Random Thought of the Day

[Nyctophilia]

Started watching Schitt's Creek. Had no idea Dan Levy is the son of that guy from American Pie. I also like how they're overreacting to moving into this fairly average motel room (actually for a motel it's really nice, they even have a table and chairs,) because they were super rich before haha. There are far worse places and I've lived in a place that was way worse lol. Then they went to this cafe that was nice and kind of hipster "the town is disgusting, it is gruesome." Obviously that's part of the joke though.

[Otherside]

So, Ibwas never formerally diagnosed EUPD/BPD. Thought it was suggested. And thank the lord for that, I ended up with the bipolar diagnosis instead.

Which, the more I hear of it, is a relief, seems to be a lot of stigma with "complex BPD" than there is with easier to treat bipolar. Get rejected referrals for a lot of services with the EUPD dx, I hear.

I mean, I'm lucky I'm the "on my meds, it's controlled" bipolar, though it'd be nice if there was some long term thinking of "let's not touch the meds, it will cost the taxpayer lot more if this person gets ill again" instead of short term "it's expensive so we'll redlist it and want everyone off that one."

It is known that you do really need to push at times in order to get anywhere with CMHT in this country. But, I do really give them a lot of pushback on the redlist issue. Which I don't think is unreasonable. And the briefing "why this pill is redlisted" is available online, alongside a list of exemptions. Helps make the argument.

Problem is, redlists are different in different CCGs. At least one does not have any exceptions - in theory, though of I got an exception there. Somehow. I'm kinda living in that area temporarily at the moment, but I haven't actually told the NHS I've moved house so I get around this issue. They've yet to figure it out.

[Otherside]

Ah I accidentally shut this.

Sorry!

[Nyctophilia]

Was surprised to see this video because I know he deleted a bunch of his older ones talking about this and some other stuff. I related to some of the stuff he talked about in regards to sexuality before. I also wonder if he's heard of Billy Martin (edit: yeah brought that up 14 minutes into the video lol. Also now that I think about it I forgot but I think his name is a reference from one of those books,) since he's into vampires/writing vampire fiction lol. For a lot of people they say the first trans guy they've heard of is Buck Angel and since he's pretty terrible politically that's been a big deal for a lot of people/they mourn that but honestly he wasn't for me lol. Probably was that writer. I didn't read his work though I was into like Anne Rice's novels/goth stuff/and lots of homoerotica so ended up hearing about his work.

Also looking at his wikipedia page now I also love how in addition to all those novels he randomly wrote a biography about Courtney Love. Still feels on brand aesthetically honestly.

I've only watched 9 minutes of that video and after writing the above sentence he already brought up Brody Dalle and Courtney Love's voice =D

I should really watch it all before posting here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkpT948yTGw

This isn't the best example of Brody's vocals it's just a pretty cool more recent track. (Just in the case she's on the right the other vocalist is Shirley Manson from Garbage.) This is really good too think Garbage had a bunch of collabs on a recent album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOmKGjy-Ct0

I love Arch Enemy too. (With both vocalists really.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRkc08_dR-0

Trying to find another track with the newer vocalist and just getting distracted lol. This is not at all related just metal.

All the same person:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqp2rGl3P4c

Screaming is fun too.

His (youtuber) voice is more androgynous than mine though. Mine is pretty bleak.

Edit: So finished watching the video. The comment section is (overall) surprisingly chill/supportive. I think it's mostly because although his channel is decently sized it's pretty niche and not specifically trans stuff. There is some stuff if you scroll a lot but it's not like on a lot of videos...

Along with the usual transphobia there's a really gross straight guy doing his thing because he took his ambiguity and lack of caring about stranger's misgendering him as a challenge and invitation 'you just need to find the right guy' (well tbf ime they'll do it either way whether you're clear or not, they'll just be a little less 'nice' - see: passive aggressive about it if you're confrontational.) That's why forced feminisation is 'valid' for (some) cis boys. You want this to be about you? It can be arranged.

I mean to me it just seems like you’re a tomboy you don’t have to fit in social standards to be the gender you are. It’s just my opinion I’m not judging it’s not my place I just hope you find the peace you deserve.

I'm not sure how you could watch the video (the whole way through which is prob part of the problem,) and say that in good faith not least because he isn't that masculine. 'I like how if I'm perceived as female I won't get beaten up for wearing makeup/jewellery/certain clothes' is like the polar opposite lol. You can disagree with how he feels but it's like these people come in, don't actually listen and then just spout cliches.

