I need to address something...

[AgainstMeAgainstYou]

NOTE: Before I write this, I KNOW the Lounge isn't supposed to be for personal stuff. I've never disobeyed that rule before today, and I wouldn't be disobeying it if I didn't feel that this was absolutely important, even necessary for me to bring up.

I need to sort of vent/get some things off my chest/apologize for past things/etc... all at once. I'm going to try and keep this as short as I possibly can but I really don't know if I can articulate everything I need to say in only a paragraph or two. I'm writing this as I go, so... no editing here, no proofreading. It's 9:05 AM right now.

I don't have a good reputation on this site. No, that's a horrible, horrible understatement. There are people who consider me one of the worst users ever on the site. I doubt there are many, but there are certainly some. Even beyond that, I have a very bad standing with many other users, several of whom I've never even interacted with.

I'm not complaining about it, I'm merely pointing it out as a fact. I'm not complaining about it because I'm responsible for it. I have opinions, about everything, I'm a fucking loudmouth, and most importantly I'm a fucking idiot when I get upset or when I get angry. And that all comes out on here and then it's on here forever because even if I delete the shit I say, everyone still remembers it.

That's my reputation. I don't want it to be my legacy. I refuse to let it be my legacy. I hardly think I'll ever be "BEA user of the year", but at the same time maybe I come across as dickish sometimes, but I'm not a bad person... I try not to be at least. Unfortunately I've just had so many moments on here where I've said stupid shit that it's hard to convince anyone of that.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here, to be honest. I haven't slept yet. I was in Toronto doing an open mic - I perform four times a week now - and I just haven't slept since I woke up yesterday. But I was just going through the forum, searching my username or whatever - not the first time I've done it either - and you know, most of what came up were my own posts, my own stupidity... but there was also a lot from other people. A lot of it is in threads I never posted in or even read. Someone'll just namedrop me in as negative a way as possible. And it kinda sucked.

And again, I'm not exactly innocent. But still... it hurt. Some of it hurt a lot. Especially because a lot of the time, when someone's in the other corner, they'll bring up Tokio Hotel and they'll bring up the thing I wrote. I don't think they realize that it was four, going on five years ago that I wrote that. I was a 14 year old kid, completely unsure of his sexuality - I think it's literally only been in the past year, if even, that I've been able to get a stable grasp on it, but that's off topic and not something I'm too keen to discuss, if I'm honest - and I had a fancrush or whatever you call it on the singer of a band that, at the time, I listened to a lot. It's been ages since I willingly put on a Tokio Hotel song. Zimmer 483 is not going to be long for my album chart either, in fact I imagine it'll be taken off once I rearrange it next.

Anyway. Again, I'm going off topic. This isn't about how irrelevant Tokio Hotel is to my life, it's more just... I don't know. I think I'm trying to ask for a second chance. Maybe I should've slept before I wrote this.

I really, really, really love this site. I love the level of discussion there is about albums and about music in general. Music is my entire life. It's my blood and my oxygen and everything I'm made up of. And an entire forum to discuss it? That's a dream for me. And yet, I've never had much of a presence on the site. I've felt unwanted. I'd argue that I am unwanted here. And I've been thinking about that all night and it's part of why I haven't slept.

I don't want to be unwanted anymore. I want to start fresh, with everybody I've wronged, with everybody on the forum as a whole. I don't want to be the butt of every joke anymore, I don't want that reputation. And I'm willing to do whatever I have to in order to change it. Whatever. It. Takes.

So... you know, I don't know. I just hope some of you will respond here, read this, send me a PM, get to know me. Not the forum me, not AgainstMeAgainstYou. The real me, Zach Marsh, the musician from Toronto who plays four times a week. You know? I want to be part of this community. I've been on this site for years now, if you include the time before I was a member, and yet I don't think I've ever been a good community member. Not for one second of that time.

So, I don't know... 9:22 AM now. I've been writing for seventeen minutes. This is probably a rambling post, but... you know. I'm sorry, BEA. For how I've acted. And that's basically what this thread is for. So, you know... I'm gonna try and sleep now. I hope when I wake up I'll be able to talk to some of you, in particular some of the people I have bad blood with and we can just, you know... talk everything out. I really think you guys are fantastic. I'm a regular member on only one other forum on the internet, and that forum is about Bond, not about music, so I really get an experience from this site that I can't get anywhere else. And... yeah. Hopefully this marks the end of all the absence and hiatuses on my part, too.

I'm gonna cut it off there. Mainly because I don't know what else to say and partially because my eyelids are basically closing themselves. I'll see you all soon.

[SquishypuffDave]

It's all good. I like you.

[AgainstMeAgainstYou]

[meccalecca]

[Happymeal]

I hope you do feel better about the situation eventually, but you're never gonna get universal approval on the way you act. I'm aware this is cliche, but just be yourself.

However, as an alternative, participate in more self - indulgent and egocentric behavior. That's always fun and it pisses people off which is always great.

[HazeyTwilight]

After reading that, I feel really sad for you, but at the same time, this so called "reputation" that this sites has of you is nonexistent. Even if some people did laugh at me for doing so, I believe I was the only person who openly admitted to voting for you in the BEUT that's going on at the moment. And that's was against a well established, widely known figure of BEA. But, I still voted for you.

