About ten minutes before I began writing this blog, I signed into this Blogger account for what appeared to be the first time in five years. The blogs which lay before me were more depressing than I had anticipated.
I had created two blogs under this account as a teenager. The first, from 2009, features two actual journal posts written in classic late-00s emo teen style which I followed up with various street team posts for different bands, created to fool record companies into believing that I held power and influence and could get all of my readers to vote in polls and buy CDs and concert tickets. However, I had a grand total of zero readers and thus wielded zero power and influence, and although I never received any rewards for the posts on this particular blog, I was still occasionally showered in merchandise from oblivious record companies who either didn't know or didn't care that I was doing the bare minimum to help them.
The actual journal entries that I wrote (within the same day, no less; my long term blogging record is pitiful) serve as a tiny snapshot into my life when I was 16. It was the summer before I began my final year of high school and proves either how dull my life was or how poor my storytelling skills are. While it's definitely less embarrassing than the blogs I wrote on Bebo and VampireFreaks in my early teen years, it still isn't the writing of an adult quite yet. In fact with the aid of apps like Timehop I've come to the conclusion that my Internet postings cross the line from cringeworthy to acceptable somewhere in late 2011 or early 2012, depending on which side of the line my Black Veil Brides phase falls under.
Anyway, my 2009 Blogger update places me and my 2 best friends firmly in the Motley Crue phase of our lives (noting that we spent the day lazing around watching videos of the band) but also in the Audrey Kitching-led scene culture phase, which I both waged war on and followed extensively. My 16-year-old self refers to the aforementioned friends as "the two bestest people I know", however my 22 year old self doesn't know either of them anymore; the three of us all drifted apart from one another as our interests diverged and probably also because we all talked shit about each other when the girl in question wasn't around.
The second of my journal entries details five future plans that I might have blogged about had I had the audience or the momentum to do so. The first of these was the only one that I didn't follow through on - the plan to go to a festival in a neighbouring town with the other two girls to visit another friend who never actually managed to leave his house to visit us until it was almost time to go back home. I ultimately decided that it wasn't worth getting up early to go to a town where I didn't really know anyone (at least not outside of MSN messenger - interestingly enough I would meet my best friend, who is resident in that town, a month after these blogs) and where almost everyone aged fourteen and up would be drinking alcohol all day long. [Sidenote: in case you happen to be reading this and you don't know me, I feel I should state by way of introduction that I've claimed straight edge since the age of 13, and while it's rare to be told to my face that this decision of mine is a contributing factor in the breakdown of my teen friendships, it definitely resulted in my feeling isolated from my peers for much of my adolescence.]
The other four plans were more successful:
1. "On Monday morning I have to go to school and get my photo taken for the newspaper because my panels are up outside the school."
I still remember this morning, and I still have the resulting newspaper cutout with my picture in it although I can't say exactly where I've stored it. I had to put on my school uniform in the middle of the summer holidays and stand on the grass outside the school with three younger pupils and a couple of members of staff for the photo-op. The panels in question are artworks cast in iron that are affixed to the railings out in front of the high school (and also affixed to railings on a bridge in the town centre at the other end of the street). It was an honour to be chosen as one of the four designers of these panels but honestly I often forget that there is a piece of my artwork, several copies even, displayed permanently in town.
A little back story: the original railings which lined the grass in front of my high school were cut down to stubs during the War, when all the iron was plundered by the Government to help the troops overseas. I just happened to be sitting Higher Art at the time when a plan was drawn up to reinstate the railings, to stop kids from jumping the wall and running out in front of cars I suppose, and the graphic design brief that my class was working on involved creating posters for a textile museum which had just opened in the town. The railing project coincided with a local festival celebrating different aspects of the town's history (2011: year of culture; 2012: year of sport; 2013: year of industry; 2014: year of heritage) and as I was spending my art classes drawing factory chimneys and knitwear, I was chosen to convey the 2013 theme in cast iron.
2. "And on Wednesday I'm supposed to get my exam results, uh oh."
Luckily I opened the envelope to find that I attained an A and 4 Bs in my Higher exams, safely awarding me a place at University the following year.
3. "Green Day on the 19th of October"
I became very much obsessed with Green Day in 2004 when American Idiot was released, so it was a long five years of patient waiting before I was finally able to see them play live in 2009. Luckily they absolutely lived up to my expectations, playing all their hits while Billie Joe cracked jokes and got fans up on stage and mooned the crowd and played with water pistols and t-shirt guns. My absolute highlight was when they played Going To Pasalacqua, which wasn't a favourite song of mine until that moment.
4. "Hollywood Undead/Escape The Fate on the 1st of December"
Remember what I said about how I was into scene culture? I went to this show with a few friends, having had an all-too-brief love affair with Escape The Fate earlier that year and also regrettably learning to love Hollywood Undead when I street teamed at their show and was obligated to meet them afterwards. (That show was very important for another reason - the headliner was a Welsh band called The Blackout - but I can guarantee I'll mention them in another blog post should I ever write one.) I would consider this concert to be a factor in the break-up of one of the two main friendships that seemed so strong when I was blogging in the summer. This friend was my company at both Hollywood Undead shows and while she loved street teaming with me the first time, she outright refused to have anything to do with it the second time, even making sure that we arrived at the venue after the doors opened so that I couldn't work the queue and hang posters inside like I was supposed to. That meant I was waylaid inside with badges and bandanas which should have been in the hands of the fans, an abundance of promo materials that I couldn't take down the front with me - and I definitely wasn't going to watch Escape The Fate from the back. I left the free stuff lying out beside the band's merch desk, only to return after the show to find their merch guy selling the bandanas. My friend who was having nothing to do with my work approached him about it and he gave her a free t-shirt to keep quiet, but of course I reported him and took back my materials which my other friends and I handed out to fans on their way out. I haven't seen either Hollywood Undead or Escape The Fate, or street teamed at a show, since.
If this trip down embarrassing teen memory lane has somehow possessed you to want to read my summer 2009 blog, it's still online at the ridiculously titled "http://rachiiisawinner.blogspot.co.uk/" in all its lurid purple-and-neon-green glory until a time comes when I don't want it to be there anymore.
In case you were wondering about the second blog that previously existed on this account, it contained a total of one post which comprised a MySpace bulletin style survey that I had filled in as a fictional character. I deleted that blog.
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