I make it no secret on social media that I support Jill Stein for president in this upcoming 2024 election cycle, but I thought I would make an official blog announcement in case you don’t follow me on those sites.
I have voted in every single presidential election in the United States since I tuned 18 in 1989. I have always been a leftist to one degree or another throughout those years, and I have always voted blue. However, given the political climate, and the insane actions of Genocide Joe, I refuse to ever vote blue again. Genocide is a line I refuse to cross and I’ll be damned if I give any support to those who condone and fund Israel. I have been attacked online by Genocide Joe’s supporters saying that I am going to get Trump elected if I don’t vote blue. Not my problem, because if he loses it is going to be his own damn fault for literally funding a genocide. I stand firm on this and I refuse to be bullied into voting for Genocide Joe.
Over the last few weeks I have seen people wonder who the hell they are going to vote for since they dislike both Genocide Joe and Trump. Jill Stein will cut all funding to Israel and is the only viable candidate not willing to support their genocidal lunacy. The only way the United States is ever going to get rid of their shit two party political system is if people vote for and support third party candidates such as Jill Stein. She talks the talk and walks the walk. She has been taking part in the recent anti-war college protests, and was even brutally arrested at one at Washington University last month.
In the end you can vote for whomever you please, but if you want the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank to end Jill Stein is the only viable candidate willing to go against the far right Israeli government.
This is the perfect representation of Killstar right now; muck circling the drain.
Welcome back to yet another article detailing the bad happenings going on at Killstar right now. I have received an email from an employee who wishes to remain anonymous and what they have told me is quite interesting to say the least. Bertram Capital seems to be running the financial side of the company while Tequila-Rose is in charge of the design team, and guess what? They are both doing very badly at their assigned tasks.
Tequila-Rose runs the design team in a very controlling manner; everything has to be run by her and approved by her. Those who lick her boots get spanking brand new titles, while those who try to bring forth new ideas are quite frequently bullied so they end up leaving. Good on them, because nobody should be treated like that. Instead of being innovative with their designs they are just copying the same silhouettes over and over again: just like what I predicted they wouldlast year. Take for instance their black bell sleeved shirt; the only thing they change are the graphics. It’s just the same thing over and over again.
From what I understand Bertram Capital, and Tequila-Rose, refuse to listen to new ideas that would actually help the company. Ideas such as lowering the prices. Instead of that they keep raising the prices. Not just that though; they are using cheaper materials now, which has become very noticeable. This all started when Tequila-Rose went to Bertram Capital, a private equity firm, a few years ago for a cash injection to help steer the company in the right direction. It’s probably the worst financial decision that she could have made because private equity firms exist for just one reason; to make their investors a huge pile of cash. They don’t give a crap about innovation.
Talking about innovation. When Kreeptures, their plushie collection of misshapen creatures, came out people were excited to buy them because they were deemed as collectables; they were done in smaller batches to make them more scarce. Bertram Capital thought that was a perfect money making idea so instead of coming out once in a blue moon they started releasing them weekly, and sometimes even twice a week. Usually just different colours of the same Kreeptures. This annihilated the reason why people were buying them in the first place and in response sales of them went down, way down.
You would think that maybe Killstar would have learned their lesson, but they haven’t. Instead they came out with another line of smaller plushies called Kuties. However, that also isn’t working for them because sales of them have been poor. If you’ve noticed they have also introduced a different line of clothes called Kihilist but I don’t think they know what the hell to do with it. They advertise that this line are easy looks that can be worn during the day into night. Which makes no damn sense because all of their clothes can be worn like that.
Do you remember when all of their remote workers were laid off? What they got offered to move to Brighton was so low that nobody took the deal. However, Tequila-Rose offered her ‘essential’ bootlicker workers a far better deal which they all took. My source has told me that the company will hire a diverse group of people to pad their diversity numbers, but they put a lot of said people into roles that they are not qualified to do; setting them up for failure. The company in general is so toxic that 75% of people in the company have worked there for less than two years which is a huge turnover. I don’t think I have ever worked at a company with that high of a number.
Trust me when I say that this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. They frequently lay off groups of people, which doesn’t always go the way they want it to. Those who were laid off because they weren’t willing to relocate to Brighton had to sign an NDA so that other staff wouldn’t find out the paltry sum they were offered to move. This became such a mess that they had to hire an outside HR company to deal with the fallout. They want to cut expenses so they plan on outsourcing their customer service. That’s right, in the near future when you call Killstar to try to solve an issue you will probably be talking to somebody from a poorer country who doesn’t make that much money. The mantra of the upper management is to do jobs as quickly and cheaply as possible, and it is backfiring on them spectacularly.