Even if you disregard the non-binary thing (which is going to be more complicated,) it's not easy to know what they're referencing 'Well um, you mentioned female vocalists' yes and feminine cis gay/bi men definitely never stan those. Unheard of throughout history.

Maybe the part where he said he liked telling the guy who was harassing his female friend to go away and finding he listened. I'm pretty sure most people would enjoy that anyway.

Anyway there are a bunch of differences (obviously really,) but I find a bunch of the video relatable. I tend not to relate to a lot of American trans or non-binary people especially when younger. They also tend to be more optimistic, have or plan to medically transition, and grew up in a very different social environment regarding all of this.

The photo comparison is funny because I'd dress more like the photo on the right with the tanktop but often even less effort like I just wore jeans and a basic t-shirt or something like that to clubs lol. (and it's funny because just before I started going clubbing my aunt suggested that I probably look more mature when I'm going out and wearing makeup because my uncle said I looked 12 or something like that Rocking up to the club like lol not quite but yeah. Also I have that Pusheen book she's reading. Actually I posted one image years ago of me in a club online and someone said I reminded them of Elliot Page (before transition,) which is kind of ironic) Very rarely people would talk to me besides the people I went with. There was one time in spite of this a guy bought me a drink and wanted to talk to me though. I think we exchanged numbers too but can't remember now. That suited me though. One of my favourite club memories was when I was about to leave a club alone and then just heard MSI (don't remember the exact song, possibly this, or Shut Me Up,) and decided to stay to listen to the song. It's paradoxical but especially with rock/metal clubs I was there more for the energy/music and not for the purpose of meeting people or hooking up. I don't find most people attractive either.

I'd get a lot more comments from strangers when I started dying my hair weird colours. I think the only time a stranger ever complimented my clothing was when I was wearing some kind of top that was closer to on the left (so I guess sort of corset like?) I think it was this sort of steampunk type thing I had (it was either or this one other top I had which was purple and black and like gothish.) And lol it wasn't while clubbing. I was going to the shop to r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶t̶a̶p̶e̶s̶ pick up some stuff. I do miss Blockbuster, there's some memories there. :') I know but unironically.

One time after an IAMX concert when I was dressed almost exactly like the photo on the right with a black tank top and jeans but was also wearing a cap I had some guy compliment my hat I think? Outside the venue. Then two different guys tried to ask me for cigarettes (the only time in my life this ever happened once in London, once in the town I lived in after getting back. So apparently it gives 'smokes' vibes.) The second guy tried to yell after me when I was walking away (not sure why possibly he didn't hear my response, my voice often isn't audible because of anxiety,) but I ignored him. And some younger guys/older teens tried to make me jump while I was walking back through a train station. I can be very mentally slow/not present and then I'd just got out of a concert so I didn't really react and that probably wasn't fun for them lol.

Other than this and the dyed hair all my conversations with strangers have been in London and them asking about my band hoodies/t-shirts that I'm always wearing. And I think all the times that happened it was Steven Wilson merch. One guy's friend asked me about what I was wearing. Very obvious he didn't know Steven Wilson at all (I can't remember his exact phrasing of the question now, but it was an odd way of asking and came across lol,) but was asking on behalf of his friend lol. Then the friend started excitedly talking to the guy who asked me after I answered about Steven Wilson. 'Have you heard about our lord and saviour?'

I am basically free advertising have a (nother) song (I posted four lol):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAColKjZJz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClzBQmZZBc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTxmlhcl4ug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjwPt1eNF9A

I prefer a lot of the tracks on Grace For Drowning and Insurgents really though to say Hand. Cannot. Erase though there are a couple of tracks I really like on that album (esp live,) and it was more critically acclaimed compared to his previous solo work I think. Listening to Significant Other with decent headphones after just hearing the track was very transcendental.

One thing about this kind of music, and you see this too with Tool and really any prog bands/artists is you get a lot of pretentiousness. Like this:

Why are these songs so underrated? Makes me sad to see the idiots rapping about 'hoes' on top while these beautifully created pieces of art are undervalued by the world.

