I'm a 90's child, disillusioned by modernity and sickened by the way Western culture seems to be headed. It's even worse online - the internet used to be a place for creativity, free thought, and expression, now it's been corporatised, and heavily censored, the soul has been sucked out of it. The same could be said about the music industry - rock music is dead, unique indivuality and creavite expression has been snuffed out, mass market, generic beats reigns. Politically, I, like many who feel the same way, are homeless, the two party system having revealed itself to be merely theatrics.
Face it, the 90's was just superior in every way to the culture we have today
Having a leftist, Marxist background, I can't recognise the left today. There is no opposition to the slow creep of technocracy, the transfer of power from the masses to the elite is almost complete. Dissenters are relabelled conspiracy theorists, tokenistic gesture politics has become the order of the day. You're a fascist if you don't comply, yet the woke aren't awake. We used to campaign against big tech and big pharma - modern leftists shill for them. Even the rainbow flag is a hate symbol now, dubbed "not inclusive enough by those who aren't even queer, but either want to flirt with bisexuality for the likes, or just hate gender taboos. We used to fight those taboos once remember, now we rush to label kids as trans who buck stereotypes. This says nothing about trans people, who are real and valid, but everything about the left's understanding of how to help trans people gain acceptance, as well as obtain full equality for lesbians, gay men, and women in general.:
So what's the solution? I dunno about you, but instead of fighting back by trying to swim with the flow, I'm taking the opposite approach. I refuse to give up on my principles, so I've opted out, I'm turning my back on modernity. This encompasses everything, from politics to music, to aesthetics, and the internet. It used to be a cliched maxim. But we did. I want the younger generation to have that too, not to become brainwashed drones obsessed with over-consumption. That's why I'm making this website, I'm sick of Twitter, Facebook, Wix, Weebly and all the other slick sites which only mandate conformity. This piece of the internet is where I shall stake my claim to individuality. This is where I shall pay homage to all the things that made me, and shaped my life, however small. I am, and shall always remain a Marxist, I genuinely believe societal conditions and the quality of all our lives will be massively improved when workers own a stake in production. I will also be forever an equalist, but I stalwartly refuse to play the idPol game. Cancel culture has been the death knell for freedom of expression, it only causes division and magnifies differences that either aren't even there, or don't even matter.:
Instead of listening to their trash tunes, I'll stick to listening to music made from an era where freedom of expression truly reigned - bands like Nirvana, L7, Bikini Kill and Hole just wouldn't be possible in today's gimmicky music industry and shallow culture. I'm a copywriter and fiction author, and when it comes to my writing, I also refuse to bow. I don't care if research has proved people don't read long articles, or articles without lots of images and video - either those articles aren't well written enough to keep them engaged, or they shouldn't be so fucking lazy. I also don't care if it's now the "thing" to make your fiction political, or your characters inclusive enough, art shouldn't be obsessed with pushing a message, it should be telling a story - or revealing a truth. The artist is just the conduit.
So yeah, basically, you could say I'm kind of sick of the world we're living in. At the same time, I can't help but feel an outlier, it seems most people don't feel this way and are quite happy with our superficial, 3-minute attention span, hashtag activist culture. That's okay, I'm a libertarian when it comes to individual autonomy, so if that's the way people want things to go, then my saying is "You do you." Just don't expect me to comply with any of it. Because I won't, ever. This is the hill I will die on.
So what will be on this site? Not sure exactly, but it will likely wind up being an ecclectic mish mash of everything I love and whatever's currently in my head. Eventually, you're likely to find a bit of everything here from 90's nostalgia to my love of British medieval and Tudor history, to political rants, gaming posts, excerpts from my books, and pictures of my fur baby. When I'm feeling extra trivial, I might even blog about my skincare obsession, and the products I've found that actually work. I can't promise I'll be PC but I'll try not to be boring. At the end of the day though - I'm doing this for me, not for followers, or likes, and that's why I could never work out social media. Everyone's obsessed with gaining approval, I stopped wanting or needing that in my late 20's and I've been all the better for it. I'll write more soon but I do have one more thing to say, which is if you are reading this, and any of it resonates, take heart. The bastards haven't found a way to control your thoughts yet. Be yourself, you beautiful, complex, multi-faceted individual, human being. Carve out your own path.