Fam, this was great. Seriously, I go to readings by the fiction and poetry students at the local college, and this would be politely applauded. One point of order tho:
as she ages out of the goth/punk/emo scene in the mid-sized midwestern city she never bothered to leave, she finds her social circle shrinking more and more
afaik most goth scenes are pretty welcoming to “original generation” people. I think this is also true about punk scenes. I don’t know much about emo but I read that it’s having a bit of a revival, i.e. clubs are having nostalgia “emo nights”. So I don’t think she would age out as you describe. What’s more likely is that as her peers move away or drop out of the scene, she’d become bitter and/or gatekeepy and/or passive-aggressive so people would just start to be emotionally distant around her. Hmm… come to think of it, yeah, her social circle would shrink. But it wouldn’t be directly related to age.
Yeah, also medium sized Midwestern cities remain a hub of those countercultures, not because people never bothered leaving, but because they remain trapped, or maybe because thats where they managed to leave to. It’s easy to think that if you don’t wind up in a major coastal city you failed to make it, but for some people getting out of their home town and making it in the city means moving to Cleveland.
ikr the more I think of it, the premise of @[email protected] 's story is flawed.
Mid-sized midwestern cities usually have 1-2 universities and often a couple smaller colleges too, which means at least 1 walkable neighborhood with cafes and art galleries and smaller concert venues and populations of people who graduated and stuck around to form co-ops and quirky small businesses because they like the quality of life and cost of living. Not to mention most major acts tour all those cities.
Pharmacy tech? I can easily think of 3 friends who I wish had a job that good. iirc it requires a background check, so that means if you got that job then you don’t have a prison record nor do you have a drug habit that would lead you to start swiping the opiates.
“Sure, it might be a little cringe to see an older person dressing alt,” Sergio said as he looked in the mirror. But you know what? There’s a whole legion of people who don’t care about that, who wear dark clothes and fishnets and dark makeup, who make it a point of pride that they can’t be touched by those people who think that they’re underachievers, those people who call them scrubs, who think that they’re too fat or too poor or wear clothes that don’t quite fit… YES! Crack open a Faygo and put Milenko on loop! For the MC of the story will always be welcome among the JUGGALOS!!! WHOOP WHOOP MMFCL [email protected] !!!
I saw their follow up and I think that it makes more sense in the context provided there. The idea being that this is a person who engaged in the alt version of peaking in high school, compared to what we’re seeing as someone who’s living her best life even if it’s not what others would see as a best life. I’ve met both of these people, as well as those who are just adequately playing the hand they drew.
Also I will concede that mid sized Midwestern cities could refer to Cleveland or to Akron, the former is a perfectly fine achievement to wind up in and for many people even a place to brag about, the latter, well so long as you’re happy, I do have plenty of fond memories of it.
Yeah, I mean my thought was that, going along with the theme of her being resistant to change and not particularly socially adept, she wouldn’t enjoy the new music being made and wouldn’t go out of her way to make new friends. Additionally, she would be unable to accept her new role as one of the older people in the scene, which would make her feel uncomfortable when most others around her were younger. And the small size of the city and lack of desireable reasons to live there would make it difficult for her to find many others in the scene her same age, as there wouldn’t be many to begin with and most would either move to another city or simply drop out of the scene to focus on other things.
I didn’t mean to imply that the scene would exclude her for her age, but that she would exclude herself because of it.
I hope you realize I’m gonna be texting and emailing all my friends this evening saying “are you all right… are you REALLY all right? you’re deep and profound to ME, you know!?!” and they’ll be like “have you been watching depressing anime again?”
Fam, this was great. Seriously, I go to readings by the fiction and poetry students at the local college, and this would be politely applauded. One point of order tho:
afaik most goth scenes are pretty welcoming to “original generation” people. I think this is also true about punk scenes. I don’t know much about emo but I read that it’s having a bit of a revival, i.e. clubs are having nostalgia “emo nights”. So I don’t think she would age out as you describe. What’s more likely is that as her peers move away or drop out of the scene, she’d become bitter and/or gatekeepy and/or passive-aggressive so people would just start to be emotionally distant around her. Hmm… come to think of it, yeah, her social circle would shrink. But it wouldn’t be directly related to age.
Yeah, also medium sized Midwestern cities remain a hub of those countercultures, not because people never bothered leaving, but because they remain trapped, or maybe because thats where they managed to leave to. It’s easy to think that if you don’t wind up in a major coastal city you failed to make it, but for some people getting out of their home town and making it in the city means moving to Cleveland.
ikr the more I think of it, the premise of @[email protected] 's story is flawed.
Mid-sized midwestern cities usually have 1-2 universities and often a couple smaller colleges too, which means at least 1 walkable neighborhood with cafes and art galleries and smaller concert venues and populations of people who graduated and stuck around to form co-ops and quirky small businesses because they like the quality of life and cost of living. Not to mention most major acts tour all those cities.
Pharmacy tech? I can easily think of 3 friends who I wish had a job that good. iirc it requires a background check, so that means if you got that job then you don’t have a prison record nor do you have a drug habit that would lead you to start swiping the opiates.
“Sure, it might be a little cringe to see an older person dressing alt,” Sergio said as he looked in the mirror. But you know what? There’s a whole legion of people who don’t care about that, who wear dark clothes and fishnets and dark makeup, who make it a point of pride that they can’t be touched by those people who think that they’re underachievers, those people who call them scrubs, who think that they’re too fat or too poor or wear clothes that don’t quite fit… YES! Crack open a Faygo and put Milenko on loop! For the MC of the story will always be welcome among the JUGGALOS!!! WHOOP WHOOP MMFCL [email protected] !!!
I saw their follow up and I think that it makes more sense in the context provided there. The idea being that this is a person who engaged in the alt version of peaking in high school, compared to what we’re seeing as someone who’s living her best life even if it’s not what others would see as a best life. I’ve met both of these people, as well as those who are just adequately playing the hand they drew.
Also I will concede that mid sized Midwestern cities could refer to Cleveland or to Akron, the former is a perfectly fine achievement to wind up in and for many people even a place to brag about, the latter, well so long as you’re happy, I do have plenty of fond memories of it.
It’s not that the scene is unwelcoming, it’s more that at some point it turned into a volunteer babysitting gig and nobody told me
Yeah, I mean my thought was that, going along with the theme of her being resistant to change and not particularly socially adept, she wouldn’t enjoy the new music being made and wouldn’t go out of her way to make new friends. Additionally, she would be unable to accept her new role as one of the older people in the scene, which would make her feel uncomfortable when most others around her were younger. And the small size of the city and lack of desireable reasons to live there would make it difficult for her to find many others in the scene her same age, as there wouldn’t be many to begin with and most would either move to another city or simply drop out of the scene to focus on other things.
I didn’t mean to imply that the scene would exclude her for her age, but that she would exclude herself because of it.
I hope you realize I’m gonna be texting and emailing all my friends this evening saying “are you all right… are you REALLY all right? you’re deep and profound to ME, you know!?!” and they’ll be like “have you been watching depressing anime again?”