I can understand lamenting why something isn't more popular if you think it's great (probably healthier than the hipster thing people do where they dislike when bands get famous,) but it's just unnecessary and mildly fascistic (very fascistic being of course, and unfortunately there's quite a bit of that on twitter,) not everything is for you and everything can fit into a larger puzzle and work as inspiration. This same mentality is why so many people were complaining about his The Future Bites album which is more synth-pop/electronic. This is great though imo. They don't have to like it but the weird controlling/you are supposed to do this it's the one true music vibe is obnoxious. And for a long time now Steven Wilson has been open about his diverse music tastes like he enjoys ABBA lol.

This TOOL song is also about these guys really lol. It also strikes me that most people who say this sort of thing (and the subtext here,) don't listen to a diverse range of hiphop and I don't mean tons either necessarily because I haven't listened to that much myself, but their complete sort of image of all rap music being like a 2000s 50 cent track about being in the club or something comes across. I've definitely said all this before but a bunch of it is about motivation, living in economic deprivation, social issues, more recently mental health issues, and a concept album about an alien gynecologist/surgeon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5xMq-pgKjc

"The album examines the impersonal/delusional/authoritarian aspects of institutions/bureaucracies using the general hospital and psych ward as main metaphor."

"Why don't people give my music a chance?"

This is just amazing and it even samples someone quoting Gandalf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrB6--KBqs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxfGQ2AJHGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTjQq5rMlEY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUcAPCxrSQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yhyp-_hX2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDHxK_HfOw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbnumphZdPE

There's this track they're rapping about clubs and picking up women and it's not even the overarching message:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGbP_kTM4CA

"This has got me through so many manic depressive stages it’s actually silly. Thank you cudi, you’re the big brother/dad I never had."

again not the overarching message:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbEwHJX95QE

Sometimes it is the primary message and that works for people in the club trying to have casual sex with people or whatever. That works for some people.

Princess Nokia changes her image quite a bit so she gets this puritan thing a bit too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYcRGO7b_EA

Comments on No Effort music video:

No hypersexual outfits. .. I loooooove this.

But i really dont even care if it gets no views, she actually stood up for something and behaving like a respectable human being and not stripping off just for clicks. Plus the track is dope af.

I like her flow/energy but to me what actually stands out is the ruthless competitiveness of the lyrics in that particular track. Which I don't care for myself and does seem to be more of a gendered thing with women in the industry (I think Camille Paglia has addressed this before but moreso with pop artists,) but some people find that inspirational. The video is also a little misleading since she's wearing makeup but says her face is clean. So to nitpick probably taking it very literally lol. Beyonce did the same thing and it's a great track but again the visuals aren't matching the lyrics lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyuUWOnS9BY

This doesn't work for me because I don't automatically respect hierarchy so to hear you know 'bow down bitches,' 'when you were a little girl you dreamt of being in my world' obviously she's very famous and talented but nah lol. And also literally no as I do like some of her tracks lemonade. The reggae beat. Just great. This moment. Amusing But not a huge fan (I mean I called the track Lemonade which is the name of the album it's called Hold Up lol,) especially when I was younger I wasn't listening to her music. But yeah for a lot of girls yeah they would want to be Beyonce. But then you know a lot of people would disagree with me and they live for this stuff, and that's fine.

Iggy Azalea has been criticised extensively for stealing her aesthetic and image/style from black women but I don't even want to get into that the message with this track below is about herself right? Like she dropped out of high school and worked cleaning hotel rooms to move from Australia to the US at 16 which is huge deal (I don't know what this post has become but here we are lol):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zR6ROjoOX0

I'm not familiar with most of her music. She's a very competitive person too but this messaging works better for me personally. And again it's not the overarching message:

Valley Girls giving blow jobs for Louboutins
What you call that?
Head over heels

But it is clever.

It's actually quite shallow (and god knows I'm shallow lol but very shallow.) To fixate on these small aesthetic details missing the forest for the trees.

I forgot Angel Haze so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvRNPOJPH0

"Start creating the leaders, tell them who should they follow
Nobody but themselves, especially if they hollow"

Tbf two years before that they created Werkin Girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szj7efHG-00

The fact that fucking Iggy Azelea is getting more attention than this queen proves that there's no justice in this world. Angel Haze is everything Iggy wishes she could be.

You can have like 50 different male rappers with the same message and no comment, but there isn't room for an agender rapper that everyone thinks is a cis woman, and a cis woman with very different techniques and aesthetics. It's peculiar.

This is a comment on that Sigrid music track I posted:

I love it how she's just being herself. She's wearing normal clothes and she's just being well- Her.

