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D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

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by Sean Adams
I keep telling people it’s time for change, that we can’t keep standing still on a backward escalator like this. Records keep the hope and magic of a revolution alive. Seeing the (International) Noise Conspiracy has renewed a lot of my hope, so has the new iDLEWiLD album (great ain’t it?) but I just think there’s too much chaos to make things happen or rather, too few people who believe anything can truly change, for the better.

I started this site, and have done many small things since, to try and make some kind of amends, but so what, I had nothing better to do and it’s hardly killing me. But why? I know, right now, somewhere not too far from any of us, kids are watching tv, others are doing homework (of little to no relevance to them ever again), some sit homeless on park benches escaping their dysfunctional, clueless families. Many are right now out of their mind in a slow-decay on class-a drugs. Thousands are sliding blades across their skin to let blood bubble out. And very few really care or know why, not saying I have all the answers or solutions, but here goes…

We’re a generation living for the weekend, quick fixes, meaningless hype, terror news and little else. Right from day 1, we’re filled with short-term goals, cultural-trappings, little-to-no job security, huge debts if we bother to carry on rotting in the education/religious/class system, and the threat of anyone we fall in lust with having any number of diseases. But it’s ok, we have big brother, we have pop idol, we have stadium rock about wrist slitting, “bitch” slapping and erm, what else is there? Nah mate, we don’t need nuffink else, we got our freedom if we got a bit of cash to crash and burn. Popping pills like 14-year-old school-sluts’ virginities in clubs cus the music’s so fucken awful. Well, not all music, of course, but you get the picture, for most people this is it.

And there’s another problem. Well over half of what is beautiful from “creative genius’s” right now in books, music, movies and anything else, is mostly really dark, twisted, painful surreal escapes from normality or a valiant attempt to change things but the messages are all distorted, totally out of focus by metaphor or by using words that very few people understand. For instance, take Rage Against the Machine, hearts totally pumping in the right place, yet I stood near some idiot in a Ben Sherman at Reading a few years back shouting “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” That’s the kinda irony Alanis couldn’t get across in her W.Bush bumpkin tones. Who the hell let that idiot be the most powerful man in the world anyway? Oh yes, freedom and democracy which is also known as the power of the media, bribery, corruption and a ill-informed mass playing part of the system!

I sound like such a jaded fuck! I’m sorry and I’m sorry that I have to apologise. This is the first step of the problem. People are worried about being different – this was a barrier bust down in ’77 but very little of the depth actually seeped through. Then there’s a lot of the stuff I said above, blended with some kind of belief in innateness, y'know that we’re not cut from the cloth and that not everyone can do everything. RUBBISH! Didn't we get over this when realised women can, like, do the same stuff as men and that yellow people can play football too?

R.E.S.P.E.C.T what does that mean to you? Well, if you hate yourself, hate the world and give up at the first sign of things getting hard, then you either have little to no self-respect (probably due to your parents never being taught how to raise you and giving you junk, instead of the attention that builds social skills and them things called values) or somehow, sinpite of all the above things, no drive. I can understand why they make people feel this way, it's seems so easy not to care but surely, you want out of this?

So what now then smarty pants? I can hear it in the back of your heads. I don’t have all the answers and if did I’d not be banging on. What we all need is to support one another, stop all this bickering amongst ourselves for a start – sounds so hippy and all communal like. Reading heavy books, manifesto’s and that is all well and good, but those who have done so already they need to share the information (to speed things up!) about what’s wrong. Most people don’t even know what’s wrong. I mean things like the crap that goes into our target market bodies which is actually killing us or editing our DNA for d-generations to come. The point of the media is to share information but of course all media has it’s own motives, just like this here ranticle and me, as editor of DiS I have mine as vaguely set-up herein.

Most of all, we NEED inspiring! Music, just like books and movies, are a great distraction, to help us leave this world in a much less harmful way than drugs (hence the music is a drug theme on DiS you may or may not have noticed!). And also, lyrics, they’re an instant way to say something but then again, don’t actions speak louder than words?

Start a band. Help someone out. Put on a gig. Write about bands. Write uplifting prose. Don't let them grind you down. Open your mind. Quit moaning and do something. Regret might get you oneday. Believe this. It starts here!



D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

listen to youreself..."What we all need is to support one another". that kinda says you shouldnt run away when someone is in a dark place, especially when you're supposed to be enough of a friend to deal with it. and as for telling people in this place to do something about it, it isn't that easy. we can write a song or so a dress or volunteer to work with children for a week, but that doesn't change the chemicals in our brains. we let the people we think care the most know about our problems, the words are very private even though the evidence is sometimes very clear. when someone tells you they feel they want to die, be honoured, they hold you in high enough esteem to think you'd give a shit. or at least not tell them to fuck off and get on with it (even though it'd probably be best to)

listening to beautiful songs can be spirit uplifting, but listening to the words, thinking about those words, can be painful. most song's are love songs. maybe not obviously, but when you look deeper they nearly always are. it's hard to listen to love song's when you feel no love in your life.
we need love. it hurts when you run away. don't do it. please.

au contraire

I think this is a massive improvement and step forward on Sean's other writings.Sorry if that sounded patronising, but he's identified correctly why there is a such a social malaise - although I don't think any music will start any kind of revolution, but still...good stuff.

