Oh wow, I forgot about khinsider!

I wish he still made comics like these. I visit his site pretty regularly and these really work great as an early-2010’s time capsule of sorts.

But he focuses on other stuff now and I can’t really blame him.

Why on earth would you do that?

We’ll do this in layers.

I used to worship at the altar of Smashing Pumpkins. Some (though not all) of their stuff holds up pretty good still, I think. They’re good at concepts and imagery. Er, were. Teargarden by Kaleidyscope was kinda the last thing of theirs I bothered with, and I’d started to fall off well before that, too. **Shame level 3/10 **just because I was obsessive about deep-diving every single one of their tracks (from their first few albums anyway).

I was gonna say Linkin Park at first blush, and would have followed through with that, except that just a couple of weeks ago I played through Hybrid theory and thought “y’know, this isn’t my style of music anymore but it’s not bad, not bad at all.” Still, the supposed emotional resonance I had with them puts this at Shame Level 4/10 because, looking back as an adult, most of them are pretty pandering towards angsty teens. Shame Level 4/10

Felt the same about Weird Al. I mean, okay, I cringe at how UPROARIOUS and CLEVER and SUBVERSIVE I thought he was as a kid, but the music is fine for what it is and I feel it accomplishes what he, as an artist, set out to do. And while corny it’s not quite cringy. Shame level 4.5/10

Glenn Miller and other mid-20th-century big-band/swing stuff. Not bad on the face of it, really - still good, in fact, if that’s your thing. But as with the others, the reasoning behind them is the reasoning for the Shame Level 6/10 - yes, I segued into your typical fedora-tipping “le gentleman” Humphrey Bogart wannabe around 2007-2009. Urgh. At least it was before the REAL BIG WAVE of that swept over the Internet and everyone was doing it.

Testament is perhaps my greatest shame since I was desperately trying to become a metalhead but really didn’t care for their music all that much? I figured if I listened to it enough times it’d eventually just all click. NOPE. But I kept on with that for several years. Shame level 8/10. Throw Metallica (esp. Death Magnetic, which I slavishly adored) and your other typical Guitar Hero RAWK EDITION tracks that your typical identity-less 00’s teen woulda latched onto. You get the picture. (Slight redemption: I did discover Gamma Ray through this phase and, as with Smashing Pumpkins above, I relistened the album Heading for Tomorrow and honestly really appreciate the positive/happy/hopeful messages in songs like Heaven Can Wait. A bright little happy diamond among a genre inundated with DEATH AND PAIN AND SUFFERING IS ALL THERE IS.", and it helped me kinda realize that “hey, you don’t gotta be all doom and gloom all the time, man. Light only shines where you let it in.”

Dragged down by some of their other stuff which is weirdly Christian-leaning (nothing wrong with that, nor their spin on it, since it’s not all in your face) and anti-government (which I think they did more as a concept album than anything else, but), which I ran with all the way into the conspiracy-idiot hole for a few years. IT’S THE JEWS MAN. Ugh. GREATEST SHAME. 11/10 (but that’s on me for how I interpreted and interacted with their artwork, not really the art itself)

DLC: Why did I like I My Me Mine so much? I’d blast it everywhere as a teen because I saw it on the Gaia Online profile of some lolsorandumb e-girl – not that we had the term then. Probably just to annoy people.

Speaking of pre-e-girls, there was this other online girl whom I was head over heels with who really liked the uh…weirdly soft “let me fill this emotional void of yours” sort of music, from bands like The Spill Canvas and Jason Mraz and Owl City. OUCH but I didn’t need to remember that, but I did, and I’m putting it down here at the deepest circle of hell.

And also, are you picking up on what irmoz and I are doing? Take notes!

Huh. I do that all the time. Guess I shouldn’t.

More varied formalwear than “suit with some superficial variations” (tux, 2- or 3-piece, colors, tie variety). Broader range of styles.

I see. What steps do you think you could take? How can you tell you struggle with it - have people mentioned it?

What colour would you like your dragon?

No.

Really? Why do you think that? Is it something you struggle with? Are there situations in your memory where you think it is especially applicable?

Well, let’s not exaggerate here. Surely it’s saved you no more than ten of them.

I think you win just for originality and not “witnessed very violent happening.”

Not that violence isn’t fucked up, too, but…Jesus.

It’s not strange at all when you consider your own phrasing: calls itself a democracy.

Plenty of places do that. Doesn’t make it so.

And too strong opinions on them. How anyone part age twenty or so can have any thought on them besides ‘yuck’ baffles me.

And fuck this post, seriously. Glad to see this attitude in the comments.

“Hi, I’m a guy in early thirties–”

Well there’s your answer.

It’s kind of a shadow of its former self, though. I can’t put my finger on why.

I certainly do. Sometimes I have to get over the hump to actually GO to the gym on workout days but I’ve never once (well, okay, one workout I had one time after going regularly for years did leave me unsatisfied - I will admit that) finished up a workout and been like “what a goddamn waste of time and energy”.

To Catch A Predator and its spinoffs/follow-up acts, Takedown with Chris Hansen being the newest.