Same, she doesn’t need extravagant makeup, fancy clothes, she just her that’s what I love about sigrid plus her songs are good too

Like clockwork. Stop. What if being yourself involves not wearing 'normal' clothes?

Teenagers these days don't realize how lucky they are to have the female musicians that they've got. She's so real. It was a rough adolescence growing up in the early 2000s. You couldn't watch any music video without feeling bad about yourself.

I found it incredibly easy actually lol. And you seemed to have slept on early Avril. Who was definitely more famous than Sigrid and so everywhere at one point. And frankly the music videos are the least of gen z's issues lol they have to deal with growing up with modern social media and it's not going well statistically speaking.

Not sure if it was her goal but she comes off more gangster then most rappers do and all while being silly and random. You can't fake being real.

Oh no it's the rappers again lol. I have a feeling the intent wasn't to be embroiled in some weird hypercompetitive highschool American genre tribalism... So no lol.

No nudity no sexual overtones just pure talent

7.7k upvotes. Do the sexual overtones take away from talent somehow? I'm thinking no. (She has her breasts exposed in the music video so not sure if I can post it here.) 'The accompanying music video for "Pagan Poetry" was directed by Nick Knight, who had previously photographed the cover image for her third studio album Homogenic (1997).[9] The video is described as being about "a woman preparing herself for marriage and for her lover". It features highly blurry and stylized images of explicit sex from Bjork's personal footage,'

Norwegian confidence. Check out Aurora if you haven't

Yes you should all check out this song specifically and internalise the message:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DIT8Y3LC6M

And these people really are everywhere:

An artist attracts first fans with a certain image. In the case of Aurora, it's an image of purity, innocence and fragility.
Like a child of a dryad, that's the feeling she was invoking.
This song in the eyes of many fans goes against that image, so they are naturally a bit upset. Nothing creepy about it.

Yeah when that entitlement extends to people's sexual expression it gets particularly creepy. Also so many European artists have this elfin magical vibe and then oh no (There's an interview with him from several years saying he likes singing about sex or something lol but I couldn't find it. Not the most graphic music video he has either.) This is fine and I probably can't post the other one it's on YouTube though just called Vulture. This whole attitude is basically like that video about the guy who orders a Manic Pixie 'Prostitute'

I remember people freaking out about the Animal song when it was released and I found it confusing because it didn't seem musically different to her other work. It's art pop yes? But lol yeah how stifling.

Basically most of this post is just this video lol. They're not doing the exact same thing but it's very much the same 'I'm superior energy.' I could have just linked this video and stfu.

[Nyctophilia]

Started watching Schitt's Creek. Had no idea Dan Levy is the son of that guy from American Pie. I also like how they're overreacting to moving into this fairly average motel room (actually for a motel it's really nice, they even have a table and chairs,) because they were super rich before haha. There are far worse places and I've lived in a place that was way worse lol. Then they went to this cafe that was nice and kind of hipster "the town is disgusting, it is gruesome." Obviously that's part of the joke though.

Update on this (very important.) I vaguely started shipping two characters who definitely aren't end game and probably don't make sense. I went to see how many fanfics might exist for this pairing knowing it would be very few (In recent years I'm not on anyone's wave length in this context) and yeah lol it's 80 out of 9000+ (and it's even sort of cannon,) but not the least popular pairing.

Also (not related to the above ship) Eugene Levy is effortlessly hilarious. Kind of like Jeff Goldblum. Like he can just make anything seem amusing.

Catherine O'Hara's character is great too but that was kind of a given.

[TuanJie]

The documentary was on the BBC called The Psychedelic Drug Trial but I also remember watching a Ted Talk before watching that some time ago and looking it up now that was with Rosalind Watts. I think she was in the documentary too. You used to be able to watch the BBC documentary on YouTube because a few people uploaded it but not sure if it's still possible. Tbh I'm surprised they allowed it because the UK is really strict with drugs and very traditionalist about it eg: David Nutt (also involved in the trial) a previous chief government advisor was asked to resign back in 2009 after saying ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

I think she did say that a lot of people found their symptoms improved on psilocybin, but I don't remember if it worked permanently for anyone. I think a lot of people improved for about 2 months and the effects were immediate and without side effects (so if it scales fairly well there's an advantage there for a lot of people over anti depressants.) But yeah they'd have to take more at some point and unfortunately after the trial is over that wouldn't be an option in the UK.

