How did you guys become anarchists?

Authority is just a tool for those in power to control. Punk rock helped me see this.

 

First realization was there's no authority but yourself and you're the god of your own world. Also knowing no gods no masters.

 

You see, i don't know when i BECAME an anarchist but i know that i just am, mostly because i hate most people and most people are just copies of everyone else. its like s really shitty factory making the same goddamn people with the same beliefs, the same aspirations and the same sad families. Anarchy was something that i copuld actually relate with because i hated everything else that everyone else stood for. now that im thinking of it, i probably became an anarchist a few months ago when i actually fully understood what the hell i was talking about.

 

I think i was always a schoolyard anarchist, making fun of everything, sticking up for the bullied kids. Later in like 7'th grade and (high scool?) or middle school i was an angry nihlist just sitting and carving anarchy A's in the school bench and my favourite punkbands just wanting out of school to play football (soccer). Then in high school (gymnasium) i discovered well respected people through the internet who idetified as anarchists like Chomsky and Howard Zinn and i just started reading everything on the internet by them and found sites like znet.

Then eventually as i got older i decided to try to make something out of anarchy and not just be a nihilist anymore.

 

growing up i never liked being told what to do, i made trouble in class and with my parents and always resented them for trying to manipulate me into something i wasn't. i went to a church school when i was very young and remember having an argument with the teacher back then about god not existing. at 13 i learned about communism and openly proclaimed myself a communist for a few years, much to the dismay of my friends and teachers.
as a teenager i became an anti-feminist classical liberal, something unrelated to me becoming an anarchist but i figure is worth mentioning here anyways.
then the summer after highschool i got into punk rock, became an anarchist, and dropped out of college.

 

I've always been left leaning, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized how far left I was. A friend and I read about anarchism one day while we were goofing off at work and I saw just how much my views lined up with anarchism.

Anyway, I'm still really new to it and learning, but I guess I finally bit the bullet and labeled myself an anarchist because it fit my personal beliefs and I felt I needed to commit myself to action and doing what I felt was right and that seemed like the first step.

 

when I was a kid and playing in the street, I listened to the hardcore songs of protest from my friends' brothers. while having fun playing in the barracks, not knowing that this was a political stance.
living in Brazil, I soon found myself questioning the reason for poverty, hunger, misery, my people all living with little while so few had so much, the reason why we should bow our heads to the authorities, the reason why 'god' put the situations as presented. And I think everyone here did it.
I was always influenced to read a lot, I asked the librarian something to speak the reasons for these questions and she gave me "the conquest of bread" and "the property is a steal" to read. From then on I started to get involved and at age 11 I had read George Woodcock's books on the history of anarchist movements and ideas.
At 12 I started playing guitar with the older brothers of my friends and there I learned to like hardcore. from the age of 13 I started to listen-play-live hardcore, compose, make zines, participate in collectives, exchange ideas with older people, had contact with the anarcho-punks, and from there I was growing and creating my own vision of the world, and 10 years have passed in this rush.
Today I still think it's weird to say 'I'm punk' because I still think the question is not to be but to do it, but I say that I am an anarchist, and I try to do every day actions so that we steal our freedom back to us.
I was lucky, to be in the right context at the right time, with the right people.
Just like everyone here I am just me, not the label I carry

 

I always kind of despised authority. When I started to learn about different political ideologies in my early teenage years and when I found out about anarchism it was a done deal, for life guess hehe.

 

Kinda more of a Socialist than a straight up anarchist, kinda always believed we should look out for our fellow man, believe that censorship is one of the worst things possibly imaginable, and since i'm into tech and reading i'm BEYOND PARANOID of authoritarianism and surveillance states. Oh and i'm a bit of a hedonist and a bit of a cynic, the old Greek philosophy kind not the whining on the internet, drink a bottle of scotch for breakfast, "Oh i'm so clever and smart because I know the worlds shit but refuse to do anything about it" type.

 

there were AK Press inserts in some of the punk CDs I bought, plus I was a teenager in the 2000s and after getting clued into real, practical anarchy I navigated a lot of anarchist websites and forums online. Even made my own website that I shared with people at school. Subhumans had a huge impact on me since I got into punk rock. Only in the '10s would I focus more on anarcho punk exclusively.

 

We don't become anarchist because of the music, and on certain date. We are made into the anarchist by the society the day when we get aware of the problems that society is suffering from. It's on us are we going to surrender to the society and live in-group, or to rebel and try to change the cancerous system and be part of the out-group.

 

I think it started when I was 3 and told my older brother “you’re not the boss of me!”

As I grew up I learned/realized that don’t want to be the oppressed or the oppressor, and thus I am an anarchist.