Originally posted in 2008
A big question for me is image. Not popularity or if I look like a decent member of a given sub-culture... nothing so easy. It is rather that I want people to see the me I want them to see and no other, regardless of their taste for that particular me. At first it was because I wanted to have a stable image that didn't go through phases like other people so that people would always know who I am. When hearing about me years from then, when I had become powerful or something, people would know they used to go to school with me and all that business and know what to expect.
Some people would see more of the 'real' me than others, others would see a different 'real' me, a more detailed and 'deep' version of the commonly shown one. Being determining consciousness and that, the various images started to merge in my portrayal... All that was left was a mere reaction appropriate to a given audiences expectations. The stories that I used to form the images for different people could not be maintained without distancing all audiences from each other. Family from everything else, school from everything else, etc. All images were true, in their own, one-sided, way because they all came from the same idea: one image for everyone. The problem was that different people see things differently and so different ways of putting forward the same 'message' were devised. They became distinct, truely different images, but in the same measure as they became distinct from one another, they truely reflected a part of me more faithfully. But they only reflected a part of me.
As I lost control of this and the various images ceased being images and became more and more one image, my reactions to everything lost all independence: they were wholly dependent on the previous image, and more importantly, what I thought people thought of me. If people thought of me in a certain way, I was more likely to react in a way that would reinforce that conception. But that was impossible to maintain. I was changing, so here and there some part of that got through, and that changed what I understood to be others' expectations and that was added to how I would react in future.
But all this continued after I left school and there left the biggest support for my previous image. It had become habit, routine. For a time I even thought it was 'me.' ut here is the thing: it wasn't that I was someone else pretending to be a bunch of people and then ******** up and mixed them all up, but I actually was that mixed up bunch. There was absolutely nothing behind it. I had no personality other than that which was expected of me.
Of course, while it continued after I left school, it did start to break down, though it is nowhere near completely gone yet.
I guess I could show this with my taste in music:
In primary school, my taste in music was nil. I remember liking the Spice Girls, though not for their music, but rather because I thought baby spice was hot... Same with Britney Spears in year six. Halfway through year six, moving to my current house, my image at primary school was no longer a fact, not that I was conscious of 'image creation' at the time, and I don't think I was even doing it, but it does serve as an example. Anyway, my taste in music didn't exist, and that was that. After starting year seven, and having my brother live with us for some time, I copied his Eminem CDs to tape and played them on my radio. I was fond of them. I was fond of them, mainly I think, because 'brother was cool' and all that crap. I took my radio to school and instantly I was the aussie kid who liked rap. Eminem hadn't made his name here until a few months later, so it was quiet unexpected for a non arab/moslem/islander/other random minority to listen to rap, and it didn't matter if the rapper was white, it was rap. I certainly didn't become popular, but it was something and I reveled in it at first. As I became used to it it was just that, I was the first white kid in the school to listen to rap and I had that badge and noone could take it away. This was carried over int me liking rap in general...
Not quiet, though. I didn't have the money to buy CDs, let alone a CD player, so my exposure to rap was limited to the music coming out of my brother's room. Within these limits I did develop what would seem to be an independent taste in music, but i reality came from the contradiction between my social views and the pre-established taste in music. By year 11 this was particularly acute. I had firmly established politics (which are partly greatly to blame for the desire to create a stable image) then, which seem to be the only thing I had done outside the image making, and in fact, which influenced the image making from the outside: determining what the image was to be. This started, however vague, in year 8, and after a few false starts and brilliant anticipations, finally solidified in year 12, seemingly unshakable (I have the "seemingly" there in case something happens in the future to change those politics on some fundamental level).
