As I read the news coming out of Astroworld I can’t help but think, “Sounds about right.” That’s cold and shitty but after running Fear5 and witnessing the selfishness and narcissism that came out of COVID-19, I’ve lost a lot of faith in humanity.
To catch you up: Astroworld was a music festival held over the weekend. Selfish people who seemingly don’t know how to act in society anymore caused mayhem. Because people that think only of themselves disregarding security, busting down barricades, and literally trampling over others to get a good spot by the stage, people were seriously hurt and killed. To top it off, as emergency crews attempted to help, people just climbed on their vehicles and danced on them.
To compound the problem, it seems the festival was about as prepared for the issues they faced as the world governments were prepared for C19.
What is it about us that we always assume the worst will never happen and then when it does, we throw our hands up in the air and say the problem is too big?
Here’s a quote from someone that was at the festival.
“I looked around and just saw people stare and others continuing to enjoy themselves as if these people meant nothing. It felt like there was little humanity in that crowd.”
She was speaking of the people that were injured and lay dead on the ground. So this is who we’ve become, huh?
Here are just some of the things I’ve heard people say in the last 2-years that disgusted me:
- The virus just kills old people so who cares?
- I don’t believe in medicine because I saw an article on the internet and it made sense to me.
- Now that Trump is President, we can declare proudly how sick we are of other races.
- I won’t wear a mask because I’m around people that only have healthy immune systems.
- MY rights are being violated to protect people I don’t even know.
Newsflash: you too will get old, anyone can say anything on the internet, your racism is a mental illness, you go places where people with weakened immune systems have no choice but to share space with you, and your selfish attitude will eventually come back to bite you, like this guy.
I mentioned my event, Fear5 at the beginning of this. How does it tie in?
Well, I’ve run Fear for years now and I can say this year featured the most entitled, drunken, stupid, and downright ignorantly violent people I’ve ever had to put up with.
Entitlement
Even though our emails clearly state that we get behind some times due to unforeseen issues such as panic attacks, some groups didn’t care.
I heard, “They’re just weak. Carry them out and let us go in,” and, “I’m a hardworking white woman, unlike some of your customers, I should get in first.”
In fact, seeing how comfortable so many are with racism these days was a bit shocking, and it came from various races, but my white people … you were for sure the worst.
I said it to your face and I’ll say it here again, “Fuck you. If you ever need blood, make sure you ask for the race of the person who gave it first. Don’t be a hypocrite. You’re willing to die for your irrational cause, right?”
So many people put their own interests above others. I know waiting can suck but it’s not like we made anyone wait for fun. Genuine issues present with an event like this, as they did every year. Do you think we enjoy listening to people bitch and moan about how important they are and how their time is money?
In fact, we were ahead most of the time this year, which has never happened before. What does it tell you that we had our most on-time year ever but the most complaints about lateness (even by 5 mins)?
Granted, we had 6 groups all season out of hundreds that had long wait times and they got a refund, because it was reasonable that they requested said refund. It’s called accountability, and I’m fine with applying it to myself. Too many aren’t; that much is clear.
If I tell you that someone is having a panic attack and you say, “so what,” I know exactly the kind of person you are and how to treat you.
Drunks
So many drunks. I’m over it. If you can’t handle your alcohol, GTFO. My patience was very thin after a husband and wife duo decided to tear our sets down and try to break a crew member’s face.
Alcohol is a social lubricant, not an excuse to be the worst version of yourself. The next day you’ll say, “I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing.” You knew what you were doing with every drink you guzzled down. You’ve been drunk before and you know that you’re an asshole but yet you choose to drink anyway. That is your choice, getting kicked out and wasting your money because of that choice is your consequence.
For a crowd of the vaccinated many sure sounded like an anti-vaxxers making excuses after they kill a family member through sheer ignorance. More on that later.
Stupidity
Our check-in location was LOCAL Restaurant at 274 Garry St. Someone actually called us scam artists for not sending the address to him and his friends … in response to an email WITH the address in it! He thought we meant the event was local and there would be 274 Garry’s present.
What. In. The. Actual. Fuck?
When I met him, he even said it was an honest mistake. No, Garry (I’ll assume that’s his name) that is not an honest mistake. That’s just dumb.
But, it doesn’t stop with Garry. The number of people that didn’t read the info we sent them was staggering this year. The number of complainers as a result of not reading was even worse. I’ll project it at 800–1000x worse than any other year.
Instructions exist for a reason. If we say that you should wear your crappiest clothes because of stains and rips and then you wear your sister’s good jacket into the experience, you get no pity from anyone because you couldn’t take the few minutes to review information.
We also have different levels of fear and entertainment in each of our experiences. On our website and in our ads we laid out what to expect from each experience. For example, The Cure was the only experience with fake blood but a group showed up ready for blood and not doing The Cure experience. They were “disappointed” and demanded their money back. I’ll let you guess how that conversation went.
Ignorant Violence
The number of people that tried to destroy sets, attacked crew members and threatened to kill me this year when I called them on their shit was too plentiful to count. Yes, you read that right.
I lost count of the number of people being violent and ignorant this year.
We had 4 ignorant and violent people go through Fear in total over the past 4 years. This year, we had more than that on opening night this year.
The one thing I could always say to people who said they would react poorly in our event is that its so rare, I doubt that they would be ignorant or violent as a reflex, never mind on purpose. I can no longer say that.
Selfish People
This, on top of regular schmucks thinking they know more than medical experts, anti-vaxxers trying to protest and raid my venue, all the Karens, the Trumpettes who gathered for the second coming of JFK, the obvious disregard of minority rights, the “freedom fighters” who aren’t even in the shape to fight the wrapper their Twinkies are encased in, and this disgusting new normal of politicians not accepting a lost vote are almost enough to make me move to a cabin in the woods.