How is Killstar doing financially? They are making less money than last year which tells me that their customers no longer trust them to make a good quality product. People are broke as hell right now and don’t want to spend a ton of money on clothes that are as badly made as those from Shein. When you go onto Shein or Temu you will find direct copies of some of their items, such as the striped sweaters and the skull handbags. Why spend £70 on a skull handbag when you can get the exact same thing for less than half that price. This is what frequently happens to companies who source their manufacturing in China. It is a common practice for manufacturers there to copy the designs and sell it themselves.
Basically, Killstar wants everybody in Brighton so that they can be kept on a tight leash and micromanaged. When somebody chooses to leave, or is laid off, another person is given their duties on top of the ones they are already doing. This causes burnout and makes more people leave. On top of that they are now making pickers in their warehouses wear devices that track how fast they are performing; warehouses which are very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. They are acting like a mini version of Amazon; treating their workers like crap and making them work in poor conditions.
The last thing I want to touch on is that they will hire managerial staff and promise them really nice performance bonuses. These managers will come up with good ideas that the company really likes and then they are laid off by Killstar before they can be qualified for said bonuses; throw away the employee and keep the idea. This is a very horrid business practice that private equity firms frequently do and one of the many reasons why they should never be brought into a company and trusted.
Killstar is coming up with a Monster High ‘collection’ in a few days and I bet a whole lot of the silhouettes are going to look very similar to older ones; yet more bell sleeves among other Killstar fashion tropes. How exciting and edgy of them. With yet more and more of their shady business practices coming to light I quite honestly have no idea how much longer this brand is going to last. They have been having constant sales and sending out daily emails. If they do really badly during the Christmas season later this year I can see them going under but only time will tell.
I will continue to write posts covering Killstar as information is relayed to me. If you are a Killstar employee, past or present, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I will keep your identity a secret and treat you fairly.
Their version of the incident, which is way more believable than the other side.
EDIT 4: Punk Rock Review just posted a video in which he talks to Jesse from Still Pist about what happened that night. The dude saw Erin’s boyfriend clock his girlfriend in the face. I had no idea he actually witnessed it, I just thought somebody else told him. Erin’s boyfriend got a beatdown that he totally deserved.
EDIT 3: Erin has made a new video. Is it an apology to the people she lied about? Of course not, because she has an extreme lack of self awareness. Instead it is all about her one year anniversary of practicing meditation. She is obviously learning nothing from it for her to be acting like this. Also, notice in the video that she has no marks or bruises. She is definitely not doing herself any favours by posting this.
Not a single bruise. If she had truly been ‘jumped’ she would not be that lily-white right now.
EDIT 2: There have been allegations about Erin raping multiple men. Below is a screenshot of somebody with facts about one occurrence in which she was caught giving oral to a guy who was passed out drunk. I quite honestly can’t see her ever being welcomed at a punk show ever again because she has been telling lie after lie after lie about that fight. I, and some others, have been joking that she is probably going to pivot to goth next. Which would actually be funny as hell because there are plenty of us with a foot in each camp that wouldn’t let that slide.
EDIT: I found this video over on YouTube by Punk Rock Review, and in it he dissects her video about the attack. He notices that she has cut out part of the video. The cut is right after the chick threw the drink in her face. She edited it to where the girl is attacking her to make it as if the girl threw the first punch. Proof Erin is lying and that she did indeed throw the first punch. Holy shit!!! Start the video at 27:49.
I decided to make a new post about this because the other post is already crowded with updates. The truth is starting to come out and it is what was expected; Erin threw the first punch, lied about being jumped by multiple people and got her boyfriend involved. Said boyfriend then proceeds to punch the other girl in the face so hard that his ring left an imprint on her cheek. As seen in the below photo. Then that moron got a beatdown for clocking the other chick, who was a very small person. He could have pulled her away, which would have been easy since she is so small, but he made the very bad decision of clocking her instead.
A closer photo of the cut and swollen lip that were the result of Erin’s boyfriend clocking her.
This band is getting a lot of threats from Erin’s fanboys, because of course they are. The whole Madi Danger crapfest is much of the same thing; pretty white women can get away with anything in the punk and goth subcultures if they have enough simps following them on social media. However, as I have said before, the age of the ‘influencer’ seems to be coming to an end. There really seems to be more of a backlash against neoliberal capitalism right now than there was just a year ago which can only be a good thing.
Video about what took place because I don’t link to her.
EDIT 30/04: She has apparently been told the names of the people who fought her and her boyfriend and is going to call the cops. You know that phrase ‘snitches get stitches’? I quite honestly don’t think she is going to be welcome in most places after this which can only be a good thing. If I still lived in California I would make the drive to LA to verbally harangue the hell out of her. I’m kind of known for being good at it.