This divergence between world view and taste could not be held for long, 'it had to be burst asunder. It was burst asunder.' All through year twelve, I was looking for something. Unfortunately, it was hard to do anything positive about it because of the image I had built up. My taste in music had developed toward electronic instrumentals. It seems this was due to the heavily electronic, or at least obviously synthesised nature of Dr. Dre's music. That said, this change, and it wasn't a complete change, merely an acknowledging of the change necessary, served to break the monopoly, in my own head at least... At least seems that way now. Nothing ever seems like a negation until something has been built from the ruins.
Other randomness had always existed, but it was disjointed, there was no order. It was just random. Other. Stuff. And funnily enough, it too served the purpose of image-crafting, just in a particular circle of people at school. The point is that these other random songs and albums were nothing important. They existed, but were an expected part of listening to the radio: other stuff shows up. However, because my taste in music was directed in large part /against/ such music, it could never be the foundation of something new.
Many songs that I had heard and did not know the names of had something about them however, that got me. I did not know anything about the bands that made them, so they were pure. It was only through them that I could move forward: things I genuinely liked and had not given myself reason to reject.
With the beginning of the HSC and the start of my second year of year twelve, with people who didn't know me, there was no previous image holding me back, so the taste for heavily synthed stuff was predominant then. Of course my favourite music was on my Dre and Eminem CDs, but ppublicly, that is, my image, that was forgotten.
Through San Andreas I found out the name of one song I had loved the sound of, but never properly listened to, and didn't know the name of to find: Personal Jesus. When the first English test for the HSC was on I borrowed an MP3 player of one of the students participating. I wasn't doing the test, so I was free. On the MP3 player I found Personal Jesus. Instantly everything focussed on that. I only had a 32mb memory stick in my PSP then, so I could only leach 5 songs, and that was one. It was the song most played for months... Not the most played, it was THE song played. Hearing it in full, pointed at my eardrums, it changed everything. I wanted to find more of this 'Depeche Mode''s music... But I was scared. What if that was their only good song? So I didn't buy any CDs, hell, I didn't even look for any.
So I went to TAFE to continue my studies and there... was an Orc. My previous school image came back, by reflex. It was only with, first, the loss of its presence, and second, my own decreasing class attendance that I was able to start rebuilding. The class attendance issue was merely practical: it was during time I was meant to be in class that I spent in the library downloading music. I searched long and hard at first for anime music. I found some and that was good, but it wasn't something I could use as a foundation.
This was not a conscious thing, it is just how things turned out. As I said above: The logic behind the events is usually only visible in hindsight. Eventually I decided I would look for some Depeche Mode stuff, and see what I thought.
Never Let Me Down Again, Behind The Wheel, Master And Servant, Enjoy The Silence, Here Is The House.
These were some of the first songs I downloaded and loved... Just brilliant. They also happened to intersect with my mood at the time, what, with me just coming back from a trip and having some rather unexpected and unfortunate events. They fit in perfectly with my mood and were perfectly crafted in and of themselves.
(This was also the time I fell in love with Tainted Love (officially: Best. Song. Ever.), but there is a decent reason why that is Soft Cell's only known song)
This was the first genuinely independent musical decision I had ever made, and it was also the first positive action as regards my 'image' that I had made in years. It was not simply reacting to what people were used to, it was not me aimlessly floating, grasping at whatever came my way in order to see if it was good.
It was me finding something that was actually good and embracing it.
That continued through the next year. At the next TAFE I attended almost all my music was Depeche Mode, and that became a new Image... But it wasn't set in stone. It was merely the first decent thing I had found, and that is how I saw it. Not much new came though. I was trying so hard to find something good, not just musically, that I latched on to whatever was there. Bleach was a particularly fun example. As was/is the first opening theme: *~asterisk~
Around the middle of the year a new song caught my ear: Hook Me Up. It was just... wow. The best non DM thing I had found... I needed it. I could find no copies of it in the MP3 sites left unblocked by the education department. So I looked for the single... It seemed to be an Itunes only release! How could it not be on the internet? And then I found the album. $20 for one song? Damn straight. I bought it. Lucky too, it was the second last copy they had. It had been released 20 minutes ago! I found that out at the cash register. Wow.