Almost …
Good People
There were many great groups that came to Fear. We scared and/or entertained, and they showed their appreciation. I met an incredible woman because of Fear this year. My crew leave with some awesome memories, and we helped a good cause. To those groups that came, suspended disbelief, and just enjoyed the night out … THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH!
Our Numbers are Dwindling
Unfortunately, the good don’t outnumber the portion of society that are the human equivalent of a rectal bleed quite like they used to.
From Astroworld festival to Fear; anti-maskers to anti-vaxxers; insurgents to overt racists, our behaviour as humans is becoming so selfish. The disregard for basic understanding of how a society should work is staggeringly concerning.
Why do you get to break down the gates to a festival and rush in?
Why do you get to trash a set?
Why do you run an event without proper security or safety considered?
Why do you get to decide what happens to the whole because your gut is saying something that isn’t backed by any proof?
What makes you exempt of public decorum?
Why are you so above it all?
Do you even understand what would happen if everyone acted like you?
Your prophecies about government control would become true, because … well, you would be a self-fulfilling prophecy of selfishness and social breakdown. Everything must have order because without it there is nothing left but chaos.
I have to seriously assess where to go from here because it’s the dumb leading the dumber out there and their numbers are growing daily. We’re living in an endless cycle of bad behaviour leading the way for worse behaviour due to guidance by divide and giving into our worst tendencies. The human race needs a giant wake up call.
One would think a pandemic and one of the greatest advancements in the history of medicine would have been said wake up call, but just like the impact that 9/11 had on human behaviour was short lived, so too was our “in this together” mindset.
We’re not in this together; well, some of us are, but our numbers are shrinking quickly. No, instead many are out for themselves like the “leaders” who display that example readily and often.
I’ve been in enough political back rooms to know that Maxine Bernier and Donald Trump’s teams are telling them to lean into the fear … and now look at what we’re left with. It’s really, quite sad.
Possibly, one of the most hilariously sad aspects to this whole thing is how hypocritical the ignorant in society are:
- They say 5G and wifi causes C19 but use their phones over those connections to post their misinformation.
- They choose whether or not to put on a seatbelt whenever they get in a car and understand that their decision has consequences but they can’t see how a mask helps.
- They think their immune systems will cure all but they’ll run to an ER when they feel like something is really wrong, while spitting in the faces of medical professionals until they die.
- There are medical professionals that took many different vaccines and boosters as a mandatory requirement for their job and now, all of a sudden, it’s a big issue.
These ignorant brother fuckers don’t believe in their cause; they like hearing themselves talk. If they actually believed their own bullshit they would throw out all technology, give up any rights to health care, go stick some crystals up their butt and leave us sane folk alone.
They can’t do that though, because as much as they want to pretend they’re freedom fighters, they’re just a bunch of people starved for attention. This applies to the nobody with nothing going for them right up to doctors who put out misinformation on the internet because no peer would ever take their insanity seriously. The internet has given them a voice. 20 years ago they’d just be crazy Uncle Larry at Thanksgiving Day dinner.
What Do We Do?
I can’t tell if the world is getting worse or if the spotlight is merely brighter on the human rectal bleeds, but one thing is certain; we won’t solve any of the world’s real problems until we treat the list of symptoms contributing to the real epidemic virus; selfishness.
Here’s my plan to deal with the virus:
- Education: An overhaul of education and a yearly assessment of what the priorities should be. With technology, teachers can adapt quickly. Teach kids about microbiology as well as mathematics in an easy to digest format. The medical terms are less important than the fundamentals, from what I’ve learned.
- Real leadership: Our leaders need to be experts and our politicians at the top need to simply be charismatic, intelligent, well spoken individuals. They should submit to open exams and rigorous testing, along with serious ramifications if they dodge or deceive.
- Stop inventing micro-problems: Some celebrity who I don’t care about and PETA want the MLB to change bullpen to arm barn because it’s offensive. There are examples of this kind of micro-problem solving creeping up every day. These are not real problems, they are invented issues to distract from the fact that we’re all assholes within a system without real answers.
- Stop ignoring real problems: Climate change is real, whether you want to admit it or not. We can do something about it. That’s all that matters. But still, we just pretend it’ll never truly affect us. Experts warning of a Coronavirus pandemic and we ignored them. How well did pretending real problems don’t exist work out for us?
- Stop burning history instead of learning it’s lessons: Yes, some gross things happened in human history, but we don’t need to remove the telling of these stories from our lexicon of learning. We need to continually learn from our mistakes. To remove is to forget, and to forget will only lead to a repeat performance.
- A complete disregard for community: We need to stop thinking of ourselves all the time. Taking a few minutes to consider our impact on others (and how you’d like to be treated in the situation) could make all the difference.
I’m sure I’m missing some points, but this all feels pretty important and like basic bitch life 101.
Conclusion
We have a long, steep hill to climb. Of that, there is no doubt. Those smarter than I, need a plan to get us back on track because the greatest threat in the next 20 years is not climate change or war, it’s ignorance and selfishness.
Just imagine what the next pandemic looks like. It’s coming …
When C19 started, millions of people that are now living in anti-reality land listened. With the next one, there will be no listening.
They say we would have never reached the original projection of 40m+ dead because of C19. They say the absence of proof is proof they’re right. They gamble that measures weren’t necessary and that their immune systems are strong enough to fight anything. Sadly, in our lifetime, we’re all about to find out how wrong they were … as if we didn’t know already.
Be good to each other.
Respect effort.
Appreciate experts.
Show compassion.
Think of the community.
That’s step 1, and I’m not even sure we can get past that.