Just noticed this has been uploaded recently too:

Thanks for sharing! That one ended on a more positive note, fortunately :-) We have a long way to go, if you consider what happened to David Nutt for simply stating scientific findings about the risks of substances. Apparently we're still not ready to have a rational conversation about this. This isn't a UK thing only. I think we'll get there though. It takes time to undo decades of anti scientific propaganda. The fact that we're used to talk about "alcohol and drugs" says it all. Alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there. I recently saw a docu series with Michael Pollan, in which he attended a tobacco ceremony. It once again opened my eyes. To a large degree it's not about the substance, but about how it's used.

I can add a personal note to put repeated use in perspective. I've taken anti-depressants for about 16 years. That's a little under 6000 pills in total. Plus an insane amount of various therapies. I've both felt okay-ish and very bad on it. Never could tell if it worked. Just a few experiences with ayahuasca did more for me than all of that combined. A few nights versus 21 years of therapy and 16 years with pills! Some people seem to really benefit from anti-depressants, but if I'm not mistaken roughly 1/3 don't. That are massive numbers of desperate people.

Anyways, have a good one!

[Nyctophilia]

Thanks for sharing! That one ended on a more positive note, fortunately :-) We have a long way to go, if you consider what happened to David Nutt for simply stating scientific findings about the risks of substances. Apparently we're still not ready to have a rational conversation about this. This isn't a UK thing only. I think we'll get there though. It takes time to undo decades of anti scientific propaganda. The fact that we're used to talk about "alcohol and drugs" says it all. Alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there. I recently saw a docu series with Michael Pollan, in which he attended a tobacco ceremony. It once again opened my eyes. To a large degree it's not about the substance, but about how it's used.

I can add a personal note to put repeated use in perspective. I've taken anti-depressants for about 16 years. That's a little under 6000 pills in total. Plus an insane amount of various therapies. I've both felt okay-ish and very bad on it. Never could tell if it worked. Just a few experiences with ayahuasca did more for me than all of that combined. A few nights versus 21 years of therapy and 16 years with pills! Some people seem to really benefit from anti-depressants, but if I'm not mistaken roughly 1/3 don't. That are massive numbers of desperate people.

Anyways, have a good one!

Yeah it's a problem in many places. I just feel like the UK is kind of dragging behind on the wider topic/laws. I know there are a bunch of countries and even US states now that have legalised marijuana or at least it's decriminalised, but it's still technically illegal here. Also with the UK they kind of flip/flop between being liberal and conservative on a range of topics over time instead of linear movement (but this can happen in a short space of time here,) so it always feels more erratic than progress. Psilocybin was actually only made illegal here (a class A drug as well. Yeah it definitely sounds similar to meth lol /s) in 2005.

The issue with alcohol is (from what I've heard) some people have a neurological traits that make them susceptible to becoming addicted to it. In moderation it's OK but the same is true of a lot of drugs, so yeah people are biased because it's legal and tradition. After drinking once I threw up in the street, could barely walk home and then was really ill for a week perhaps it was a coincidence but maybe some form of alcohol poisoning? On two other occasions randomly I had excruciating back pain while drinking that instantly disappeared after throwing up in the pub bathroom. I didn't feel sick just somehow instinctively my body knew to throw up (I hadn't drunk a lot on either of the two back pain occasions and these were drinks I'd had before, no rhyme/reason to it really I went to the doctors and they didn't find anything unusual.) And then people are like 'drugs and alcohol.' Lol.

Yeah anti depressants do help some people and for other people they don't have much of an impact or have some generally unpleasant side effects (I think some negative side effects are common though, even if they help unfortunately.) The impression I get from people talking about them is that in general the effects are milder/more vague I guess? A lot of people I've heard talk about ayahuasca or psychedelics have been more impacted by them, often on a long term basis. Obviously for some people that can be negative too though.

Thanks you too.

[Nyctophilia]

Someone posted some kind of meetup event with cosplayers from The Locked Tomb series and I was like 'what is that?' And then realised it's the series that Gideon The Ninth book is from which I heard before from Strange Aeons YouTube channel.

There's lots of fanart. Obviously the character I thought had an interesting aesthetic is described as a villain hahaha. (Actually looking into it more I don't think they are.)

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/be/dd/cf/b...b2464b5570.jpg

They don't look like that on the book cover though.