I have nothing against you whatsoever. We never had any sort of conflict from when I saw you on the forums many months ago. In fact, I relate to what you said in a way. Doubting what you have achieved is a common emotion in humanity, but constantly doubting yourself is something I feel is nothing new to me because I know how it feels like. Even now, I feel like you're a lot more interesting than me. You're doing something that you love, which is music, and you enjoy every minute of it. Doing gigs four times a week is some sweet dedication to your craft.

I really hope you feel better after reading this and reading what others have to say about you because, I really like you, and honestly I missed you on the forums. Even if this thread is a bit of a pity party, I hope you can find the light at the end of your tunnel.
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[Puncture Repair]

I appreciate I might be going off on a tangeant here, but I remember someone else making a similar thread to this and it reminded me of my thoughts on it. I'm going to just mind-vomit now.

I have no idea if other people do the same, but whenever someone does something, I feel naturally inclined to think why they did that thing. The song 'John Wayne Gacy Jr.' by Sufjan Stevens always had a profound effect on me because of the way Sufjan treated the man, John Gacy - he treated him as a human. When Sufjan says 'I am really just like him, look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid', it reminds me that we're all human, all with varying levels of sanity that could change because of anything. People are quick to adress John Gacy as a monster, but Sufjan (and myself) feel inclined to think he was just like all of us, but something fragile made him turn. I like to think all murderers had people they loved, and showed genuine moments of kindness in their lives, regardless of what they became.

The world is a huge, huge place and we only have the pleasure of experiencing a very small portion of its places and its people. Because of this we sometimes fail to see just how insignificant we are sometimes. But at the same time there are 6 billion people all on this planet all co-existing right at this very moment, each with their own motives, aspirations, so on. Yet we're all guilty of feeling important, or being selfish, maybe because it's hard to imagine the vastness of the world from just our own two eyes and our single mind. Everyone wants to be important, and from that we create our own self-importance. When we're kids we all think about how successful our futures are going to be and that we're achieve our dreams, but the reality is there's billions of jobs (lives?) out there that no one wants to be, but that's the reality for most of us. It's impossible for any of us to value ourselves as the 6 billionth person in the world, because we only experience the world from a single person.

In the same way that John Gacy couldn't look beyond himself to the families he was harming, the families affected, as well as a the wider public, couldn't see beyond themselves in that "I'm not a killer, therefore he's a monster and I'm not", rather than asking why he did what he did, and realizing he spent many of his days being the same as all of us.

There was a video I saw where a spokesperson (comedian maybe) talked about going out to the supermarket to pick up food for the evening, and how we see everyone in traffic, and everyone queuing at the supermarket, as part of the problem - without realizing that they're all people too, stuck in the same situation, thinking the same things.

The world may be a huge place, but like I said, we often live in social microcosms - work, school, family. Everyone wants to be important, liked and appreciated in all of those spheres, but fail to look beyond our concerns about how other people view us to look at the concerns of other people on how other people view them.

The truth is, we spend more time worrying about what other people think of us than thinking about other people.

In the real world, there isn't really an oppertunity to speak out to everyone, stand up on a platform and say "I don't think any of you like me". If we could, it would be happening all the time, because everyone wants the reassurance that this isn't true. The internet is different. On a forum, everything (potentially) reaches everyone. Anonminity means that if we make a fool of ourselves, we can abandon that forum and be forgotten. So why not make a thread that says "I don't think any of you like me"? Really there isn't anything to lose. And the reason I thought of John Gacy and Sufjan Stevens and everything when seeing this thread was because I saw myself in it. When I was starting out on the forums, I was concerned if people thought I was interesting or valuable, heck I still do. We're human beings, we want to be appreciated. The thread I saw that was similar to this, and I can't remember who posted it (Precedent? Benpaco?) was along the lines of "I'm really sorry for everything I'd done", and the response was overwhelmingly, "We didn't even notice you'd done these things". That's because realistically, on these forums, we put more thought into what we're writing on how we're being percieved that actually forming opinions and what other people have posted.

So I really want to question AgainstMeAgainstYou, who, for the record, I don't hate. What were you expecting to achieve from posting this other than reassurance from people who pity you that you are liked? But most importantly, why do you care? We're just a bunch of dudes on the internet who have too much to say about music, why is our opinion of you so important? I mean, you're essentially apologizing for being yourself. Don't do that. Don't ever do that. That's a self-confidence issue, and I think there's better solutions for being noticed and told that people appreciate you other than apologizing and saying how you feel. And I mean, this is planet earth, people will very rarely tell anyone they appreciate anything else they're prompted, because we're too worried about ourselves. The world is huge, don't spend time concerning yourself about what a few geezers on the internet think about you, be yourself and don't expect anyone to say a kind word - not many people actually deserve one.

I hope I'm not coming off as rude or aloof, because that's far from being my intention, I'm as guilty of everything I've said as the next person. I figure if you're allowed to express you're feelings, this was just my shot at that.

[ShaneSpear]

I'm not saying this because I want you to have a Emmett/Bad Cop LEGO movie moment or anything, but I honestly have barely any clue what you're all about and (all apologies) really haven't put a personality with your username until today. (If you're not on my radar, that's a good thing. I know way more bad/annoying users than neutral ones.)

I went back a few pages on your posts, and I can assure you that you are nowhere near the worst on the site, and I don't think there's anybody here that feels that way.

[Jackwc]

So many words.
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A dick that's bigger than the sun.

Music sucks. Check out my favourite movies, fam:
http://letterboxd.com/jackiegigantic/

[sp4cetiger]

Clearly, a lot of thought and heart was poured into some of the posts on this thread, but I think it all more or less boils down to this: