How did I get my hands on this early? Again, Amazon delivered a new release to me a little early. Not a complaint, just an observation. There is an upside to living in the middle of nowhere.
Again, I am just going to give you my feelings on listening to this the first time rather than go in depth on every song. There are people really good at giving flowerly descriptions of songs…and I am not one of them!
First off I would like to say how much I love the instrumentation on this album. You have fast punk guitar, spooky keyboards and even horns! Phantasmagoria, Everything and Grave Disorder are all represented within these songs with some added psychedelic type guitar work. These songs actually remind me of the band Vanilla Fudge, which can only be a good thing. If you like a more ‘rocking’ Damned then this is the album for you!
This is a very political album which is so awesome! The Damned have never been ones to shy away from speaking out against bullshit and they do it here in spades. My favourite song so far is Follow Me, a little ditty about how shallow and fake internet influencers can be. Some ‘goth’ influencers are probably going to feel called out by it; which can only be a good thing of course.
Well, first listen and I really, really like this album! The title of the album is a very apt name for it; lots of psychedelic keyboard and guitar work. If you are new to The Damned this would be an excellent jumping in point, and if you are an older fan this album will make you want to boogie: From Your Lips made me want to uber-goth dance!
I can hear you asking ‘How is she reviewing this when it isn’t even out yet?’ For whatever reason I received it three days early in the mail, and my goodness am I impressed.
First a little background about my history of listening to this band. I got into the Black Celebration album when I was fifteen in 1986 but I stopped listening to them right after I turned sixteen because a friend who betrayed me was a big fan. So, for years I associated them with that failed friendship and just never listened to them outside of a club environment. Less than a year ago I thought about all of the crap that happened, was like ‘fuck her’ and then gave Black Celebration a listen for the first time since 1987. I instantly reconnected to it and I even remembered all of the lyrics so I am now back into liking them. Hooray!
I am so glad I per-ordered this album because it is very, very good. Seriously good. If you listen to it from start to finish it takes you on a journey of loss and trying to find your way back into the light from the darkness. There are no happy synth driven pop songs on this album, which is a good thing because such a song would not feel right within this context. You could say that the single Ghosts Again fits into that box, but the morose lyrics make it anything but that. As a whole the lyrics contained within this album show a maturity that heavily reminds me of the darker aspects of Black Celebration, but instead of looking outwards it’s looking inwards.
Rather than review the songs I am just going to tell you how I felt listening to it as a whole, because the songs are very interconnected. It starts out slow, but the further you get into the album the more it picks up speed. It is not in a flurry of synths or tons of bells and whistles, rather it is very stripped back and in some aspects very bleak. That aspect of it reminds me quite a bit of Lycia; ethereal and haunting. I love the way the vocals are intertwined with the music; weaving in and out among the beats.
This is a beautiful album and I highly recommend buying it. It is some of the best music that they have put out in decades.
This is one of the first times I have heard a musician in the pop-punk/metal-core/alternative music sphere actually majorly call out sexual predators who go after underage fans. It is a dirty ‘secret’ that has been going on in alternative circles for literally decades. It happens in punk, goth, metal and every single alternative type music genre you can think of. Predatory musicians who want to screw underage girls, and boys, get away with it way too often because their music is deemed too ‘important’, or their music connections are deemed too ‘important’. Nobody should be deemed untouchable, or ‘too important’, when it comes to calling this shit out.
This is a brilliant song and video and I stand with her.
Killing Joke is back with a very cool politically driven song and video. It is very good and if this is a preview as to what their new album is going to sound like then we are all in for a treat. It hearkens back to their punk roots which is very exciting!
This coming Record Store Day is chock full of cool releases. The only record store where I live has closed so I will have to find them online. Which itself is not a big deal because there are tons of options on Discogs when it comes to purchasing them. If you have never been on Discogs it is a very cool website in which people sell physical copies of music. If you are a collector of physical media it is a very helpful site and you can get some good deals on there.