The Locked Tomb Series, by Tamsyn Muir, follows the dread adventures of Gideon Nav, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and a host of other goths. These epic science fantasy novels mix funny tone with dark subject matter, and contain swashbuckling action, waves of bones, and lesbian necromancers in space.

Hmm oh yes I see what that tweet I read before was about now:

there's this trend in book blurbs for genre fiction where someone just goes like bisexual druids in space. what else can i say?? and the thing is it's actually quite a bit. you could say a lot more than that please

---

Scotland has passed a bill to make it easier to change your legal gender. They decided not to include non-binary people and Westminster could still block it but pretty cool.



It's funny that she thinks anyone cares. The point is to do whatever you want.

Also Lauren Southern did that in Canada. He might still be legally a man.

[Nyctophilia]

see this could be dogshit but at least it’s authentic

oh [BEEP] you’re the artist lmao
keep pushing homie, I hate pop punk but I’m actually fuckin w this. Your sound and look is your own and that’s rare

Lol yeah I nearly responded 'kind of meh but he looks kind of cute in the Halloween outfit.' I mean it's fine it's just it sounds very like a more pop-punk Bring me the Horizon or something similar. Found his YT channel too. I'm disappointed there isn't a complete video of that clip. At least atm.

The full song is a bit better though. Parts of it sound very slightly like Drab Majesty. So if Drab Majesty were a pop punk band that fused with Bring me The Horizon.





^ this has a really great music video too but there's some nudity so.



Also. Does Justin Whang follow everyone lol?

He posted a clip of his music in response to a clip of another musician with bad lyrics alongside 'blame mgk' which I'm guessing stands for Machine Gun Kelly. Someone also posted Good Charlotte in response saying 'sorry bud I'm old school and this is my anthem' (Oh great I'm 'old school' now,) but it's hard to tell from the clip but it's just a worse version of something like that. I was very into Good Charlotte when I was 11/12 (Young and the Hopeless album.) I think it was on their forum that I made a thread saying Metallica sucked and this is the first forum post I ever remember making. People were not amused hahahahaha. (I actually don't mind some Metallica tracks now. I didn't like St Anger.) Then went off them not long after, and unlike a bunch of other pop punk bands I was into over the following years I never really go back to listen to them. Kind of cringy for me now.

Drab Majesty is opening for AFI on their October-December 2022

Ah that's a really decent lineup. And I wouldn't mind checking AFI out since they were pretty good live when I saw them supporting Deftones (kind of a random mix lol. There were people in the queue who were just there for AFI too lol.)

[Nyctophilia]

(Actually wrote this post days ago but posting now. Also it's Christmas so Merry Christmas and such.)

So I recently stumbled onto the goth subreddit and there's a thread about this one YouTuber's video which I haven't watched but there are a bunch of comments that are really too dramatic about the new Wednesday show (which I haven't gotten around to watching yet either lol.) Apparently people on tiktok replaced the music with Lady Gaga. I don't think anyone is going to genuinely think Lady Gaga is goth but even if they do I don't think I care. I'm not on tiktok and this isn't relevant to me. I find it hard to believe it would be relevant to irl spaces either.

This is controversial, but I don't see the goth subculture as needing to be a music based subculture. Nor do I really think it's about clothes or a certain look. To me I think it's more of a worldview where you find 'darkness' appealing/beautiful. I was drawn to stuff like that from a young age and saw it described that way by someone else once and that resonates with me more. I also don't think the goth music subculture gets to have a monopoly on the label 'gothic' since gothic fiction predates it.

Like these comments on a YouTube video I more or less agree with:

Gonna be honest, I feel like this is a chicken or egg debate. I grew up in a farm town and for me the aesthetic came first. It's how I wanted to be for as long as I can remember. And, the music has to be rooted in something in the first place, had to resonate with something on some deeper level, in order to become it's own genre. I don't believe it's as simple as one leading to the other.

The music was rooted in something to become its own genre. It was another genre of music called Punk which is the core of Goth. Goth music was born of punk music and just like punk the subculture grew from it. Which is why when you look at early pictures of Goth at its inception, they look a bit like dark punks.

Came back to clarify after a good discussion with a friend about core values and themes that make up the culture. What I was trying to express wasn't an argument against goth culture being tied to music or the importance of situating it within that context, but that both the music and the aesthetic have a broader set of influences in common that coalesced around the music. My view is that all these different facets of the culture evolved together with music being a unifier and that various gateways exist.

