Y’know, it just amazes me that at 32 years old, I can still be learning life lessons. When you think you’re emotionally mature enough to handle a relationship, you’ve been responsible enough to secure you’re first mortgage and you finally got rid of all those unnecessary friendships that never should have been made in the first place, along comes something small yet insignificant that cuts you like a knife.
Y’know, I wasn’t going to write about this because it is small and insignificant but for some strange reason it has lingered around our brains all week and I kept asking myself "WTF?" So here goes, life lesson number 1,873 that we’ve learned in our life – The Pop Blogesphere Can Be A Bitchy Place.
It seems that a select few pop bloggers don’t actually like Electroqueer. Hey that’s ok. We’ve always been a Veronica rather than a Heather. We were never one of the Mean Girls. And we always felt like the little goth girl (played by Winona Ryder as well) who was in love with that hunk of a geek Lucas. In the beginning we were built up by the pop bloggers who raved about us (which we always thought was weird anyways) and it seemed we felt acceptance from a pop blogger community who kept encouraging us to write more. That was fantastic – like we scored a number one hit on the radio or our opening night was sold out. We were singing ‘Flashdance’ a lot back then.
But as of lately, the jump-on-the-bandwagon slagfest of ‘Let’s diss Electroqueer’ seems to be underway. We’ve been called ‘an untalented blogger with no original thoughts or ideas’, half a post was written about us insinuating that we lied to an artists management to get a free concert ticket therefore robbing an artist of 8 quid, we’ve been called a ‘drama queen’ (hey we all have our moments) and a ‘dodgy tool’, and even ‘Perez Hilton’ because we posted a small ‘things-that-make-you-hmmm’ comment about that person’s favourite new band. Yes, I know there is A LOT of banter in the pop blogesphere and I really don’t take any of this personally. These people don’t know me and most likely never will. Maybe it’s my Cancerian nature to hold tiny grudges and I should let this all just roll off my hardened shell, and I will. It’s another life lesson learned that I’m taking on-board.
This week I met up with one of my favourite new artists and we were chatting about this and she helped me put it all into perspective – I learned that if someone doesn’t like your work, don’t fret about it man! Let all that negativity roll off you and channel it even further into your work. In reading Darren Hayes ‘Shut Up And Sing’ blog post this morning it made me realise that "Yes, I don’t blog for the approval of the pop bloggers, I blog for my readers". All of which have been 10x more supportive than any comment a blogger has ever written about me.
So what’s this shizz all about? Well it’s to let all the EQ haters know that your negative comments don’t knock me down, they make me want to blog more and push the envelope further. So in channeling the immortal mantra of Margaret Cho, "I’m gonna stay here and rock the blog until some other electro-loving, skinny wet-latte drinking, soho workin, London loft-livin, Asian-American, comic-book readin, not hiding behind anonymous commentin, shitty web designin and apology deletin, 80’s loving, live reviewing queer blogger comes in AND TAKES MY PLACE.
Electroqueer is here to stay and we will continue to bring you are favourite picks of new pop, electro and retro picks from across the pond and beyond.
God it felt good to get that off our chests.