These records are the ones that I will personally be purchasing. I am not independently wealthy so I am going to be buying them over the course of a few weeks and not all on the same day.
A Flock Of Seagulls – Rare Birds B-Sides And Rarities
This one is an obvious purchase for me because I love the hell out of A Flock Of Seagulls. Anything they put out I purchase. It’s like I have been trained as a Pavlov dog when it comes to this band. Since I have most, if not all, of their 12″ singles I more than likely own the B sides already but I am intrigued as to what the rarities will be. They are perhaps the most underappreciated band to come out of the 80’s. Unlike a lot of other 80’s era bands their music doesn’t sound dated.
Donna Summer – Hot Summer Nights
This is the 40th anniversary of the album and I am excited as hell about it because I love disco and Donna Summer. I grew up in the 70’s/80’s so her music was always around and being played. She had a really extraordinary voice and sang with a lot of soul. Great lady and I can’t wait to listen to this.
Missing Persons – Live in New York 1981
This is a double album reissue. Love them and don’t have this album so this one is a no brainer.
Nena – 99 Luft Ballons 12″
I remember taping this song when it came out and listening to the lyrics over and over again to figure them out. Growing up towards the end of the Cold War, and with the threat of nuclear annihilation constantly in the background, this song will always mean a lot to me. This is a 40th anniversary reissue.
Romeo Void – Live From Mabuhay Gardens November 14th 1980
Romeo Void was an early new wave/post-punk band that came out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Since I am from that area I used to hear some of their songs on the radio all of the time. I feel like I am duty bound to get this. Crossing my fingers for some live saxophone action.
Stevie Nicks – Bella Donna Live 1981
I have always loved Stevie’s music. Did you know that Prince performed the keyboards in her song Stand Back? I know that it isn’t on this album but I think its a cool factoid. I need to own some of her vinyl so this is where I am going to start.
Tears For Fears – Saturnine Martial & Lunatic
Tears For Fears were one of my favourite bands when I was a teen in the 80’s. This is a collection of their B Sides and other rarities from their years with Mercury. This is, yet again, a no brainer for me.
U2 – Two Hearts Beat As One/Sunday Bloody Sunday 40th Anniversary Edition
I make it no secret on here that I love early U2. This has the two original songs on one side and two new versions of them on the other. Only getting this because of the old songs being front and center on this release.
Various Artists – Monsters, Vampires, Voodoos & Spooks
I’m a huge fan of horror punk and spooky Halloween themed songs so this is meant for me. I feel seen.
The Virgin Prunes – The Debut EPs
Love The Virgin Prunes and I plan on buying all of their reissues as they come out.
Some people are probably wondering why I am not going to be buying the Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees reissues. Truthfully? I am not a huge fan of either band. I don’t hate them or anything like that, it’s just that I don’t collect their music. Remember to always buy music that you like, not what others say that you have to buy. If you don’t like any of the releases I have mentioned that’s fine; you do you.
I think many of you know how much I dislike a lot of the modern bands doing ‘post-punk by the numbers’ music. Lots of bands using the same bass-lines, most of the time stolen from Peter Hook, and the same monotonous delivery of echoing vocals. I find it all boring, trite and highly repetitive. If I want to listen to The Cure or The Smiths I will listen to The Cure or The Smiths not some band trying their best to sound like they came out of the 80’s without actually understanding the 80’s. Back in the 80’s lots of post-punk bands sounded completely different from one another rather than exactly copying one another like they do now. By the way I would never listen to The Smiths these days because Morrissey is a racist wanker. Loved them when I was a teen in the 80’s, but stopped listening to them when they broke up. Yes, I am that old.
Better view of what I wrote.
You know all of this shit is getting out of hand when even Peter Hook is agreeing with me. The dude has been a musician for decades and has only gained a lot of respect for his bass playing pretty recently in his career. He fully deserves the accolades because he is a brilliant bass player. Do you know what isn’t brilliant? Outright copying his bass-lines and trying to be the next Joy Division. There is never going to be another Joy Division because that band was lightening in a bottle; they came about in a certain time and place that just doesn’t exist any longer.
What can we learn from all of this? You will gain more respect following your own musical journey as a musician, rather than trying to copy a sound that has been done to death.
So, did I really drop out of the goth subculture? When it comes to the online goth community I have. However, I am still listening to the music and being spooky so those parts of me have not changed at all. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
A new compilation of songs, that were originally played in the London nightclub The Batcave, has been compiled by Johnny Melton (Slut) and they want over £100 for the CD version. Not even joking. That vinyl edition? It is that cheap because it only contains a small portion of the songs. Another six album edition costs about £150.
I actually laughed out loud at that price when I first saw it because who in the living fuck has that kind of cash to splash around right now for a box set? Then I realized it is not me who they are trying to target with this. Being that anything ‘goth’ is extremely popular in the mainstream at the moment they want that sweet sweet cash from younger folks who think that buying this will automatically get them into the subculture. I guarantee that there is going to be a bit of the standard ‘you’re not goth like me unless you own this’ vibes coming along soon in online goth spaces. Since I have dropped out of that online goth subculture completely I will not have to be witness to this. Hooray!
So, what do you get for that £109? Five CDs and an eighty page hardback book. That’s it. Wow, such a bargain! I wonder if the CDs can double as drink coasters so that you at least get some use out of them? I am being very sarcastic, but it just boggles my mind that people are going to be willing to shell out that much money for this. Remember kids, the goth music subculture didn’t just originate in the UK it also happened in California at the exact same time with deathrock.
Infamous 1940’s photo of Nazis marching through the town in which I now live.
I have decided to write this because I think it is important to lay out exactly why I have left a subculture that I have been a member of for over thirty years. This will be a warning to those who want to enter the subculture; the truth as to what is going on within it right now. I know I am not alone in this and that there are others who feel that the subculture is heading down a road in which there is no return; protecting those who have an ideology that wishes harm onto others within the subculture.
First I am going to give a history lesson as to what I went through and witnessed back in the late 80’s and the early 90’s as to show exactly where I am coming from. Back then I lived in the San Francisco East Bay and there was a sizeable and well known group of neo-Nazis called the WAR (white aryan resistance) skinheads. Led, and created, on the US West Coast by the now dead Tom Metzger their goal was to push their way into punk spaces and take them over. As you can imagine this did not go well for the WAR skins because the punks and SHARPS(skinheads against racial prejudice) fought them every step of the way and eventually drove them completely into extinction. However, there were some spaces that they were more successful, and that would be the alternative clubs in which the emerging goth scene morphed out of.
I am on the left in this photo that was taken at the alternative club The Twilight Zone in early 1991.
The Twilight Zone was an all ages alternative club in Alameda in the San Francisco East Bay and it ran from around 1987 to late 1992. Unfortunately it had a bit of a WAR skin problem. I was tiny back then and weighed 110 lbs soaking wet and I had a good sense as to what I should and shouldn’t do in such circumstances. You have got to understand just how violent the WAR skins were; they had actually killed people of colour in Portland Oregon and in Olympia Washington. So, they wouldn’t have hesitated to beat the shit out of me if I had confronted them on my own and nobody at that club probably would have stopped them because they simply couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing. Because of all of this I started to stay away from there and attended 924 Gilman, the punk club in Berkeley, instead.
924 Gilman has always been a volunteer run club and the dude who headed it at that time was African American. I, and others, told him what was going on at The Twilight Zone and he actually listened to us and took what we said seriously. Everybody at Gilman had experience dealing with the WAR skins. In fact I witnessed the whole club emptying out one time, chasing them down the street and then beating the crap out of them. So, he and some others, showed up one night at The Twilight Zone and just sat there as a group; watching and waiting. Since there were obviously no cell phones back then I think somebody went to a payphone, called up the WAR skins and told them to not show up that night. In fact the WAR skins never showed up there again because of this show of force. That is all the WAR skins understood, there was no talking to them because it was useless.
So, when I see literal white nationalist sympathizers such as Madi Danger being accepted as a ‘force of good’ within the goth subculture I understandably get upset. We went through this shit over thirty years ago and nothing was learned from it? Nothing was even learned from the whole Sonsombre incident? Some are calling me a hypocrite because I originally had defended Brandon Pybus of Sonsombre. However, the moment all of the evidence against him was brought together in an cohesive manner on video I stopped supporting the band, destroyed all of their merch and I even made a public apology on this blog about it. That is what adults do; apologize when they are wrong. The HUGE difference between the two scenarios is that white nationalist sympathizers, such as Madi Danger, knew exactly what kind of band Burzum was from the very beginning. They didn’t just stumble upon Burzum, they made a concerted effort to listen to them and support them.
The major reason I have decided to leave the subculture is because of all of this. I cannot in good conscience be a member of a subculture that excuses these kind of beliefs away as if they are nothing more than a bothersome mosquito. Anybody with a pair of eyes can see that there has been a HUGE uptick of racist white nationalists entering the subculture lately. Those who choose to ignore it and say nothing are just as horrible in my opinion. There is a saying that is very apt right now. If there are ten people sitting at a table hanging out with a Nazi then there are actually eleven Nazis sitting at that table. You are the company that you keep.
Another reason why I am leaving is because of the do nothing attitude that is very prevalent in the subculture right now when it comes to kicking out rapists, racists and various other pieces of shit. Even though there has been documented proof that bands such as She Wants Revenge and Bella Morte have sexual predator members within them they are still booked for shows and people still pay to see them. Complaints are still being made against people such as DJ Panic. He is allowed to be a booker and promoter of shows in the Washington DC area despite credible allegations of mental abuse, among other things. I had run-ins with that asshole twenty years ago and it fucking sickens me that people still refuse to lift a finger to stop him.
Proof that the goth band Ashes Fallen from Northern California are still supporting Madi Danger, even after being given information that the bitch is a white nationalist sympathizer.
The final reason I am leaving is because of all of those who talk the talk but straight up refuse to walk the walk when their help is needed. I left the Sounds & Shadows community on Facebook the other day because quite frankly I can no longer take the bullshit excuses as to why some people there refuse to lift a finger to challenge the rise of racist white nationalists within the subculture. Afraid that it might hurt the feelings of others? Do you know what? Fuck the feelings of racist white nationalist sympathizers and the people who coddle them. The thing that pushed me over the edge in that community? When one of the people in charge there got pissed off at me for tagging them in a post on my Facebook page all about how the band Ashes Fallen was supporting Madi Danger. There were screenshots and yet I am the bad person for pointing this crap out? How dare I prove my case! How…dare…I? Apparently staying friends with people who have very questionable morals is more important than supporting antifascists. Go figure.
A continuation of that conversation with Ashes Fallen, who claim that they don’t support white nationalism, all while supporting a proven white nationalist sympathizer.
I have MS so my health has actually been negatively affected by the stress of all of this crap going on. My health and life are more important than those of racist white nationalist sympathizers and those protecting them so I am bowing out. The paradox of tolerance states that once the intolerant are tolerated within a group of people the intolerant will quickly take over said group. That is what is happening right now to the subculture. I will still listen to and support certain bands, but I refuse to take an active part in a subculture who thinks so little of protecting its most marginalized members.
Welcome to the very end of my series of articles all about Madi Danger’s very problematic, and now taken down, goth Discord server. If you have not read parts 1-5 I would suggest that you check them out because what happens in this article is the culmination of everything that had happened previously. The links for them will be at the bottom of this article. Just a warning, some of the screenshots in this article can be distressing to read. In the almost twenty-five years that I have been actively online I have never ever encountered somebody with so little self awareness. So, with that being said let us begin our journey!
