Saying Goodbye to the Goths and Toxic Vanity

6 weeks ago, I paid my final visit to Minneapolis’s, legendary, infamous, goth club, “Ground Zero“. I was one of the club’s most devoted regulars for many years leading up to this point, but my nights there had become increasingly negative. There were many nights that I could look around the room and find only one person that I actually liked in the entire place, and just one decent person, the bartender, who was generally too busy to talk to me anyway. It had been a long time since I needed more than one hand to count the number of people in the club that I actually enjoyed interacting with.

One night, when a dude I’d been acquainted with for years got all up in my face and wanted to beat me up, after accusing me of taking a video of him dancing… the straw broke the camel’s back. I was finally like, “fuck this place, and fuck these people… it’s just not fun here anymore.”

There are a number of problems with the “goth” community, big and small.

We can talk about their absolutely horrid musical taste, polluted with shallow, trashy lyrics, amateur MIDI synth lines, and overdone EDM drum beats.

We can talk about their emotional immaturity, which seems stunted in high school mentality, even in the 40-year-old regulars, and how it rubs off on everyone, causing everyone around them to regress.

We can talk about how they all are obsessed with “darkness”, yet are completely unsupportive of their depressed friends. Depressing thoughts are met with, “Hey, you’re bringing me down. Shut up!”

We can talk about how their version of “love” is really just some kind of mechanical, rutting, sexual indulgence that might just as well be delivered to them via a steam-powered, machine with a cold, dry dildo, attached to a protruding rod.

But really, the big problem with this scene is its horrible toxic vanity. It is that they seem to feel like they should be loved and admired, simply because they chose to wear a dumb but daring outfit they bought off of “Dolls Kill” and spent 6 hours covering up their exterior ugliness with heaps of makeup. Makeup doesn’t cover up your ugly soul, kids!

I’ll be honest, though, if I had a community of people putting their hands all over me and wanting to give me sex and money and take care of my needs, just because they liked my body and the way I dressed… I’d probably be pretty addicted to that community. That addiction might have altered the course of my life to a degree that I might not have learned all the skills I acquired to earn myself a good career. I’d probably be a deadbeat, just like “Inari”. And if I were addicted to the attention I got, I’d probably keep going back.

So maybe you could point a finger at me and say, “Ada, you’re just jealous that you’re not invited to play all the sex games.” It remains to be seen how I would react if I were, but… I’ve always been a “one love” kind of person… but who am I kidding?… I’m a “zero love” kind of person.

Being loved and being attractive doesn’t mean that you have to be a deadbeat gigolo. If I had love in my life, I’d actually be healthier mentally, and therefore I would be a more productive member of society.

During the times over the years when I had a companion, I did not seek out this scene. I would have much rather spent a pleasant night at home with the person I love. Had I found my true love, I would stick with her and love her to the best of my ability… because that, to me, is how love is practiced.

Everyone likes to talk about “toxic masculinity”. But what about (gender unspecific) Toxic Vanity? These days. Those of you that know me, know me to be a not very “masculine” person… “toxic” maybe… but not masculine. This is a very toxic blog, and I wrote a very toxic book.

I just finished watching the Hulu documentary on Takashi 6ix 9ine, and it made some interesting points. Our culture, polluted by social media, has now become fixated on extremes… Instant gratification. Go big or die. Be the craziest or be nothing. We are fixated on porn stars and “fuccbois”. This vanity is toxic. We cannot love each other if all we love are the extreme ideations presented to us.

I don’t want to see your Tik Tok videos where you dance in your skimpy outfits and overdone makeup. Newsflash: I’m not at all proud of the fact that you popped out of your mother’s vagina with good enough bone structure to convince some sugar daddy to buy you some thigh-high stockings from Hot Topic to go with your outfit. 800,000 likes! So (not) proud of you! I skip right past that shit until I find people who actually have stories to tell and talents to share. Learn a skill. Gain a talent. Learn to love, and not just be loved… then I’ll be impressed. I’m not impressed that you have a boyfriend, a sugar daddy, and a fuck-buddy. I would be more impressed if you had just one… the former.

I have a new community now. I just go out every night and sing. It is a community rooted in togetherness. Rooted around the appreciation of actual talent, yet doesn’t cut down those among us who sing not as well as others. It is the most rewarding musical community I’ve ever been in and requires the least amount of effort. I toured with a band, playing 450+ shows, but it wasn’t as rewarding as the community I belong to now. If you want to find me, you’ll find me hitting several Karaoke stages every night. I’ve started a spreadsheet of all the songs I sing. I’m up to 135 unique songs in 6 weeks, not counting the songs I’ve sung more than once.

They say that when you’re depressed, to become the “best you”. Well, I’ve determined I’m my “best self” when I sing… so I’m going to just keep on doing it… and stop moping around and looking sad in clubs full of mentally undeveloped adults obsessed with mirrors.

And… another bridge burns… I do realize that I am not my “best self” when I write blogs cutting down local communities, nor when I write books exposing their dirty laundry… so I guess I’ll put on my boots and find somewhere to sing. So long! That’s all, folks!

If you want to read my piece-of-shit book, you can find it here.