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rivergraceful · 11 months

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Beautiful Sadness; A Commodity?

Introduction:

Have you ever taken a selfie while you were crying, then decided to delete it because you felt like you weren’t pretty enough, or, have you ever been having a pretty decent day, saw a row of 5 depressing tiktoks, then all of a sudden, you're crying too? Something I have been noticing recently, especially since the rise of TikTok during the lockdown, is an influx of just, depressing content to say the least. Now by depressing content, I don’t mean to say that venting is something that should be shunned, instead, I mean to open the conversation to analyzing the seemingly recent oversaturation of often, romanticized, aestheticized, and commodified sadness, in our media.

Emotion isn’t raw anymore:

Emotion isn’t raw anymore, it seems like it is, but it's not. Maybe it never was? With just a quick scroll through social media, specifically TikTok, the rise of the “sad girl/sad aesthetic” is at an all-time high. Most commonly, the “sad girl/sad aesthetic” is most rampant within the venting/trauma dumpish/”the world is absolutely terrible and there is no fixing it,” Tiktok posts, which are often accompanied by a pretty girl or feminine presenting person, and or, an “aesthetic” sad song. This specific trend, or should I say culture, is very common, and the comments are often filled with people agreeing with the creator. Another trend that fits into the “sad girl aesthetic” includes images of usually conventionally attractive celebrities/characters looking sad, often while also abusing a substance of some kind, behind a text that discusses mental illness. Lastly, a trend that also fits into the “sad girl/sad” aesthetic is the trend of “female rage edits” that usually include just clips of conventionally attractive white characters screaming, (with the exception of TikTok editors who made a primarily white edit, added Katherine's speech about how she was dealing racism in the movie Hidden figures, and then wrote it off as just a female rage edit, yeah that really annoyed me), accompanied by music like Ethel Cain, Lana Del Ray, Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, Mitski, Black Box Recorder, or other “sad girl” dubbed artists.

Now you might be wondering, “How is this an issue?” Well, I'm here to tell you that this trend, is not just an issue, but it’s an epidemic. Not only is TikTok an app that is used by two-thirds of the US teen population, (according to Time Magazine), but it is also used often constantly by youth. I mean, think about it, it's an app that allows for the extremely rapid spread/influence of information and trends to occur, how could the rise of an aesthetic that romanticizes sadness, not harmfully affect, not only youth but social media users in general? What scares me about this aesthetic, is that venting turns into encouragement, trauma dumping turns into mass hopelessness, and spreading awareness about your eating disorder turns into a “How-to.” And the thing is, oftentimes, it's not intended. In a society where wages are low yet food prices are high, the globe is being warmed, celebrities don't want to stop flying their jets to lower carbon emissions, economic crisis strikes the world, the most “progressive” countries reverting back to systematic bigotry, and capitalism becoming increasingly more evident but seemingly more unstoppable, humanity is seeking for a way to cope, and social media is an easy gateway to detach.

However, the issue with everyone wanting to detach through social media, is that it's sort of something that takes but doesn't quite give. For example, you're taking in the slight relief of romanticizing your depression, eating disorder, and or substance abuse, however, you're contributing to the mass oversaturation of romanticized, too perfect to be human, sadness, which is going to harm people in multiple ways.

The first way it harms us is through body image. Constantly using actors and models, made up to look the best when told it’s their worst, is only going to push the idea that “We're just not doing sad right.” I can assure you if you are a POC, an unconventionally attractive person, and or LGBTQ person, only seeing sadness or women's issues being discussed when its a romanticization using only a rich, conventionally attractive, cishet, celebrity, woman, isn’t going to help. It's usually not relatable and it's usually just influencing people to not try and get better, but instead just become beautifully perfect while they're sad.

You can’t show raw emotion without it being primmed, cut, refilmed, edited, romanticized, and aestheticized before it's posted. Emotion is no longer raw but pampered, you aren't allowed to just be human anymore, instead, you are forced to compete in the beauty Olympics of sadness. Social Media has made Sadness an accessory and status symbol, akin to basic outfits: it's only praised when it's on a beautiful girl.

The commodification of sadness, is it the result of Capitalism?:

Now more than ever, we have access to knowing every bad thing, happening in any part of the world, at any time. That aspect of our new technologically advanced world alone, is a significant causation of society's mass depression, alongside our heightened awareness of ourselves, insecurities, capitalism, and how the world works. However, let's focus more on the topic of insecurities, specifically, the beauty standards, women, insecurities, and capitalism’s relation to them.