We start off with the continuation of the paragraph that C had started at the end of the last article. They are correct, the issues that they and others had in that server were not just about politics. They complain to Madi about all of the crap that the moderator G has pulled; banning people for no reason, and deleting topics that the members thought were important. As you have read in the other articles every single time that somebody tried to start a post talking about how racism doesn’t belong in the goth subculture G would delete them. I am assuming that HK is J, Madi’s now husband. Again, C mentions how it was a bad idea for both G and R, a couple, to be moderators of the server together; they backed each other up and created drama where there wasn’t any. I have been in communities online in the past where this kind of crap happened and it always sucked big time. Madi’s moderators pretty much didn’t know how to properly run an online community and should never have been given that kind of power. Especially since Madi wanted that server to be a place for people to learn about the goth subculture. Madi, if you want people who don’t know that much about the true history of the goth subculture to be in charge like that then that reflects badly on you because you are the one who created that space. The people trying to claim that it had nothing to do with her are delusional as hell.
As I have stated before in an earlier article C makes an accusation that G said some anti-Semitic crap to somebody and then banned them. However, there is not a screenshot of this so I cannot verify this accusation. Judging from all of the racist white nationalist flags planted all over the place on the server it really wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that something like that happened though. Come to your own conclusion. This next part very much angers me because I was diagnosed with MS just over five years ago. If a moderator of an online community tried to tell me that I couldn’t ever talk about it until I was officially diagnosed there would have been hell to pay. Somebody seeking a tourettes syndrome diagnosis needs support from the community, not told to shush up about it until an official diagnosis is made. That is just straight up cruel. Again, there is no proof that this happened, but yet again it’s not a stretch to think that it could have occurred. C then tells Madi that they have actually done academic research into music subcultures; metal, goth and punk included. They are saying that to show Madi that they actually are knowledgable on the subject; some facets of which Madi cannot truly understand. Her lack of self awareness cripples her and holds her back from developing into a meaningful participant of the goth subculture. Remember, you crack open her frippery and she is hollow inside.
It is pretty telling how incensed Madi appears to be over C and the others not approving of the supposed ‘changes’ that were going to take place on the server. Obviously the only correct action that should have taken place after the accusations of G being racist should have been G getting insta-banned from the community. They should not have been coddled by Madi and the other mods. Madi and J’s new ‘rules’ come far too little far too late, and remember that banning G for all of this crap was immediately taken off the table even before the others shared screenshots proving what took place. J, Madi’s now husband, cared so much about the safety of the marginalized members of the community that they didn’t think that taking away G’s moderating duties was the right thing to do. Considering that Madi took that server down sometime after all of this took place is very, very telling; she did not want all of this news coming out and reaching the wider public. Remember, she is a goth grifter and wants to become an influencer so that she can make money off of the community and gain subculture clout. All the while not truly understanding how the subculture has always had political elements and is not welcoming of people who actively defend friends wearing Burzum shirts. ‘That’ screenshot is coming up in a few minutes, I promise!
Again, C apologizes to Madi for still talking about this. Madi is the one who should be apologizing to C and to all of the members of that community; since she was the founder of it she had an absolute duty to protect her marginalized fans from racist white nationalist rhetoric. Madi took that trust that they had in her and ground it into the ground with the broken heels of a pair of Demonia boots. C even tells her that they could send all of the screenshots to her of when J argued with them over the issues that C and the others came forward with. Those screenshots are included within my articles so you can read them for yourself.
How dare they assume that your husband is a cis male…how dare they! After all of this and she gets the most angry over that? Do you know why all four of them left Madi? Because both you and J did not take their complaints seriously…at all. She actually admitted that she saw those screenshots and yet she still thinks J handled it fairly?
C continues that paragraph trying again to tell Madi that their concerns are serious and that she should at least try to understand where they are coming from. However, what C doesn’t quite grasp or understand about Madi is that she totally lacks self awareness. She doesn’t listen to advice from others, instead she loves to skip down her own little yellow brick road that is tarnished with pieces of misinformation that are detrimental to both herself and her followers.
