How many more times will this cycle repeat itself? The cycle of being so starved of social connection that you try and do something big and fast and in the process overwhelm yours/other people's emotional capacity to well, connect? How many more times will the real destroyer of my progress, making poor decisions during times of emotional instability, be played out?
One thing I've learnt is that time will not heal all your wounds. You've got to identify what the cause of the emotion you're feeling is, and face the problem head on. Sometimes the problem is a stereotypical 'perspective problem' and in that case it's just a case of challenging your beliefs and/or having a lived contradiction while thinking about your old beliefs to debunk it, which is in itself one hell of a fucking process.
Well, there comes a point where intellectual knowledge and your resources to meet your wants is limited by time. It's the same fucking shit I've learnt in economics class. And well, building a social life when you've barely had any and have been shooting yourself in the foot for so long is going to be slow.
So what that means is that you gotta sit in the void and do work. Life is work.
What kind of work? Well, if anything, the zine is the work. The work that feels authentic to me. Because anything else and it would be a performance and me just doing something I don't fucking like just because apparently that's how people make friends, and well, you're gonna have to play a persona to pretend to like shit you don't actually like.
How I met some of the realest people I've ever connected with is through the zine. When I posted pieces about how shit my life was, some people saw a bit of themselves in it, and connected with me. When I switched over to polished bullshit with the same old structure that gave people nothing to comment about.
Because guess what? People love 'drama' more than a post about some 'cool band' or some fucking slop about what songs were played and this and that. The algorithm pushes prevocational content because when people are enraged, they tend to comment, and then they tell people about that 'crazy post' they saw which causes more and more people to flock to it.
Take Led Zeppelin's first album for example. They could have made some 'tried and tested' radio pop garbage and called it a day. But no, the album needed to existed for an artistic purpose. For them, it was to show the world how they wanted to change the face of rock and roll. The album cover of the Hindenburg disaster with a burning zeppelin just screams "we're going to be loud and explosive, and if you don't like it, great, all publicity is good publicity".
What I've learnt is that a good amount of the time, it's not about the type of publicity you're getting but how you manage it. If some people post comments criticising your work out of an emotional response, what's the best thing to do? Just show them how it's just not their cup of tea but you appreciate the engagement nonetheless. What about if it's some scene veteran? Show respect for your 'elders' because that shows you're in touch here.
People can keep telling me that 'work' means doing big things and this and that. But is it really? There's people who don't do any of that shit and get a lot of attention because of how they manage their public relations.
I'd say it's goddamn easy to manage public relations. There's just a moment where it clicks. Where you stop interpreting people by the words they say and by the emotions they feel.
I've been through so much shit that well, I don't feel like I have anything to lose anymore. My idea is to pump out stuff at maximum capacity, because I've got something to prove. That something is dependent on what the scene is like but I've always got something to say and I'm not afraid to say it.
I have no close friends and people are busy with their own lives, I'm not being dismissive but what I really want to say here is that I'm in true emotional pain. But that's existence for you. What I want to do is to try and ascend and see if there's something possible here. I really hope that there is. Because there should be considering how shitty this world is and how we are still expected to be functional human beings and serve our overlords, the government
I really dislike how AI always gives off that 'corporate kindess' kinda vibe. Honestly, I just want a fucking friend group and a really hot girlfriend, haha.
From the archive. Rant · February 2026 · written in the moment, carried verbatim.