I appreciate you coming back to clarify! I didn't think that you were saying anything against Goth. I truly appreciate the discussion! The thing about the subculture is if those two things were integral removing one would surely kill it. The thing is, if you remove the elaborate fashion You still have the music which still gives people that emotional outlet. Listening to it, seeing their favorite bands live, going to a club and dancing to it etc. However if you take away the music and only have the fashion what you're left with as a trend. I hope this makes sense.

absolutely, and yes I agree to an extent. I truly appreciate your perspective. I think it's possibly something that comes from the longevity of the culture and the number of historical influences that have come together to shape it. But, to me personally it's a philosophy and I express it through music and dress. From a personal perspective I was always this person. Goth as we know it absolutely wouldn't exist without the music, but I love and have always loved all these other historical sources of inspiration that led it into being. Thanks for engaging the topic with me. Not sure if it counts as goth in anyone else's book but mine, but I'd love to know your thoughts on Barbara the Gray Witch if you've ever got the time to give it a listen.

Though obviously people are discriminated against based on their presentation or vibe up to the point of being murdered. (the complete psychopathy of these people is so unbelievably disgusting.) So it helps to have some label to discuss this phenomena. Though I guess the killers referred to them as 'moshers.' Emos have also been physically assaulted globally. Most of the time they're not assaulted based on their music preferences but based on the perception that the people wearing certain outfits have certain other traits and/or beliefs.

And in saying that, I do like/enjoy a bunch of goth, dark wave music (not sure if this subreddit counts the latter they seem divided.) Also other related genres. One of my favourite albums as a teenager was Pornography by The Cure. I also like or occasionally listen to some of Christian Death's music, The Sister's of Mercy, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Fields of Nephilim, Drab Majesty, Молчат Дома (if that doesn't work Molchat Doma,) you get the idea. Not that I'd exclusively consider myself a goth, and definitely don't exclusively listen to goth music.

I don't really get why so much discussion is dedicated to policing boundaries though. Because the threat always seems disproportionate to me. It seems like a huge aspect of all internet communities and subcultures and it was like the first thread I clicked on in the subreddit a few days ago.

I had to know what they were saying about bands too. There was a thread from a couple of years ago with someone listing bands that people think are goth but aren't and they put Type O Negative on it. OK but they're gothic metal. They're OK with people discussing darkwave music and such on this subreddit but not other adjacent genres?

Post-punk goth and goth rock aren't the only genres accepted here. There is also darkwave, which is new wave/synthpop plus goth; ethereal wave, an off-shoot of darkwave which later interacted with the dreampop/shoegaze scenes; deathrock, considered to be a spookier and more atmospheric version of punk and coldwave, which is French/Belgian post-punk/goth.

There was even one post where someone suggested O. Children should be added to the list because some of their music was more alternative. Even though they've made stuff like this lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh1o_03ilQY

The Cure are mentioned in the subreddit description even though they have plenty of music that isn't goth rock lol.

But apparently this subreddit has a bit of a reputation and I found this screenshot in a subreddit about gatekeeping lol:

https://i.redd.it/8gpbcm9lvx281.png

Some of the bands listed are unambiguously goth rock and yet they didn't even answer the question and were just like 'Nope you mentioned Type O Negative.' Lol. Do you want to help people discover music or not?

I'm sorry but music like this is clearly adjacent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yong-3x9WB4

One of those lists of bands in that thread also included Blutengel and The Birthday Massacre. Not sure if you can talk about them on the subreddit or not since although both are darkwave I'm going to assume based on their nitpicking that they only mean stuff like The Frozen Autumn. Quite a lot of this is that nobody likes mainstream music. To some extent mainstream music is always designed in a way where it blends genres and is less 'pure' so if you're snobbish about it that will be a problem.

Ended up on a YouTube video in the end where someone was talking about how their mum was part of the goth scene somewhere in the US back in the day, and they also mentioned that she listened to more metal stuff and listed some bands. Someone responded saying essentially that his mum was a real goth unlike 'goth' girls today who listen to *insert various metalcore and scene bands from the 2000s 2 of which most teens wouldn't be that into now.* Blood On the Dance Floor in particular were never that popular, (I never really liked the one track I heard from them tbh,) and then there were the sexual allegations which probably put an end to that fandom having any significance. Then amusingly someone else weighed in with 'those aren't goth bands they stole our look.'