Now we come along to a different discussion that Madi initiates with C. If you remember C talked about some online encounters in their story, which occurred a bit after those on the server took place. It was about how both Madi, her husband and their friends stalked C’s comments on different social media sites for any mention of the events that had occurred on that server. Madi claims that C called her a racist even though they didn’t. I also have not stated that she is a racist in any of these articles so if she is saying that I did she is a liar. All C said was that they had heard about Madi defending a friend who was being racist by wearing a Burzum shirt, and that she was gaining a problematic reputation in the online goth community. For those of you who do not know about the black metal band Burzum, it is a band that was founded by the murdering racist white nationalist Varg Vikernes. So, if a person is wearing a shirt with this band’s name on it you can quite easily conclude that said person also has racist white nationalist sentiments. Don’t want to be seen as a racist piece of shit then don’t wear a shirt representing that band. However, Madi is a person who lacks self awareness so she doesn’t see how badly this in turn reflects upon her. You are the company that you keep.
Madi actually goes full on into defending her friend’s choice of wearing a Burzum shirt. It does in fact make your friend racist Madi, since Burzum is a band founded by a racist white nationalist. I don’t care what that murderer sings about in his band, he is still a racist white nationalist. Anything that Varg sonically touches should be avoided because who the hell wants to be affiliated or associated with that piece of shit? Oh, apparently Madi thinks that somebody who wears a bootleg Burzum shirt, and who listens to the music, couldn’t possibly be racist! Madi actually thinks that the ‘logic’ that C is presenting doesn’t add up? Wow! Through the years I have heard idiots say much the same thing about the racist white nationalist punk band Skrewdriver. People would say things like ‘their first album isn’t racist and it’s good’. That kind of crap. C already knows that the other mods of that community weren’t racist too? Madi, that logic that you are presenting doesn’t actually add up.
So, because Burzum’s lyrics, in Madi’s words, are about ‘nerdy shit and a little paganism’ there is no way that Burzum could be considered racist. I’ll let you ponder that for a few minutes. Burzum have never been an unknown underground band. In fact there have been books, films and documentaries that have shown Varg Vikernes to be a murdering racist piece of shit, and yet Madi somehow doesn’t think that listening to his music or wearing Burzum band shirts is in any way racist? C then goes into how multiple people have tried telling her to not defend such things and she just ignores them. I have actually seen her in action online ignoring people when they try to gently correct her about things like bands. For instance, when others told her that certain bands were post-punk and not goth, what does she do? Totally ignores them and then deletes their comments. That might appear to be a minor thing but she does this over and over and over again creating a huge snowball filled with misinformation that is hurtling towards baby bats looking to her for guidance into the subculture.
Just like C I don’t want my goth scene to be infested with racist white nationalists. Her behaviour in the face of all of these red flags in my opinion is very, very suspect. C is right, racists aren’t always the ones who say overtly racist things. A lot of people, including myself, learned that from the whole Sonsombre debacle that happened almost two years ago. We were all used to racist Nazi skinheads trying to barge their way into goth spaces, not somebody who dresses like us and who makes music that we like. To be truthful the blending in that Brandon Pybus attempted is what made me look sideways at Madi. Here is a twenty-six year old metalhead woman coming out of nowhere making videos about ‘goth’ music and the subculture while only having a shallow surface knowledge of the topics. People try to help her and warn her and she puts her fingers in her ears and acts like a a toddler having a tantrum. She is not the kind of person who should be allowed to sit down with baby bats and tell them about the subculture, because she herself is tone deaf and lacks any kind of self awareness. That was the last screenshot in the info dump, but I took a very interesting screenshot the other day of something I found on Google when I typed in ‘madi danger burzum’.
Above is that screenshot in all of its glory. Spotify is notorious for being very slow when it comes to updating playlists and the information contained within them. See that black metal playlist that Madi has? Well, she apparently at some point had at least two different Burzum songs on it. I have underlined them in green. Sometime between then and now she took those songs off of her playlist because if you look at the current version of it they are nowhere to be seen. Did Madi wise up and finally realise that listening to that music made her look like a racist, or did she take them down because she didn’t want people going after her for liking the music of a racist white nationalist? Since Madi lacks any sort of self awareness I’m guessing that she got tired of people not believing her insipid explanations.