If you're not familiar with the terms “Individualism” and “Collectivism” I'll explain them to you. An individualistic country is one that praises the individual, being unique, standing out, and being the best. An example of this is how being unique, and coming up with the best plan to become a billionaire, (even if that includes exploiting other people) is praised in America. Subsequently, a collectivist country is one that praises community, being uniform, and fitting in. An example of this is how in China, having a “respectful” attitude, appearance, and career is a reflection on your family and community. The way America operates, (which is mostly, if not completely due to capitalism and colonization), is to praise uniqueness and or anything that gives money to capitalism. This is the cause of hustle culture, a job’s salary determining your worth, a 9-5 till you die mentality, the reason people feel the need to change their entire self to fit into an insanely niche, aesthetic subgenre, and the commodification of women.

Interesting fact, underarm hair as an insecurity used to not really exist, well, until razor companies realized that they would make way more money if women bought razors as well. Therefore, companies started putting advertisements out there to make it seem unfeminine, and thus another woman targeting insecurity was born, or should I say, constructed. This is an example of an extremely common case of beauty companies making insecurities for women to endlessly buy their products. In the end, companies use extremely beautiful, often photoshopped, often surgically enhanced, women to advertise their products, (usually products that those women did not even use), and accompany that advertisement with a beauty standard that they know naturally, you can never achieve, and will forever chase, while buying their products. Similar to the commodification of women’s insecurities, through social media filters, trends, and aesthetics, trans women, cis women, and feminine presenting people, are seemingly unknowingly, participating in the oversaturated and aestheticized, romanticization of women’s sadness, pain, and issues, which in turn, will water down our movements, contribute to the system that we are trying to fight, prevent people from wanting to get better, and will make sadness an aesthetic, not a human emotion.

Sources:

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redrocx · 5 years

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Live Report the Gazette @ le Bataclan 06/14/19

This was meant to be a three sentence post about my feelings for the live but somehow it took on a life on its own, so have my own, amateurish attempt at a live report 笑 I don't even know where to begin.

Our day (us being the lovely @ino-en-blue and me) started at 7:30am. We got up and got ready to leave for the venue. We left at 8am, and arrived at the venue shortly before 9am. We got our numbers for the queue, which a friend kindly reserved for us. We were 47th and 48th in line for VIP. For the first 3h, we just sat in front of the venue. We met up with @kagefumin and other lovely people. Most of the time we just spent chatting, and eating and playing some card games (which Milo won and I was last at 笑). At around 9am, the tour bus with the staff and the musical equipment arrived. They told us to move away from the venue a bit, so they could get everything inside. One staff member also informed us that the Gazette were not on that bus themselves, but that they would arrive in another one at a later time. (At roughly the same time, Kai posted about his troubles with the cup of coffee on instagram 笑.) We also got to sign one of the banners that some lovely fans had prepared (there were two of those banners floating around for fans to sign, but we only left our signatures on one of them.)

At about 1pm, the French fans organizing everything told us that staff required us to leave our waiting area in front of the venue, since we were getting in the way of the adjacent shops and passersby. We grabbed our stuff, and moved across the street to the nearby park. Thanks to the numbering system, we didn't have to worry about leaving our spot at all, since we would be sorted by numbers again in queue later on.

At the park, we waited some more, met some more people, and pretty much just chatted and rested a bit. I spotted two awesome cosplayers, and was really impressed by their costumes and appearances, and the dedication and efforts they put into creating their cosplays. It was also awesome to see some cosplayers in the flesh. At about 2:30pm we left the park for a while to get some food. When we got back, the organizers informed us that they would hand out glow sticks to everyone to ignite and hold up during the ballads (I think we ignited some of them prematurely by having glow stick battles in line 笑 though it was hard to tell in the sun). Then we got asked to line up outside the park by numbers. Heresy members got the chance to pick up the Heresy exclusive gift, a wristband. Then we got back in line, and at 5pm they started to lead the first VIP groups back to the venue, where we waited some more. We also took a bunch of cute pictures while we were waiting. At 6pm, staff finally started to let us into the venue. Security checked both bags and persons, then let us enter the venue. Inside, we were given the chance to drop our bags off at the cloakroom, and we were handed the VIP gift towels (made of microfiber). At the left side of the entrance room, there were boxes for the members' gifts. Staff told us we had to drop all gifts into the boxes, we were not allowed to hand them to the members personally during the meet & greet. We also got informed that the guys were running late, which is probably one of the reasons why the meet & greet was so rushed. It took place before the actual live, which was kinda meh imo, since that also meant the meeting was going to be rushed and very short. In line, we were told only handshakes were allowed, though I later heard a bunch of fans screwed the rules as usual, and asked for hugs nevertheless.