And so I listened to that... And it was good. All in all a decent album. It was not exactly to my taste, but 4 of the 13(? (I can't be ******** lookong for the CD case...)) still get a decent amount of playing.
I had also bought FutureSex/LoveSounds, and whatever Timberland's album is called. They don't really count though. They seem to be the last spurts of rap-taste. That was since snuffed out by my acquisition of internets.
So I got tube access. I got Bit Torrent. I got suggestions... The only suggestion that turned out good was NIN's The Downward Spiral. That album rocks. Other than that... I decided I would look for the cure. Why? Didn't have a ******** clue. I liked a few songs, but that was it. I decided to see if I liked more I guess.
For about a month, things were weird, musically. My PSP was dying, so I didn't have music on the go, just at home, and I didn't use it on the computer that much because it distracted me from reading and writing.
I had enough time to decide I liked Lovesong, Friday I'm In Love, Lovecats... and that's it. I knew I liked A Forest, but I never listened to it properly. I always got lost in the bass. It is wonderful.
And then I got an IPod. It was time to actually listen to my music and appreciate it. I didn't do that. I listened to it on shuffle, but skipped anything I wasn't really in to. Out of 400 odd songs, I listened, regularly, to maybe 20. That changed yesterday. While I had een saying that I liked the cure since I started downloading their music, that was bullshit. I just happened to have their music on me. The songs I liked are these:
Lovesong,
Lovecats,
Friday I'm In Love,
High (occasionally),
A Forest,
Let's Go To Bed,
M,
Why Can't I Be You,
Just Like Heaven,
All I want,.
Yeah, really a fan.
So yesterday I decided I would listen to all of thee albums on my IPod, one by one by one. I would then get rid of any albums that I don't like. Yesterday I listened to Seventeen Seconds (great. Best songs: Seventeen Seconds, A Forest, M), Disintegration (Very good album. I don't know how, but it creates a mood, and without destroying it, changes it twice through the album. And it works. Is good.), and Pornography (probebly the most solid album I have ever heard. While not the best, it does create a sound/mood and sticks with it the whole way through and does it well.). So yeah. It is obvious that now, officially and practically, I actually do like The Cure.
So, why did I write all that? I am high on coffee. Not much sleep can be expected from me tonight... whinge.
Funny thing about coffee, (not that I am an expert on the effects of certain drugs on people, far from it, all I have is an out of date reputation, that I am not actually sure how I got... That is really annoying though. Part of my image was the all knowing one... I was the person who was expected, by teachers and students alike, to know every obscure book they could think of, know every law and its loopholes, know every event in history, and while in practice many people did not believe it, they propagated the belief. They convinced others it was true. I was the weird encyclopedia kid... I knew everything, but somehow managed to fail every test I had. And the scary thing? Sometimes it actually looked like I deserved it. I helped someone in Legal Studies in year eleven: They got almost full marks from using my help, me? another failure. I'm assuming it comes down to wording or something, but still. But still, having everyone, even now, assume I know stuff that I don't, ecause back in year eight I knew more about some random sttuff than most other people in my year. People expecting me to know all books , because they always see me reading. If they payed any attention almost all those books were about the roman ******** empire, or because in year seven I started reading Lord of the Rings. Or that I was extremely well read because I read a lot about politics and so got a passing knowledge of various trends of political thought or certain authors... And yes, I played along. Not always out of vanity, wanting to keep such an opinion going, but because these people seemed to really believe it, and I felt really bad about ruining the belief that they had a student who, regardless of marks, was really able to do stuff, that actually knew stuff...)...
Anyway, funny thing about coffee is how much it makes me talk abbout differet things. Comparison with drunkenness: When drunk, I just lose inhibitions. That is it. All that will happen is that I might say something I wouldn't normally /say/, but would be thinking. Coffee, on the other seems to change what I think, the road my thoughts seem to take...