If you are online friends with her and are just finding out about all of this information I know how much it sucks when you put your trust in somebody and they betray it. It is never an easy thing to go through. The best way to move on from something like this is to see it as a lesson learned and to grow from there.
There are people and bands online trying to make me out as some sort of villain, that I am ‘bullying’ poor little innocent Madi. It is really obvious to me that they have not read any of my articles and probably never will; they are blinded by all of Madi’s frippery. Do you know what is even more sad than that though? The fact that none of these people learned any lessons from the Sonsombre incident. After a week I am going to make a list of every band and every ‘influencer’ who is still supporting her and put it on this blog. Why? Because others deserve to know the names of those who think that Madi listening to and supporting Burzum is just peachy-keen and a joke. EDIT: After talking to a friend I have decided to be more forgiving to people in this situation, especially to those same people who never forgave me in the Sonsombre conflict. Sometimes you get taken in by somebody and even though shown some evidence your mind can’t quite grasp what is really happening and you just can’t believe that somebody would betray you like that. If you want to talk and try to hash something out I am here and open to having a conversation.
EDIT: I totally forgot to thank all of the people before me who tried to make this information about Madi Danger known to everybody but who were shut down by threats of violence, among other things. All of you deserved to be believed by everybody, instead of being ignored by the majority. I did this partially for you so that you could have some justice. I have your back.
Again, I want to give a big huge shout-out to those who have been supporting me behind the scenes and whom I know have my back. Thank you so very much! I feel very proud to have you as friends. xxxx
This was going to be the fifth and last article all about the questionable events that happened on Madi Danger’s now defunct goth Discord server. However, I have had to enlarge all of these screenshots by hand and I had forgotten that there were yet more that I had to do! So, there will be either one or two posts after this and the links to the older articles in this series will be at the bottom of this post. I highly suggest that you read through the first four articles before diving into this one, because all of the others together show the patterns of behaviour that were on display; be it somebody continuously asking the moderators if they had racist white nationalist political views, or somebody refusing to kick out the other moderator who was accused of racism. Once again these are shown in the order in which they appeared. Off we go!
We are now exactly where we left off in part four. This is finally where Madi starts accusing C of insinuating that she is a Nazi. C says that they never got a straight answer from G when asked what their political views were when it came to racist white nationalism. As you have witnessed G danced around that question so much that it became apparent that something was just off about the entire situation. Why wouldn’t G answer that simple question? C then says that they never called her a Nazi and somehow C still trusts Madi to do the right thing. C really seems like the kind of person that just tries to see good in everybody. There is nothing wrong with that at all, they are just trusting the wrong kind of person.
C agrees with Madi that they haven’t recently seen any transphobic jokes on the server, but they think that since people are joking about Varg, who is a murdering and racist piece of shit, that it wouldn’t be far fetched if others started making transphobic jokes. Considering all of the side stepping going on can you really blame them for not feeling safe? Oh for fucks sake! She actually thinks that a very belated answer to a very important question is acceptable proof that G is not a racist white nationalist? That C should be grateful that G has finally graced them with an answer? Madi lacks the self awareness to understand just how bad this whole situation looks and feels to people looking at it from the outside. Most black metal fans see black metal as a joke? How the hell are people in a damn goth server supposed to know that, never mind the fact that marginalized people don’t see racism, transphobia and white nationalism as a joke. Somebody who is a murdering, racist piece of crap like Varg should be condemned and looked down upon as the piece of shit that he is, not joked about around the very people that somebody like Varg would hurt and even kill.