As said before, the m&g was really rushed, which was kinda disappointing, tbh. It started with Uruha, and all I was really able to do was shake their hands and tell them thank you as they also thanked us. They all looked gorgeous, and they were really sweet and polite. Meeting Uruha and Ruki is already a blur for me, I have to admit, but I think they were smiling politely. Kai and Reita were real sweethearts, they were grinning happily and warmly, and they both took my hand in both of theirs. Last was Aoi. Oh boy. He was... stunningly beautiful. I mean, obviously they all were, but the whole "pictures don't do them justice" felt especially true with him. He was simply breathtaking. Also, even though they were all wearing heavy makeup, to me it seemed like he wasn't wearing as much as the others — or it just looked more natural, idk, I can‘t really describe it. He simply looked incredibly handsome. When he saw me... I swear I could read his thoughts off his face & the look he gave me. It was so obvious it was downright cute. Like, I'm not only only 1,50m (4'11") small, I also look very young (people often estimate my age to be around 12-14). So I KNOW that look that people usually give me. And he had the exact same look on his face, "Omg you're a child, what's a child doing here?!" I just could read his surprise & confusion off his face, so I gave him a half knowing, half awkward smile. At that, his confusion disappeared and he smiled back. RIP me.

We managed to snatch second row, in the center, with Ruki's platform right in front of us and Kai's drum set behind. Staff were setting up the technological equipment and the instruments. Luckily, there wasn't much of a line yet in front of the merch store, so we rushed over there and managed to snatch the stuff we wanted to get (though they accidentally messed up sizes for two of our shirts, and my friend Ino ended up with the S I was looking to get for my shirt and I ended up with an L but oh well, we'll manage). Getting back in line was a bit of a hassle, since I think people thought we were trying to cut in line, when we were just trying to get back to our friends 笑. Then we waited some more while some rock music was playing. I was standing behind some Japanese fans, and the guy was sadly fairly tall, which blocked a big part of my view to the stage. In general, I didn't have much space to move around or even place my feet anywhere to stand properly lol. With this uncomfortable position, I waited amongst my friends some more, and we were growing more and more excited as well as impatient. Some time later, they started to let in General Audience. Then, a staff member came on stage. He asked us whether we were ready to see the Gazette, and the whole room just went nuts. He informed us that taking any pictures or videos during the live was strictly forbidden, and that cellphones mustn't be used. At that, most people applauded, though some people of course booed *rolls eyes*. But as far as I know, most people kept to the rule, we didn't see any phones around the first few rows of the audience at all. Finally, quite on time (as far as I could tell), the lights went off and the live started.

99.999 started playing, and the whole audience lost their shit. During the SE, the guys came on stage one after one, starting by Kai (if I recall correctly). Ruki came in last. Falling started and the audience went completely nuts. Most of the performance is just a blur to me now, and I sadly didn't see much of Uruha or Kai from my position, so I won't be talking about each song individually. At first, I barely could see Ruki and Reita from my gap, but as the live progressed, I ended up in a slightly changed position, which gave me less of a view on Ruki but therefore I had Aoi perfectly in sight for the rest of the live. The boys were all in top condition. Ruki's vocals were on point, his screams and growls were to die for. Reita was playful during the entire live, licking his fingers a bunch of times and showing his tongue (similarly to his selfie he posted on Instagram later lol see at the end of the report), or coming to the front of the stage to jam there. Aoi mostly kept in his spot, but he smiled inwardly the whole time. He looked especially happy and proud during the NINTH songs, when the audience went nuts and sang along to them, and I was under the impression it made him really happy how much we responded to their new songs. Ruki made some of his cute little dances, and also touched himself during a few songs (though I couldn't name any of them in hindsight except for Filth in the Beauty), or just tugged at the hem of his purple suit to reveal more of his chest. Overall, he was just being his enthusiastic and dramatic self while performing. They were all extremely on point for most of the live (I only heard someone say Ruki's timing was a bit off during Tomorrow Never Dies and Kai apparently shot him a confused glance, but I myself did not catch that). Sadly, as mentioned before, I barely saw Uruha from my position, and I also focused on Aoi most of the time 笑. I managed to catch a few glimpses of him during some of his solos though, which were absolutely fantastic. I also heard he went down on his knees quite a lot and headbanged often, but I failed to catch any of it.