EDIT: Just found out from some online friends whom I trust that she has been accused of raping a guy in the past. She sucked off a dude who was passed out drunk apparently. I knew she was kind of horrible but I had no idea that it ran this deep. Fucking hell. I have now changed my mind about her. Rapists should never be tolerated no matter who the hell they are, and especially if they are using the punk subculture to gain status and money. FUCK YOU ERIN!!!!
Erin Micklow is an ‘influencer’ who uses the punk subculture to make cash. That is who she is and that is what she does. It is also the reason why she is pretty infamous in the punk scene; using a subculture that isn’t about material gain to gain a lot of money. She has been denied entry into Punk Rock Bowling in the past because of her refusing to follow the rules when it came to getting access backstage. So, her being attacked by another chick at a show didn’t come out of nowhere; she has a long track record of treating some other people horribly.
So, what exactly happened? That is kind of up for debate right now because she is telling one story while others are saying something different. She claims she got ‘jumped’ in a bathroom by a group of women, but others are saying it was just one chick who attacked her. Her boyfriend then wails on the other chick. Other chick’s boyfriend enters the combat and proceeds to beat the shit out of Micklow’s boyfriend.
The other side of the story.
Do I think all of this is a bit shit? Yes, because nobody deserves to beat up at a show like that. Personally, as many of you know, I can’t stand influencers period because it is all about material gain in subcultures that weren’t meant to go down that neoliberal capitalist road. I think what we are beginning to see right now in society is a backlash against influencers because people are broke as hell right now and don’t want to watch people brag about everything they own constantly. I think what happened to her was bound to happen at some point because of her long history of using the punk subculture to make money. Like I said earlier she is not completely innocent; she has a documented pattern of some shitty behaviour.
People are telling her to go to the cops, but right or wrong there will be even more backlash against her if she does this because the police have never been liked by the punk community for obvious reasons. She is between a rock and a hard place. She chose the punk subculture to be an influencer and that subculture is now physically fighting back. Do I find her annoying as hell? Yes. Do I think she should have been beat up for it? No. I think it is totally fine to verbally berate somebody when they are being an idiot but punching somebody takes that to another level.
The ‘too goth’ are her words not mine. She publicly posted this photo of herself so I am sharing.
Most of you know that I still doom-scroll goth subreddits, because the drama always gives me ideas for articles. This is no different; a girl has claimed that a mall in her home area of Virginia kicked her out for looking ‘too goth’. I have been wanting to write a screed about how friends don’t let friends wear white-face make-up and this pops up out of the blue!
She was told by the mall security guard that she had to leave the mall because her make-up obscured her features. I used to go to malls all of the time in the late 80’s/early 90’s with friends to hang out because there was literally nowhere to congregate out of the sun and we were never kicked out. However, we didn’t wear white-face. In fact never in my life have I worn it. Back ‘in the day’ it was considered a very theatrical look and even in the clubs of that time I can count on one hand the number of people that I saw wearing it. I guarantee that there are more people wandering about wearing white-face right now than there was 30 years ago.
There are ways to look pale without resorting to white-face. All you need is a foundation shade that is a few levels lighter than the colour of your skin. That way you can easily blend it into you neck without it looking like a white mask. Honestly, that is what the vast majority of us did back then. When I could afford to buy MAC I started using their lightest shade. These days I very rarely use foundation. If I am feeling extra fancy I will wear lipstick and eyeliner and that is it.
The thing with looking over the top and theatrical while out in public is that you will get shit for it in one way or another. It sucks that people are assholes but you have to have a thick skin. Remember when the influencer Black Friday wasn’t allowed to enter the Louvre because of her very theatrical look? There is a time and place for it. In the end you can wear whatever make-up you want, but sometimes there are going to be consquences for that choice. The world that exists online is not the same world that exists outside your front door.
EDIT: Here is an exchange the chick and another person had on her Reddit thread. She is underlined in green. This got a little juicy…and racist. Fucking hell!
Wondering why the economy is so utterly fucked right now? Can’t understand why people keep buying shit they don’t need? This book will answer those questions and more.
If you are anywhere politically on the left you will know about how much neoliberalism sucks and about how much ‘free market’ capitalism is a load of shit. This book connects all of the dots and lays it all out in a manner that makes it very easy to comprehend. She doesn’t write dryly like many economists do which is one of the main reasons why I really recommend reading this; the situations she talks about in the book are things that anybody can identify with.
This book really, really goes to town as to why people keep buying crap they don’t need. Neoliberal capitalists put societal pressure on everybody; telling us that if we don’t keep up with the latest trends that we will be considered poor and then in turn ‘othered’. As if being poor is bad and being rich is good. You see this kind of brainwashing even in ‘alternative’ subcultures. You have to wear the right brands or the right expensive make-up to be punk or goth according to the neoliberal playbook. The people who buy into this idea in the online world are those that you see constantly showing off the latest crap they wasted their money on. If buying an endless amount of material goods is supposed to make you happy, according to the neoliberals, then why the hell is nobody happy right now?
