1. adjective Trying and failing to affect the outrageous, anti-establishment, countercultural looks, attitudes, and styles made popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Sometimes hyphenated. The theme park has this plastic punk vibe that you can tell was carefully calculated in a board room somewhere by a bunch of rich old men. I was in this plastic-punk band back in college, before I got a handle on the type of music I really wanted to make.

2. noun A person, band, or type of music that tries and fails to replicate punk rock or punk rockers from the late 1970s or early 1980s. The bands my teenager listens to are all these plastic punks trying so desperately to rage against the machine, conveniently forgetting that they are very much a part of that machine. You're not a punk just because you listen to a couple Sex Pistols albums. You're just a plastic punk, at best.