The first few songs were a blast (I'll post a photo of the setlist down below), though I had difficulties enjoying and focusing on them from time to time since people began to push like crazy from the back, and I had to concentrate quite often on not getting squished. That's why I sadly can‘t say much more to their actual performance onstage (also, the songs involved a lot of headbanging so there was no time to focus on the stage, naturally lol). I did catch Aoi accidentally stepping on the cord of Ruki's microphone, and grinning apologetically before stepping off again. During その声は脆く, people got out their glow sticks and waved them around. Until the first chorus, Aoi was actually sitting down on a stool, I think (at least that's what it looked like from my position). Contrary to what I thought from listening to the song on headphones, they did not actually share the guitar solo, but Uruha performed the solo by himself (which, ngl, I was a bit disappointed about). He did a great job at the solo though! I still would've loved and died if they had shared the solo and switched in between the way it also sounds like if you listen to the song via headphones. I was ecstatic that they played Dogma, and during VORTEX and The Suicide Circus, the audience sang along wholeheartedly (e.g., the 'tick tock' part was sung solely by the audience). During one of the songs (sadly I don't remember which it was, might've been UGLY or Tomorrow Never Dies) when they were firing up the audience, Ruki actually walked along the edge of the stage and held out the microphone to the audience to catch and amplify our shouts. He also gave some fans high fives during one of the songs (sorry, again, I don't actually remember during which song, everything's already a blur OTL). The last song on the main list they played was Filth in the Beauty. Afterwards, they left the stage, and Kai came up to the front of the stage and we cheered on him as loudly as we could.

Between songs, Ruki actually spoke some French phrases (like "Bonsoir", "Ça va" and "Nous sommes the Gazette"), which was really cute and adorable! He also made several 'it's so hot' gestures, like fanning himself and sticking his tongue out.

Then we were waiting for the encore, and boy, I did not have any strength left by then. Other people seemed to be the same, and the encore calls came and went in waves like the tide. I think everyone was struggling with their energy reserves by then, and temporarily, I got worried that our encore calls lacked the energy and enthusiasm which would encourage them to come out again. Alas, apparently it was still enough, and they came out again. I was so happy and relieved. Uruha, Kai and Aoi were wearing some of the World Tour shirts (Aoi's tattoo actually peaked out from underneath his sleeve *drools*), Reita and Ruki were still in their costumes. Reita was carrying the French Gazette flag, he showed it to us, then put it on display on Ruki's platform. Aoi brought out another flag, a fan-made one, which had the dates of the live, the Gazette logo and chibi drawings of the members on it. He showed it around and looked so fucking adorably proud as he did so, I can't even put it into words.

When all of them except for Ruki had come out, we started to sing Happy Birthday for Uruha as a late gift. The other members caught up quite quickly, but he himself seemed rather oblivious at first 笑. It wasn't until Reita and Kai pointed it out to him that he understood the song was actually for him. He pointed at himself in surprise, but in the end bowed and thanked us. Kai yelled "Happy Birthday, Uruha!!" into his microphone, then Uruha pointed at Reita and Kai went "Now do it for him", to which Reita shook his head no almost panicky lol. Kai shouted a few phrases in English at us ("Bring it on!" and "You [yes, he made that cute grammatical error, it was endearing] fucking amazing!" are the ones I recall), then, they started to play Inside Beast. Everyone was firing up the audience, and Aoi and Ruki both gestured at us that we weren't loud enough. Aoi even shook his head in disapproval. At one point during the song, Aoi actually blew the audience a kiss *dies*.

Next up was Shiver. Oh boy. I know there's a lot of people who don't particularly like that song, but it is a true blast live. All songs are, of course, but I feel like this is one of the songs the studio version does no justice at all. It was amazing, and Uruha's solo was on point. Aoi's solo though truly hit me, it was beautiful and perfect, and he looked so happy performing it (yes, I know, I'm biased 笑), it made me wish he got to play more solos; he seemed to really liven up during the solo.

People who have been following me for a while know that I'm a hardcore Aoiki shipper. And I fucking can‘t believe it. It actually happened. Right in front of my eyes. During a live that I attended. At one point during Shiver, Ruki walked over to Aoi, and smacked his butt firmly. Aoi grinned. And I died. I screamed so loudly, I think I caused everyone around me to go deaf. I'm so happy that I actually got blessed with Aoiki fanservice the one time I attended a live. What are the odds? (Even in a non-shippy way, it was a true blessing to witness this kind of interaction between the two members I love the most.)