Re: au contraire

his writing, oui, his general attitude and way of thinking, non

Re: au contraire

it's not just the music, i honestly didnt mean that, it's about culture generally and people being aware of the fact there is a need for a change, a need to stop stomaching this, rather than a simple want to give up and die.

thanks for your positivity and i don't believe i can actually write (but i realise i'm starting to get better at it, gradually), so i dont feel patronised at all.

Re: au contraire

I think you'd have to look first at what makes popular culture so shite, sean, which is probably what you meant in the first place

Re: D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

isn't the problem most of the time that it's really hard to love anyone who doesn't respect themselves?

not all love songs are positive tho and even the prettiest rock creatures, who have millions of adoring fans, they have it bad too y'know.

my problem is, there's a lot of people who're really wanting love, to the point they lose all their self-respect and if that's the case, who's gonna wanna fall in love with someone who truly believes everyone hates them and refuses to take the risk which is needed to find that desired happiness?

no-one ever said this was gonna be easy.
sean x

Re: D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

one takes the risk. one allows themselves to believe someone means it when they say one is beautiful or pretty or sexy. one gets left. one knows it must've been a lie. one must be not liked if someone is willing to lie to them

Re: D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

to be honest, without turning into oprah at this point, people get lied to. it's a fact. some people out there don't give a shit who they hurt etc and are just out for their own gains. the only way you learn to suss these people and bypass them is by having enough respect for yourself to know that you deserve better, and recognise ppl who DO deserve to know you. i guess that comes with age - most people learn eventually who they can and can't trust.

on sean's article - i agree with yr points but it doesn't seem like yr saying anything new. yes, kids are saturated with buy-now-pay-later pop culture that is slowly turning their skin orange and their brains to mush, yes the education and employment systems are shit - and yes, like you said, you weren't trying to offer answers.. but ultimately what yr saying seems a bit directionless. of course one of the answers is to go out and DIY - that's why a lot of us are here. yr rant is justified but it doesn't seem to be saying anything that a most ppl aren't depressingly aware of already, or offering much in the way of innovative hope.

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Re: D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

"my problem is, there's a lot of people who're really wanting love, to the point they lose all their self-respect and if that's the case, who's gonna wanna fall in love with someone who truly believes everyone hates them and refuses to take the risk which is needed to find that desired happiness?"

the point where i wade in..

having no self respect doesn't automatically equal a 'noblody-loves-me' attitude [which put rthat way, suggests an overwhelming mindset of self-pity more than anything]. for many, the most immediate and automatic thought on their mind is thoughts of own personal self-worth and -dislike and, to go futher, -hate. i just reckon zero self-respect equates more with a mindset centred on one's own self-worth, rather than mulling over how 'everybody-hates-me' like a characature papa roach loving Misunderstood.
[when it gets to the serious end of things, at least]
i know just how difficult it can be to love someone who doesn't respect themselves too, fucking hard...not just on the side of those loving that person too - when you see in their eyes how destroying it is for them that nothing they can do can change yr mindset, it just makes it all incresingly distressful and painful for you, due to what you yrself are doing to them, someone you love and who loes you]; and having been on both sides of this argument meself makes it even clearer to see. it certainly doesn't mean you can't tho - it just takes a lot of strength..

"no-one ever said this was gonna be easy"

inspiral carpets!

D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

All the things you mentioned are indeed true.We are a hollow epmty generation, but I guess so where the once before this generation. I often wish though that I would´t be aware of my own emptiness. That would make life much easier. The people you describe, the ones who cut themselfes the ones who take drugs are mostly people who know in what kind of situation they are in.They are aware of the fact that the world is a shithole and that people(including them) should start doing something to make it better. The thing is though that you can only change things if you are happy within yourself. The activities you mentioned: writing, making music ect are only things who help you to escape from yourself and to fill the hole in your soul. Basically these things are leisure time activities. They fill out your life. You can only make yourself happier with them-not change the world. Yes, of course it does have a positive effect on humanity if there are more people about who are happy instead of all the kids with suicide tendencies. Let alone the positive effects it might have on the current music scene.;) However I guess it would be mostly teenage angst songs which come out of that.
Do you think that people protesting for greenpeace or fighting against globalisation would have the time to worry about being ugly or not wearing the ratest clothes in the right club, or feeling lonely or having trouble with their parents? I don´t think so. I believe if you really wanna make a difference you have to live for your aim. However there is a slight possibility that there are some people in such oragnisations who chose to live for some group, action ect because they wouldn´t be strong enough to face their own life without a theme to it. Probably to scared to accept that life indeed has no meaning. Only as much as you can give to it.

I ´m off to find a band. cause I feel so lonely in my flat.

Re: D-Generation: SAVE US, PLEASE!

this all boils down to what fight club was saying, i hate that way that book did this to me... but i love the book all the same.

don't get me wrong, it's not all about forming a band or writing beauty or smashing up starbucks or milking cows; it's about believing you can do something and that you can lookback and think it's worthwhile.

i guess the whole idea it's better to burn out than fade away, but more a case of burning a big carbonised crater on the planet before you leave. what's the point of existing as an ant? if you're wanna die, don't be selfish, die for someone else, romeo and juliet, kamikaze freedom fighter..... not i'm advocating death here, at all, but all this suicidal, disposable teens mentality is fucking me off right now.




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