C mentions that they have friends who are into black metal that do not find the meme in question funny. Madi then asks why does C feel the need to spread all of this info all over the internet. Why? Because it is majorly fucked up what happened on that server and C wants to warn others not to step into that pile of shit. Yet again, why the hell does somebody need to know the origins of a metal meme in a goth community? If I had a dollar for every single time I have mentioned this in the articles I would be a very wealthy woman.
Even after all of this C is still trusting Madi; a person who in no way deserves it. Again, how the hell did it get to this point? I know I have said that a few times in these articles but it really boggles my mind just how long this went on for. Their next point is a very good one, it really feels like Madi is not quite grasping how important it is for her to take a strong stance against racist white nationalists online. She can use her platform to send this message loud and clear to those who need to hear it; that racist white nationalism should not, and will not, ever be accepted in the goth community. It’s very important to be self aware in these kind of circumstances and to understand that protecting the marginalized in the goth community should be a priority, rather than just dismissing their legitimate concerns. I honestly hope that Madi does some long and hard critical thinking about all of this and learns that her inaction can lead to people actually being hurt both emotionally and physically. However, her lack of self awareness makes this more than likely an impossibility.
This is C continuing their thoughts on the matter and I fully agree with their stance. Over the years various people with racist white nationalist views have snuck into the goth subculture under the radar because others in the ‘scene’ think that everybody should be accepted into the subculture without any question as to what their true intentions are. The only way that this kind of thing is going to end in the goth subculture is if people confront this crap when they see it happening, instead of not lifting a finger because they are scared of being threatened. I have been writing in this blog for over two years now and I have written articles calling out some pretty horrendous shit, yet I have never received a threat. If you are a cis white woman, such as myself, there really is no excuse to not speak up. C then goes on about how POC don’t feel like they would be welcome within the goth scene because the goth community as a whole has historically not pushed back as hard against Nazis as much as say the punk community has. I mentioned in an earlier article in this series about how I witnessed the punks and SHARPS physically beating the crap out of Nazi skins back over thirty years ago, while the emerging goth scene rarely lifted a finger. Again, I think that has been slowly changing within the last ten years and that can only be a good thing as far as I am concerned.
I can totally feel where C is coming from. Story time! When the goth scene in the SF Bay Area started to evolve out of the alternative scene they wouldn’t lift a finger to drive WAR(white aryan resistance) skinheads out. I would see WAR skins at club nights in which more and more ‘goth’ music would be played. I’m not even kidding about this next part. Some of the people who volunteered at 924 Gilman over in Berkeley were starting to hear about this from people such as myself. So, a group of the bigger punks from there showed up and I don’t remember the WAR skins ever appearing at that club again after that. The reason? Because it was a message to the WAR skins to never show up again or they would physically be forced to leave by any means necessary. If it wasn’t for the punks doing the heavy lifting the goth scene in the SF Bay Area could have died before it was even born. This is all just to say that the punk scene has always been more unified when it comes to a common purpose such as fighting against racism or physically fighting neo-Nazis. While the goth subculture has always been kind of more divided. As I said above this has started to change within the last ten years. Handled fairly on ‘both sides’ Madi? A moderator of the server named G is accused of racism by various members AND judging from the info contained in some of these messages they actually showed receipts of what happened. Yet it is fair to them that G gets no punishment for this? Let alone the fact that it took ages for G to finally answer that damn question. I think Madi has got to look up the meaning of the word ‘fair’ in the dictionary. Reading is fundamental.
Madi, I’m just going to say this again because it bears repeating. You wouldn’t be up in the middle of the night if G would have just answered that question in the first place. C has been more than patient through this entire ordeal and you are going to complain about having to get up early for work in the morning? Again, her lack of self awareness rears its ugly head.
Well, this is the end of part five. As I stated in the beginning of this post there are going to be either one or two more articles after this one in the series. Part 6 will be up on Friday the 27th. I’m giving myself an extra day to put it together because some of the screenshots coming up are rage inducing and I need a little more time to process them in my head before I start. Thank you for reading this, and I would love to give a shout-out to all of the people supporting me behind the scenes; your encouragement has helped me so much and I deeply appreciate it.