Contrary to the message I sent everyone (of whom at most ONE is reading this), it is not Australlia that is in a recession, but the US.
Still fun though.
[[This was posted at 11:21pm... yes, four hours it took me...]]
Some people would see more of the 'real' me than others, others would see a different 'real' me, a more detailed and 'deep' version of the commonly shown one. Being determining consciousness and that, the various images started to merge in my portrayal... All that was left was a mere reaction appropriate to a given audiences expectations. The stories that I used to form the images for different people could not be maintained without distancing all audiences from each other. Family from everything else, school from everything else, etc. All images were true, in their own, one-sided, way because they all came from the same idea: one image for everyone. The problem was that different people see things differently and so different ways of putting forward the same 'message' were devised. They became distinct, truely different images, but in the same measure as they became distinct from one another, they truely reflected a part of me more faithfully. But they only reflected a part of me.
As I lost control of this and the various images ceased being images and became more and more one image, my reactions to everything lost all independence: they were wholly dependent on the previous image, and more importantly, what I thought people thought of me. If people thought of me in a certain way, I was more likely to react in a way that would reinforce that conception. But that was impossible to maintain. I was changing, so here and there some part of that got through, and that changed what I understood to be others' expectations and that was added to how I would react in future.
But all this continued after I left school and there left the biggest support for my previous image. It had become habit, routine. For a time I even thought it was 'me.' ut here is the thing: it wasn't that I was someone else pretending to be a bunch of people and then ******** up and mixed them all up, but I actually was that mixed up bunch. There was absolutely nothing behind it. I had no personality other than that which was expected of me.
Of course, while it continued after I left school, it did start to break down, though it is nowhere near completely gone yet.
I guess I could show this with my taste in music:
In primary school, my taste in music was nil. I remember liking the Spice Girls, though not for their music, but rather because I thought baby spice was hot... Same with Britney Spears in year six. Halfway through year six, moving to my current house, my image at primary school was no longer a fact, not that I was conscious of 'image creation' at the time, and I don't think I was even doing it, but it does serve as an example. Anyway, my taste in music didn't exist, and that was that. After starting year seven, and having my brother live with us for some time, I copied his Eminem CDs to tape and played them on my radio. I was fond of them. I was fond of them, mainly I think, because 'brother was cool' and all that crap. I took my radio to school and instantly I was the aussie kid who liked rap. Eminem hadn't made his name here until a few months later, so it was quiet unexpected for a non arab/moslem/islander/other random minority to listen to rap, and it didn't matter if the rapper was white, it was rap. I certainly didn't become popular, but it was something and I reveled in it at first. As I became used to it it was just that, I was the first white kid in the school to listen to rap and I had that badge and noone could take it away. This was carried over int me liking rap in general...
Not quiet, though. I didn't have the money to buy CDs, let alone a CD player, so my exposure to rap was limited to the music coming out of my brother's room. Within these limits I did develop what would seem to be an independent taste in music, but i reality came from the contradiction between my social views and the pre-established taste in music. By year 11 this was particularly acute. I had firmly established politics (which are partly greatly to blame for the desire to create a stable image) then, which seem to be the only thing I had done outside the image making, and in fact, which influenced the image making from the outside: determining what the image was to be. This started, however vague, in year 8, and after a few false starts and brilliant anticipations, finally solidified in year 12, seemingly unshakable (I have the "seemingly" there in case something happens in the future to change those politics on some fundamental level).
This divergence between world view and taste could not be held for long, 'it had to be burst asunder. It was burst asunder.' All through year twelve, I was looking for something. Unfortunately, it was hard to do anything positive about it because of the image I had built up. My taste in music had developed toward electronic instrumentals. It seems this was due to the heavily electronic, or at least obviously synthesised nature of Dr. Dre's music. That said, this change, and it wasn't a complete change, merely an acknowledging of the change necessary, served to break the monopoly, in my own head at least... At least seems that way now. Nothing ever seems like a negation until something has been built from the ruins.