Metalheads are also sometimes like this. I think my first conversation with someone who predominantly listened to metal as a teenager involved them telling me Slipknot aren't metal they're hardcore. Which wasn't even true. They have no connection to punk/hardcore punk. Just say you don't like mainstream music and go. On this note I can't find the video now but I know the YouTuber F.D Signifier was talking about this and I think mentioning it contributed to both rock and metal sort of losing appeal with young people over time and now there's a hiphop singularity. I thought he might have brought it up in this video but I re-watched it recently and don't think it is that one. Maybe it was a point in a completely unrelated video. He was also talking about this on twitter.



And it's kind of ironic because very few if any of the original goth rock musicians wanted to be associated with the label. And I think because I listen to a little bit of everything now, I do find these attitudews obnoxious. And it would definitely put off people who are curious/young/not an encyclopedia of music. And often there's a kind of misogyny associated with some of these attitudes too ('stupid teen girls' etc,) but that's a whole other topic.

And yeah similar stuff happens with gatekeeping re: fashion styles which is even more dumb.

Oh and now I can post this hahahaha.

edit: and that subreddit reminded me that Stabbing Westward exist (and aren't goth lol,) it's been a little under a decade I think lol. Actually possibly over a decade I don't even know lol.

[Nyctophilia]

I'm ambivalent about this (the opinion that people shouldn't buy her future work to signal support of trans people.) It's not really going to economically hurt JK Rowling (and perhaps she deserves to George Lucas herself?) But I find it very amusing that Rowling is butthurt about this to the point of responding (and so I suppose she's made clear that tweeting this kind of thing will get her attention if you wanted to piss her off):



This is not how you have a midlife crisis as a British writer though.

"On my 40th birthday rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis I decided it might be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself a magician. This had been something coming for a while, it seemed to be a logical end step in my career as a writer." - Alan Moore.

Speaking of cats (weirdo Rowling fans were attacking cats/her on her cat photo tweet lol,) on Christmas this cat brushed up against the bag I was carrying and then followed me for a few streets while I was walking back home. Well more that it was sort of walking with me and my brother then when it got further ahead it kept pausing to look back and see if we were still there. That hasn't happened since I was in secondary school and a cat followed me to school (it seemed to like my PE kit bag that's prob a coincidence I dunno.) I think on both occasions they were black cats but not 100% sure. I like cats because (in theory I've never owned one,) they don't put up with bs, they're silly and neurotic but also edgy, and it's more like having a roommate.

Lol when David is staying with the Amish people and they're like 'please no. Leave' and he's dressed in like subtle 'goth ninja' fashion. I do need that outfit. How is this low quality thing that's classified 'youtube for kids' (what?) The only upload of that scene lol?



Oh and a cosplay short with someone doing an impression of Alexis saying David well actually I guess the rest of the family but Alexis's David's are more iconic:



edit: Oh my god I just realised their relationship dynamic is sort of like someone took this episode of parks and rec and then thought 'but what if April and Tynnyfer were brother and sister?'

[Otherside]

Gotta love No Context Brits.

There is the Goose Warning.

no-context-british-humour-456770-60dac11391a69__700.jpg

The Cockney Cash Machine (im going to need to find this one.)

FkYdM0bWIAAe63l.jpg

The sarcasm.

1396188590263185408-png__700.jpg

The queueing.

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[Otherside]

Insane Momemnts in Britiah Politics is also kinda funny.

Universal Owl Ownership.

FTX7xpsWYA4P9jB.jpg

Elmo and Count Binface standing as electoral candidates.

FO4OqHZX0AAg8te.jpg

The guy in a monkey suit who managed to be elected as mayor with a policy of "Bananas for all."

FPBtJa1XEAACNSB.jpg

[Nyctophilia]

Insane Momemnts in Britiah Politics is also kinda funny.

Universal Owl Ownership.

FTX7xpsWYA4P9jB.jpg

Elmo and Count Binface standing as electoral candidates.

FO4OqHZX0AAg8te.jpg

The guy in a monkey suit who managed to be elected as mayor with a policy of "Bananas for all."

FPBtJa1XEAACNSB.jpg

Lol I forgot about that. There's Lord Buckethead too.

[Otherside]

Lol I forgot about that. There's Lord Buckethead too.

candidates.png

Same guy as Binface, Buckethead just got sued because it was Buckethead was the character of some American film, so he became Binface.

I like how they have to take him seriously though and he gets to go to the hustings and answer questions.