PLEASE READ THIS. Some Housekeeping.
I want to be honest with you all. I’ve been— what’s the phrase?— absurdly depressed as of late. Like, “wanting to erase everything I’ve ever done off the Internet, quit the E Word and erase our archives, and live my life in complete anonymity until I wither away” depressed. And to tell you the truth, I still haven’t really shaken that feeling off. Just the act of writing this and putting it out into the world is difficult, partially because I don’t trust that I have anything of worth to say. I’m not quite sure where exactly this crisis of confidence came from, although I recently had a bit of a professional breakthrough (the fruits of which you should all see coming in June), so maybe it’s just some elements of self-sabotage coming into play, which would be fitting (coupled with your average everyday quarter-life crisis, which I’m sure is tied to my recent issues with my physical health).
A large part of my making-myself-feel-better tactic has been abstaining from social media as much as possible, which is actually a little harder than I initially thought, but has very much been worth it. I think the process of losing a lot of faith in myself and my abilities and my worth as a writer did lead to some increased introspection and humility on my end. Even aside from the embarrassment that comes with reading stuff you wrote years ago and thinking about how you’d do it so much better now, I’ve noticed an unfortunate streak in my writing (and tweeting) over the last two years— a streak of arrogance and narcissism and an occasional tinge of outright mean-spiritedness that I find distinctly off-putting. I think I unwittingly took on a lot of what I personally don’t like in other people: smarminess; perpetually being in possession of the “right” take; being far too quick to cut other people down. And for that, I truly am sorry.
Part of what I’m trying to instill in myself right now is the knowledge that I don’t have to post or have a Hot Take about every goddamn thing that happens; it’s just not always necessary, and it feeds into cyclical patterns that are part of the addictive and self-destructive elements of my personality (specifically, attention- and validation-seeking behavior). I’ve done my best to unlearn so many of those things in the offline world, but at some point I forgot to apply it to the online world we’ve all been trapped inside as well. I allowed myself to let in some of the Twitter brain-rot I’ve hated seeing in so many others, and in the process I picked up that same cynicism, that lack of thoughtfulness, that desperation to engage with everything and anything lest my voice be missing from the conversation.
Quite obviously, there are some conversations where my voice is one of the least necessary. That was my first thought when the news broke about Daunte Wright’s murder— I am a stupid middle-class white kid who doesn’t know shit about dick, and this isn’t about me. Police violence and systemic racism happen every fucking day. The fight against them should absolutely inform our everyday actions and worldview. And they are unquestionably things that we should all be thinking about more often than just as these tragedies happen and become publicized. Our Black comrades don’t have the luxury of only caring when it’s convenient. Solidarity cannot be optional; the goal is never to “go back to normal.” I looked back on some of my writing from around this time last year and felt that I should have done less talking and more listening, so that’s something I’m doing my best to put into practice right now.
(If you are looking for a way to help and don’t know where to start, you can always donate to Daunte Wright’s family on GoFundMe. Although Minnesota Freedom Fund still has tons of money from last summer, the Brooklyn Center Mutual Aid Fund can always use more. Make sure to follow and support Yes 4 Minneapolis. Something else that can be helpful is challenging friends or members of your family who may be upholding white supremacy without realizing it via “He shouldn’t have been resisting arrest” talking points; it can be hard work, but I am certain that you can make much more headway with people that you personally know than racist strangers on the internet. It can help make less of those, in fact. A doc composed of suggestions and links to Black Marxist literature and anti-racist resources can be found here. Some slightly less dense material and advice can also be accessed here, with the added benefit of a streamlined way to donate to multiple bail funds all at once; hat-tip to James Cassar.)
Then there are other conversations where my voice might actually hold more weight, such as the latest kerfuffle about Substack RE: transphobic and otherwise reactionary people making a significant amount of money off the platform. I must confess to not really seeing the effectiveness in leaving Substack while still using, say, YouTube, which directly promotes and indirectly enriches noxious far-rightists on a daily basis. In fact, I don’t particularly see Substack as distinct from any other tech company that is owned by rich assholes, is nearly impossible to hold accountable in any material way, infects several aspects of our daily lives, and which horrible people assuredly profit off of— Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Sony, and so on. Ethical consumption, et cetera.
