my friend said to me yesterday, at least a little bit jokingly, that my recent posts make me sound like i “hate everything”

let me be clear, y’all: i do not hate everything

there is so much stuff that it would be impossible to hate everything

it would be exhausting also


it is true: i do dislike a whole bunch of stuff

how could you not, when the stuff They’re Presenting Us With is damn near universally terrible???


the thing is: i don’t dislike things themselves, i dislike, uh, the flimsy, stupid, superficial, desperation behind things, no matter what those things are

for instance i can appreciate when things are nice / well made / thoughtful, and so on, but just aren’t for me

as in: “yeah i can understand why people like this. i don’t like it, but i don’t think it’s terrible either”

that’s just personal preference! Good Stuff can be good, but it just don’t gnaw on your brainstem like the Good Stuff you like

most things, by a wide margin, are cheap and lazy and derivative. it is easier to make things like that. you can always tell when you’re dealing with something like that, because almost everything is like that. people vaguely envision an element inside a thing they like and then they want to make something that feels like that too. (or they just want to sell a carbonated beverage or a pack of cigarettes or a t-shirt. . . .)

but here’s the thing: pure creation is not enough. it is NOT ENOUGH to just make something and call it a day. real creation takes a lot of work, is often painful and drives its creator to the point of insanity, and is whipped up by someone who is paralyzingly self-aware and sensitive. i don’t go for this “A for effort” bullshit. just because you made something does not mean it’s worth a damn if it isn’t worth a damn

so as for me creating a list of websites i never want to see again, or a list of red flags i see in online profiles: all of this stuff is the same thing to me. it is cheap and lazy and derivative. there is nothing original or interesting or meaningful (i was hesitant to use this word) about any of it. these things were all someone else’s bad idea that have now spread like a virus and have been perpetuated by people who have rotten taste in everything—people who don’t really even know what they like or why they like it in the first place

my blind hope is that one day people will realize that putting things on your body, or calling yourself a certain thing, or saying certain things about yourself doesn’t actually have anything to do with the stuff you got inside you. it doesn’t say anything about how you would handle yourself if like a hydrogen bomb went off in your neighborhood, or if you had to deliver a baby in a bathtub, or if you had to fight an animal that weighed 600 pounds more than you, or if an alien asked to live in your garage, or if you could adapt to foraging for food and building shelter in a dead empty world once western civilization crumbles into bloody hell.

basically: why are you trying to prove anything to anyone? why are you desperately seeking approval from a seven-billion-strong audience of MORONS? the difference between Being A Real Person and being some slimy paper-thin human-shaped constellation of stupid crap you saw in movies or read in magazines or overheard more interesting people say is . . . well there’s a big difference between the two!

if everything you care about or like or consume is cheap and lazy and derivative . . . then how are you not poisoned into being a PERSON who is cheap and lazy and derivative???? if you eat a big bowl of air then you yourself will become a big bowl of air. you ever talked to a big bowl of air? yeah. i do it every single day of my life. it’s miserable.

i like the juicy stuff. give me the juicy stuff. i like the pulp. give me something to god dang chew on is all i’m asking. in the meantime i don’t mind standing alone and sounding insane as i pathetically lash out against the sins and trespasses of this, our modern age~~~~~~~~