earth we employ experts to do difficult things—install plumbing, shingle roofs, bury the dead, etc—and DIY is the practice of taking on these projects without the help of the experts.
The origins of DIY are found in ancient human history, back when everything was necessarily DIY, because being self-sufficient was a matter of survival—not a choice. Early humans made their own clothes, built their own homes, gathered their own food, and did literally everything themselves, but as civilization advanced and trade and economy became a thing, so did expertise, professionalism, and specialized industries. For example, Chonk, let’s say you were good at cutting hair and people began lining up to lay their heads on the big rock outside your cave and have you hack at their locks with a sharp stone. Initially, you’d be flattered to be appointed regional barber, but then the practice would consume all your time, and you would fall behind on hunting, digging holes, and collecting cool sticks. Through a series of grunts and violent hand gestures, you would express this concern to the people, and then one of the people would offer to dig you a hole in exchange for a haircut. ‘Step right up, Zorg!’ you’d say, and the barter system would be born.
The barter system fostered professionalism, which inevitably resulted in industrialization. On Earth, we had something in the 18th and 19th centuries called the Industrial Revolution, which saw household tasks and production transferred to huge, smog-farting factories. The experts still existed, but they had to specialize in order to survive the revolution (but more about that another time—or never, because, honestly, who really cares?). Now, Chonk, in the interest of moving things along, I’ll jump forward and tell you that industrialization led to the mass production of weapons, and naturally, those weapons needed to be used in order to justify their production, so it was decided there should be a war. The war went pretty well, but it sent shockwaves through the global economic system and gave rise to something called ‘The Great Depression’. DIY was born out of this Great Depression because there was a scarcity of resources, and people had to start cutting each other’s hair with rocks again. Fortunately, along came another war, which ended the depression, and everything has been totally fine ever since.
The necessity of Doing It Yourself during The Great Depression was not a bad thing, because it allowed people to get a taste of pre-industrial life and how enjoyable and fulfilling it can be to create things yourself—and in the '50s and '60s, this engendered a DIY boom that saw hobbyists making DIY renovations to their homes, DIY modifications to their vehicles, and building DIY bombs and rockets in their backyards. DIY was fun and remains fun to this day. For the purposes of this issue of POSSESSED, though, I want to tell you, Chonk, that in the late '70s and early '80s, there was a cultural movement that took a very dim view of authority, and it employed DIY as an act of defiance and opposition to something called ‘The Man’. The movement was dubbed ‘Punk’, and its origins can be traced back to a group of lively minstrels called The MC5 (above). The MC5 begat another group of perky jongleurs called Iggy & The Stooges who, without meaning to, instigated the aforementioned cultural phenomenon we now know as Punk.
While Punk was a short, blinding flash on the imaginary left-to-right timeline we all have in our heads, its rebellious spirit, and the DIY ethos, lives on in music, fashion, media, art, technology, and, yes, lil’ Chonky, even sport. Particularly running. Thanks again for writing in.
If you’re an alien from outer space and you’d like a question answered in these pages, send a letter to:
Welcome to Earth
c/o POSSESSED
Earth