Other randomness had always existed, but it was disjointed, there was no order. It was just random. Other. Stuff. And funnily enough, it too served the purpose of image-crafting, just in a particular circle of people at school. The point is that these other random songs and albums were nothing important. They existed, but were an expected part of listening to the radio: other stuff shows up. However, because my taste in music was directed in large part /against/ such music, it could never be the foundation of something new.
Many songs that I had heard and did not know the names of had something about them however, that got me. I did not know anything about the bands that made them, so they were pure. It was only through them that I could move forward: things I genuinely liked and had not given myself reason to reject.
With the beginning of the HSC and the start of my second year of year twelve, with people who didn't know me, there was no previous image holding me back, so the taste for heavily synthed stuff was predominant then. Of course my favourite music was on my Dre and Eminem CDs, but ppublicly, that is, my image, that was forgotten.
Through San Andreas I found out the name of one song I had loved the sound of, but never properly listened to, and didn't know the name of to find: Personal Jesus. When the first English test for the HSC was on I borrowed an MP3 player of one of the students participating. I wasn't doing the test, so I was free. On the MP3 player I found Personal Jesus. Instantly everything focussed on that. I only had a 32mb memory stick in my PSP then, so I could only leach 5 songs, and that was one. It was the song most played for months... Not the most played, it was THE song played. Hearing it in full, pointed at my eardrums, it changed everything. I wanted to find more of this 'Depeche Mode''s music... But I was scared. What if that was their only good song? So I didn't buy any CDs, hell, I didn't even look for any.
So I went to TAFE to continue my studies and there... was an Orc. My previous school image came back, by reflex. It was only with, first, the loss of its presence, and second, my own decreasing class attendance that I was able to start rebuilding. The class attendance issue was merely practical: it was during time I was meant to be in class that I spent in the library downloading music. I searched long and hard at first for anime music. I found some and that was good, but it wasn't something I could use as a foundation.
This was not a conscious thing, it is just how things turned out. As I said above: The logic behind the events is usually only visible in hindsight. Eventually I decided I would look for some Depeche Mode stuff, and see what I thought.
Never Let Me Down Again, Behind The Wheel, Master And Servant, Enjoy The Silence, Here Is The House.
These were some of the first songs I downloaded and loved... Just brilliant. They also happened to intersect with my mood at the time, what, with me just coming back from a trip and having some rather unexpected and unfortunate events. They fit in perfectly with my mood and were perfectly crafted in and of themselves.
(This was also the time I fell in love with Tainted Love (officially: Best. Song. Ever.), but there is a decent reason why that is Soft Cell's only known song)
This was the first genuinely independent musical decision I had ever made, and it was also the first positive action as regards my 'image' that I had made in years. It was not simply reacting to what people were used to, it was not me aimlessly floating, grasping at whatever came my way in order to see if it was good.
It was me finding something that was actually good and embracing it.
That continued through the next year. At the next TAFE I attended almost all my music was Depeche Mode, and that became a new Image... But it wasn't set in stone. It was merely the first decent thing I had found, and that is how I saw it. Not much new came though. I was trying so hard to find something good, not just musically, that I latched on to whatever was there. Bleach was a particularly fun example. As was/is the first opening theme: *~asterisk~
Around the middle of the year a new song caught my ear: Hook Me Up. It was just... wow. The best non DM thing I had found... I needed it. I could find no copies of it in the MP3 sites left unblocked by the education department. So I looked for the single... It seemed to be an Itunes only release! How could it not be on the internet? And then I found the album. $20 for one song? Damn straight. I bought it. Lucky too, it was the second last copy they had. It had been released 20 minutes ago! I found that out at the cash register. Wow.
And so I listened to that... And it was good. All in all a decent album. It was not exactly to my taste, but 4 of the 13(? (I can't be ******** lookong for the CD case...)) still get a decent amount of playing.
