It was just last week that I wrote about the future of Bloody Good Music, and how I didn't know what it entailed. I was being honest then, and I'll be honest now.
Yesterday was a day that made me think about quitting.
Someone in a different corner of the musical world asked a question about the legacy of glam metal. I answered it harshly, yes, but truthfully. The best part of glam metal's legacy is that it was the last time we lionized rock 'stars' for being addicts, assholes, degrading women, and both the figurative and literal lusting for underage girls.
What I was met with was a response calling me an asshole for not focusing on the music, despite much of that music indeed being about getting drunk and treating women like garbage. But it went beyond that, because the poor grammar and lack of nouns in the response meant it could rightfully be read as insinuating I only cared about the last issue I listed because I already spend my time thinking about it.
Yes, really. This person may have accused me of that. I didn't stick around long enough to ask a follow-up and find out just how terrible they wanted to make themselves look.
The point of this isn't to garner sympathy, but to explain my seething rage. I have always kept an arm's reach between me and 'rock' and 'metal' as tags identifying my personality. It's for exactly this reason. Despite the outward appearance of those cultures being accepting and dedicated to sticking it to those in power, they are actually as conservative and unwelcoming as any group I have ever come across.
Look, I know I see the world differently than most people do. That was the lesson that kept me mired in depression most of last year. I understand that people aren't going to agree with me all the time, and I really don't care if they do. But I am beyond sick and tired of being part of a community where the people are not even decent anymore.
This isn't the first time such things have come up. A few years ago, Serious Black released an album with multiple songs calling the writer's ex a whore, and blaming her for everything that went wrong in his life. It was textbook misogyny, and the furthest thing from being a 'man'. I wrote about this multiple times, and I was the only person in the entire metal-adjacent world that noticed, let alone had any problem with the band's language and attitude toward women. When I brought it up on a forum, other people there literally cheered the band on for how they were treating her.
It was sickening then, and it's sickening now. I'm so goddamn tired of everything becoming a fight, when all I want it a bit of respect and decency.
It pisses me off when bands get away with treating women like disposable objects. It pisses me off when people pine for the old days when bands were literally writing songs about wanting to fuck children, let alone putting naked kids on their album covers. It pisses me the ever-loving fuck off when prominent metal 'journalists' laugh along with Ted Nugent as he calls people he doesn't agree with 'sub-human mongrels'.
Who are we? Apparently, the answer is that we are the lowest-common denominator. We are the worst of humanity not so slowly leaking out into the culture, all because people who don't understand what manhood actually is have gotten scared that their whims aren't catered to every minute of the day.
I'm done with it. I will never hold back from calling out the toxic aspects of rock and metal, but I have to admit that I'm just tired of being hated for doing it.
Yesterday, I seriously thought about quitting this pursuit. I realized that other than one or two friends who read words when I tag them, I've spent twelve years screaming into the vast void. No one hears what I say, and on those cases where I speak in a forum where people do, it makes me the pariah.
So why should I bother anymore? It's clear rock and metal fans want nothing to do with me, and I'm sick of them. Maybe the best thing for all of us is if I give up, admit defeat, and let them continue their circle-jerk.
It all seems fruitless when you're dealing with people who cannot understand that wanting a blowjob while insulting a woman for doing it is a self-defeating personality trait.
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