solarpunk memes

You need to look in the right places. First off check out the band soft play from the UK. They're definitely a good larger example of modern punk. Apart from that, any city with a proper local music scene is going to have a few punk bands. Austin and Chicago come to mind.

I'm not really sure what part of your comment was an opinion, but "people don't start punk bands anymore" is simply not true. There's plenty of new punk acts out there, the genre didn't just come to an abrupt halt in 1990. Just off the top of my head is IDLES and The Chats, but you can find tons of recent bands if you look.

No one says, “hey. I’m forming a classic rock back and we’re writing all new material!”

Sure, but I bet a lot of young talent are saying "hey we're forming a rock band and that girl/guy in the corner over there writes kickass lyrics."

After that they either fail and few ever hear them play, or they succeed and a new band is born. Maybe they even eventually end up becoming legends of their own. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Now rock and punk isn't my jam so much, because I like mellow electronic stuff, but I know of one such band that I found when COVID hit and they're just now beginning to really break through. It's fucking beautiful when a band finds that essence that truly defines them.

You're getting downvoted to hell here, but you're completely right. Punk was a cultural moment that was alive and relevant from the late 70s to early 80s, a kind of nihilistic tabula rasa that was codified into a "genre" after the fact. All of the original punk bands sounded different from each other, then from the early 80s onwards all new punk bands sounded the same. Bands like Green Day and Rancid were probably the last nail in the coffin.

The spirit of what punk was lives on here and there in other expressions, but is rarely labeled as "punk". If a band calls themselves punk rock today, they're either doing some kind of museological work or they're working for someone trying to sell you leather jackets. (HC should probably be considered as a separate movement altogether.)