I had also bought FutureSex/LoveSounds, and whatever Timberland's album is called. They don't really count though. They seem to be the last spurts of rap-taste. That was since snuffed out by my acquisition of internets.
So I got tube access. I got Bit Torrent. I got suggestions... The only suggestion that turned out good was NIN's The Downward Spiral. That album rocks. Other than that... I decided I would look for the cure. Why? Didn't have a ******** clue. I liked a few songs, but that was it. I decided to see if I liked more I guess.
For about a month, things were weird, musically. My PSP was dying, so I didn't have music on the go, just at home, and I didn't use it on the computer that much because it distracted me from reading and writing.
I had enough time to decide I liked Lovesong, Friday I'm In Love, Lovecats... and that's it. I knew I liked A Forest, but I never listened to it properly. I always got lost in the bass. It is wonderful.
And then I got an IPod. It was time to actually listen to my music and appreciate it. I didn't do that. I listened to it on shuffle, but skipped anything I wasn't really in to. Out of 400 odd songs, I listened, regularly, to maybe 20. That changed yesterday. While I had een saying that I liked the cure since I started downloading their music, that was bullshit. I just happened to have their music on me. The songs I liked are these:
Lovesong,
Lovecats,
Friday I'm In Love,
High (occasionally),
A Forest,
Let's Go To Bed,
M,
Why Can't I Be You,
Just Like Heaven,
All I want,.
Yeah, really a fan.
So yesterday I decided I would listen to all of thee albums on my IPod, one by one by one. I would then get rid of any albums that I don't like. Yesterday I listened to Seventeen Seconds (great. Best songs: Seventeen Seconds, A Forest, M), Disintegration (Very good album. I don't know how, but it creates a mood, and without destroying it, changes it twice through the album. And it works. Is good.), and Pornography (probebly the most solid album I have ever heard. While not the best, it does create a sound/mood and sticks with it the whole way through and does it well.). So yeah. It is obvious that now, officially and practically, I actually do like The Cure.
So, why did I write all that? I am high on coffee. Not much sleep can be expected from me tonight... whinge.
Funny thing about coffee, (not that I am an expert on the effects of certain drugs on people, far from it, all I have is an out of date reputation, that I am not actually sure how I got... That is really annoying though. Part of my image was the all knowing one... I was the person who was expected, by teachers and students alike, to know every obscure book they could think of, know every law and its loopholes, know every event in history, and while in practice many people did not believe it, they propagated the belief. They convinced others it was true. I was the weird encyclopedia kid... I knew everything, but somehow managed to fail every test I had. And the scary thing? Sometimes it actually looked like I deserved it. I helped someone in Legal Studies in year eleven: They got almost full marks from using my help, me? another failure. I'm assuming it comes down to wording or something, but still. But still, having everyone, even now, assume I know stuff that I don't, ecause back in year eight I knew more about some random sttuff than most other people in my year. People expecting me to know all books , because they always see me reading. If they payed any attention almost all those books were about the roman ******** empire, or because in year seven I started reading Lord of the Rings. Or that I was extremely well read because I read a lot about politics and so got a passing knowledge of various trends of political thought or certain authors... And yes, I played along. Not always out of vanity, wanting to keep such an opinion going, but because these people seemed to really believe it, and I felt really bad about ruining the belief that they had a student who, regardless of marks, was really able to do stuff, that actually knew stuff...)...
Anyway, funny thing about coffee is how much it makes me talk abbout differet things. Comparison with drunkenness: When drunk, I just lose inhibitions. That is it. All that will happen is that I might say something I wouldn't normally /say/, but would be thinking. Coffee, on the other seems to change what I think, the road my thoughts seem to take...
Contrary to the message I sent everyone (of whom at most ONE is reading this), it is not Australlia that is in a recession, but the US.
Still fun though.
[[This was posted at 11:21pm... yes, four hours it took me...]]