But I understand the impulse to leave, and I don’t have anything against anyone who felt that the decision to leave Substack was right for them. It’s not very fun to be automatically associated with a rotten group of people whom you do not relate to or identify with in any way. Hell, I’d probably move to a different platform myself if Ghost (the only real alternative) wasn’t, at its cheapest, $15 a month (or $90 for a year if you want to be billed all at once). Quite simply, I’m too poor! And Substack being free makes it extremely easy for writers like me to DIY (much like YouTube does for video creators). These are, unfortunately, things that are extremely difficult to sidestep when the society you live in is made up of so many intertwining webs of exploitation, but I do applaud anyone who does their best to live life in accordance with their values and principles. I personally don’t make money off Substack in the first place, but if you’d like to support trans creators on Substack, I’m non-binary and you can fund me on Patreon right here.
Speaking of Patreon, my monthly Patreon post is right around the corner. It’s going to be a serious revamp of my sass post, which I made many, many years ago. I’m now quite embarrassed of the original post’s quality, but rest assured, the revamp is going to look good, and at the very least will have a significant amount of new content. I plan on continuing to do several more installments focusing on patron-exclusive reworking of older material, so please stay tuned on that front.
In the meantime, I’d also appreciate everyone’s patience and support while I spread my wings into writing more consistently about the wider world of pop culture (and horror in particular). In fact, VHS Poisoning may (although I’m making no promises) represent my first real foray into YouTube, since that seems to be where the biggest audience for horror and horror-adjacent stuff seems to be. I’m not quite sure on that one, but we’ll see. (I’m also toying with the idea of making VHS Poisoning part of something I’m currently conceptualizing, called Graveyard Etiquette— a completely separate offshoot project, focused more specifically on horror and horror-adjacent stuff. But that is still very much in the prototype stages, and I’m more thinking out loud with you guys.) If anyone knows how to get my writing more in front of audiences who would be receptive to that sort of thing, please do not hesitate to let me know. Obviously I still love DIY music and still want to be writing about it, but I also don’t want to feel constrained or trapped in any one lane as a creator, and breaking myself out of this (somewhat self-imposed) box is very important to me.
Overall, I just wanted to be transparent about where I’m sitting emotionally right now, and noting that I’m trying my absolute hardest to grow— to make a significant impact on those around me, and to be a good person, and to not be scared of opportunities that I know I should take. I also am doing my best to be more kind, considerate, and thoughtful— not quite the polar opposite of the persona I’ve presented over the Internet for the past however many years, because I don’t want to waste too much time on overt self-hatred, but at least something more true to who I am and who I want to be than silly posturing. This means I’m also going to have to rein in some of my overly-negative, unsolicited, obnoxious opining, but I’m sure none of you are going to be holding your breath waiting for that to come back.
One last thing— it’s been several months now since I told you guys about my book-length project Stay What You Are, and I gotta say, it’s nice to not be beholden to anyone with regards to that, and to be able to work on it completely on my own time. I don’t have a projected end date; for all I know, it’ll represent the end of my career when it finally does come out. At this point, I feel very comfortable considering it to be a passion project— nothing necessarily to hold your breath for— but rest assured, when I finally do finish, I want it to be the absolute best thing I’ve ever done. Just wanted to give you guys a tiny update there (and man, with my attention span, I’m really glad I never committed to a Kickstarter or anything like that).
In the meantime, I love all of you guys, and I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me. You don’t need maps when you know where the sidewalk cracks.
-xoxo, Ellie
Thank you so much for reading. Please don’t forget to hit that subscribe button on my Patreon, or hit up my Venmo at xyoudontneedmapsx if you’d prefer to show your support with a one-time donation! If you’re interested in a band bio or some freelance writing, email me at xyoudontneedmapsx@gmail.com to hash out the details. If you’d just like to read dumb jokes, follow me on Twitter on my personal account and on my podcast’s account (you can listen to that podcast here). Or (and I realize this is a risky proposition) just friend me on Facebook if you wanna see all my bullshit “life” stuff. I’ll see you all next time!