But to make this night truly unforgettable for me, they closed the live with Tomorrow Never Dies. Again, there are a lot of people who greatly dislike the fact that they play this song a lot, but I was extremely happy. There's just something magical, moving and powerful about the feeling of singing "Don't kill yourself" along with Ruki, it touched me greatly. During the song, he walked over to Uruha to rest his arm on his shoulder. Then, he pretended to readjust his guitar strings to which Uruha shot him a "don't you dare mess with her" glance, before Ruki jammed out to the tunes of his guitar. (Side note: Uruki is my second favorite ship, so to get this cute interaction on top was just the fucking cherry on top!) During the song, Ruki grabbed some bottles of water and sprayed us with them (bless him so much omg we truly needed it), then threw the bottles into the audience. At the end of the song, he spew his fountain of water as usual. At one point during the song, Reita went over to Kai's platform to jam out with him, which was adorable af and made me extremely happy. Uruha's solo was killer, and Ruki's a capella part was to die for, as always.

When the song was over, they thanked us, and Aoi, Reita and Uruha threw their remaining picks into the audience. Sadly, Aoi mostly focused on his part of the stage, I would've loved to get one of his picks. But don't be too greedy, right? I was already beyond happy with the things I did get that night. Kai took a picture of the audience from behind his drum set, then walked up and jumped onto Ruki's platform to be properly celebrated like the king he is. He looked truly stunning up close, up on that platform towering above us, while the others left the stage (if I recall correctly, Ruki wrapped himself into the French flag as he thanked us.) Then, Kai left after the others, and the live was officially over.

We pretty much gathered our things, rested a bit on the floor until staff kicked us out lol. A friend went back to the merch store to change their hoodie to a different size, then we collected our stuff from the cloakroom and left the venue. In front of the venue, we met up with some people again, and chatted some more. We said goodbye to people, and rested in front of the tour bus for a while longer. There was a guy selling posters of the live, and another one (I think he was staff) asked us whether we would wait on the band to come out; which apparently was possible and allowed, but it would've taken 2-3 hours of more wait, and since we were tired and exhausted and drenched af, we decided against it. We changed into some dried clothes (we got from the merch store), and eventually made our way to the subway, and home.

There are some extra things I wanna mention but did not know where to put them in the actual report, so I'll just add them here. As mentioned before, the French fans organizing everything and keeping everything in order were doing an amazing job. I wish there was a way to thank them properly. Also, during the live, staff handed bottles of water around and "fed" us with it to keep us hydrated. Twice, the dude poured the water all over my chin, and I actually got some in my nose as well, which was rather unpleasant. But as such, the water was a true blessing. I just had my whole shirt soaked by it, which was why I was freezing once we got out of the venue. The hoodie I managed to snatch from the merch store and changed into helped keep me warm and comfortable though, bless Ruki!

Also, outside the venue after the live there was a girl just giving away some of her popsicles, which was incredibly generous and thoughtful — not all heroes wear capes!

There was a bunch of shoving and squishing going on during the live to the point I barely had a square meter left to stand and move around, and I had to focus a lot of energy and attention into bracing myself against the shoves from behind while simultaneously trying not to get hit by any body parts from the front (I actually took an elbow to the lip LOL as expected). Other than that, the fans were all really polite and some were truly considerate. The guy next to me actually offered to trade places with me so I could see a bit better, which was extremely kind of him.

During one of the closing songs (it was either Filth in the Beauty or Tomorrow Never Dies), some people threw some stuff onstage, sadly. At the time, I couldn't tell what it had been, I only saw something hit the stage, and Ruki look at the floor in both amusement and a bit of weirded out awkwardness. Later on, I heard it had actually been a glow stick and a shirt that had been thrown onstage (and had been aimed at Ruki). Other than that, there were no remarkable (negative) instances. The guys did look really happy, and I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that they were enjoying themselves. Even with the negative things (e.g. the shoving, etc.) I was still having the time of my life. I never pushed my body to and over its limits like that ever before, and the guys were worth every second of it. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to see them live, and I'm so grateful for what this band has done for any of us, and me in particular, and that they continue to do for us and give us. They deserve the world, and I'm so happy and grateful I got to be part of theirs for one night. They were simply amazing, and it's true that any studio version, and any report or picture doesn't do them any justice. They're so incredibly talented, and they perform with such professionalism yet passion it's awe-inspiring. Even if I could remember more about their musical performances in depth, I wouldn't even know how to put it into words.

I hope I'll get to experience them live again one day.

I was also overjoyed to meet people I had been friends with for a while online irl for the very first time. You are all so damn sweet and I was so happy to meet all of you in person. And to meet such lovely people for the first time (I'd love to tag you all in this, but most of you don't have a tumblr, I think 笑). I hope to also see all of you again one day!

#the gazette #gazette #gazette world tour #gazette ninth #live report #gazette world tour 2019 #aoiki #uruki #aoi #reita #uruha #kai #ruki #personal #mygaze

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