I highly recommend reading this because knowledge is power and this is a very powerful book.
They say this image isn’t AI, all while the chick’s skin looks manipulated as hell. She has no skin texture.
Before I start I would like to tell Gothic Booty, I mean Beauty, that I own the domain and website of this blog and that I answer to nobody as to how it is run. So take-down threats aren’t going to work on me. Hiya!!!!!
So, for the last few weeks a bunch of people have been calling out Gothic Beauty for the AI images that they are using in their social media posts. How have Gothic Beauty responded? By getting the posts of people sharing the AI images taken down for copyright claims. Does that sound like an innocent company to you? It sure as hell doesn’t to me and it is the major reason as to why I am sharing this information. Shit like this needs to be called out.
One of the AI images in question.
The thing that is really pissing people off, myself included, is the fact that the AI images are of thin white young women; a stereotype that needs to just die already. It really just shows exactly who they are trying to cater to; thin white young women and the men who have a fetish for them. Do they give a shit about those of us who are over fifty and have been into the music for literally decades? Nope. I am very used to not being represented in goth online spaces because of my age, but each time it happens it still pisses me off.
I am known for questioning Killstar and not once have they ever tried to copyright claim me. Not a single time. It is a sad state of affairs that a so called ‘goth’ magazine, that is supposedly catering to the ‘alternative’ community, can’t take criticism and choose to perpetuate a stereotype rather than listening to their readers. They aren’t using AI in their actual magazine right now, but judging by their response it sure seems like they want to go into that direction. Not to mention the fact that the images they use in the magazine are manipulated to hell and back. They are making their real models look like AI images by their overuse of blurring tools. You can’t be goth apparently if you have pores or wrinkles in your skin.
I think more and more ‘alternative’ companies are going to try to pull this and each time they do they need to be called out for it. Make your disapproval of this kind of thing known to them, because if you don’t it is going to get far worse than it is already.
Aaron Bushnell was in the United States Air Force and he made the ultimate sacrifice. He filmed himself burning to death in front of the DC Israeli embassy while shouting ‘Free Palestine’ until he couldn’t any longer. He felt that the killing of Palestinians by Israel was wrong and that the complicity of the United States government in it was untenable.
He wasn’t just a soldier, he helped the homeless in San Antonio and was part of the local socialist community. In other words he talked the talk and walked the walk. This sacrifice that he made was done because he had a sense of justice, not because he was depressed.
That you Aaron for standing up for the Palestinian people and for your sacrifice; you will never be forgotten.
Well it looks like things are coming to a head because they have decided to make their remote workers redundantif they don’t agree to work in their office located in Brighton. I find this interesting because their office used to be in Glasgow. I’m guessing that they let people work remotely instead of having to be in Glasgow, so something major must be happening to move the office to Brighton and to make people physically come into work.
My guess as to what is going on? They are making people come into the office because they want to consolidate positions and make people do more than just one role, which means that the company is more than likely in financial trouble. Since Bertram Capital bought a stake in the company the quality of the clothes has gone south and they have pumped out new clothes every single week, and sometimes several times in a week. Many of the designs look familiar because they keep copying the same silhouettes over and over again.
Killstar really suck for doing this to their workers and are behaving the same as any regular corporate entity. They stopped having any kind of alternative clothing credibility when they let the private equity firm Bertram Capital into the fold. As of right now they are just a corporate entity trying to make a buck off of alternative subcultures. That is it. When you buy clothes from them you are just filling the pockets of the venture capitalists that are running the company into the ground.
Personally, I will not shed a tear for Killstar and they deserve all of the hate they are going to get for doing this to their employees in this economic climate.
….tech bros offer other tech bros free meals after being laid off. Is it sad when people lose their jobs? Of course, however when people lose their very well paying jobs and then cry about being broke I lose all sympathy. Seriously, tech bros pretty much made the entire San Francisco Bay Area practically unlivable for anybody outside of tech and they have the nerve to moan and complain? Oh hell no!
I feel no pity for the tech bros who moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and treated the place like their own private Ayn Rand fantasy playland. They look down their noses at the homeless and anybody who doesn’t work in tech and they now want special treatment? Oh noes, you spent all of your money getting stuck at Burning Man and now want sympathy? How about going back to the flyover state from whence you came and move back in with mom and dad, because they obviously didn’t teach you how to handle your money. EDIT: The post has been taken down, I’m guessing because of backlash. Good.
