Warning: a lot of the information below is pretty personal, and sometimes unsettling - I don't censor a lot of harsh language that I unfortunately have to use. As much as I may dislike the word, if you experience 'triggers' of any kind, or whatever, then you'll probably want to avoid this post.
* * *
I grew up (and at the moment unfortunately still live) in a poor-ish environment, in the small quaint taint town of Owensboro, KY. Small town USA is a pretty common theme among us Patriots, and we all have a great time exchanging messages on the top of Federal Hall.
About my parents. My mother has always loved me, and supported me and my dreams. She pretty much raised me the way I am, and a lot of my humor stems from her. Hell, she works with me at my current job. I love her very much. Even when she's gone off the rails and started a loco-emotion train that can't be stopped (and I can't say that I don't see a little bit of that in myself sometimes, unfortunately) she's still amazing.
My father is a tough man. I grew up in Kentucky, and I know it's different everywhere, but the culture here pretty much boils down to "work, work hard, grow up fast, you'll have sleep when you die and meet Jesus". Real quote, by the way. He was no different. He never understood why I liked video games, equating it to baby 'fag stuff'. I learned a lot from him, and a lot of his humor rubbed off on me, but he was pretty tough on me. He's gotten better as he's gotten older, and I still love him a lot, but I can tell that he was an awkward sort of person that didn't know how to control their feelings.
I was tormented for a long time about not having a job. Immediately when I turned 16, I was fully expected to start working, get a car and start driving, and save to move out of the house, swiftly, by age 18. Go to college, work. Unfortunately, when I turned 16, America experienced one of the worst recessions it's experienced in a long time. I could not find any place that, understandably, wanted to hire a no-experience babyface teenager.
Many of my friends got jobs. They had connections. My parents, being very anti-social, had no friends and hated society as a whole - which is why I lived in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I don't think too much of that rubbed off on me, but I did have a deep hatred and awkwardness around people, and I can't help but think that was bred into me. So for a long time, until I got back from college and finally found a job at age 19, I had this 'lazy, piece of shit, ugly, no-good video game playing faggot' driven into me. I was pretty depressed, and I mean actually depressed. My father never hesitated to tell me how awful I was, to scold me for being lazy. If it was not for this website, this amazing site with amazing people, and my incredible wife (then-girlfriend), I would have probably done things I don't want to think about to myself.
Some of those memories are bent by teenage emotions of course, and once we grow up we throw away such things, but I definitely feel that anger and depression well up sometimes, even still. My wife was out of work for a while a few months back. She's from San Diego, CA, and she said she never felt like this, ever - she felt awful, like a horrible person, because that is drilled into everyone's head here. 'Only niggers use SNAP. Only lazy pieces of shit don't work. There's no excuse. You need to have a job. I've worked for 30 years, never called in sick, no gap in employment. You have no excuse.'
This place is toxic. Everyone thinks the same. And, as you can tell from the harsh language I'm using, racist and homophobic (more on that later). They care so much about everyone else, all the time. Comparing, whispering, it's pathetic. Like there's some kind of scale we're all racing against, to be better than one another. Well, almost everyone. I've met a lot of really good friends here, and, the story is true, there are a lot of fucking nerds here in Kentucky. In this town alone there are three dedicated nerdy game shops, which is a lot for a small town. I've only ever lived somewhere else once - in a college town a few years ago, and while that was different, it was still Kentucky. I visit Evansville, Indiana quite a lot and it's much, much different. I like it there, and perhaps I'd like to move there. We'll see.
Anyway, yes, this place is deeply religious, being firmly settled in the bible belt. This topic comes up time and time again, but it was truly awful, especially when I stopped believing around age 14. I don't want to get into it, to upset people, but people use this religion to mask hatred of others, and that includes minorities (blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc) and especially the LGBTQ community. It's (not to be a newscaster) absolutely disgusting. The hatred for gays here is despicable. I was raised to hate them, and I will openly admit that I did until I started thinking for myself.
You want to know why? I was raised to believe that gay people - especially men, for some reason - were literally demons. And this is not unique to me, a lot of people I spoke to have said this. Satan sent them to sodomize people. I wish I was being hilarious, but I'm not. My dad used to say, "If you do this bad thing, you'll go to hell and be fucked in the ass by Satan forever'. I'm not sure if Dad was into something or if he truly meant it, but that was that. Gay rights has no place here. It's automatically assumed that people are being gay for the sake of being gay and that they're willingly sinning against God, being 'freaks' and 'disgusting'. As an aside, if you identify as atheist around here, people think you are gay. It's like an immediate connection, and it works both ways. Only gay people don't believe in god. Truly, another layer of 'gay demons' that I spoke about in the Tales of Merlin.
When I went to church (and I was raised Catholic, and that's all I'm going to say about that) he openly prayed for gay people to turn back to God. To stop sinning. To stop being freaks. I realized very quickly (right around the time I started using the internet like a madman) that it's wrong to hate any human being, that this whole life thing should be about loving one another, but no, not here. Oh hell no.
So when people say "I don't know why some people just hate gays, with no reason" well they have a reason. The bible says. Church says. And if you question either, you're just as bad as the fags you wanna defend. And yes, faggot is a perfectly acceptable term around here, as sad as that is. Slightly related (because it's not a word you'd get in trouble for by using it in class) I don't want to delve into the awfulness that the school system is here, with the stereotypes being true, with the average ACT score being a fucking 16 at the school I went to.
Racism is also equally disgusting. I never understood my parents going on about 'swirly girlies, don't need to mix the races' when I saw a couple of (very cute) mixed twins one day. As a child, I thought, after reading about MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights movement at school, that racism was gone. And then I grew up. And it's awful. (I guess you can use that sentence to cynically describe adulthood, ha). I've never understood it. When I worked at my awful retail job (which I won't detail here, that's yet...another matter) I worked with a guy that was extremely racist. I won't...can't...repeat anything he said. He hated everyone that wasn't his color...his saying was 'If you're not white, you're not right." There was nothing I could do, of course, because management was just as racist as him. I didn't want to lose my job, so I endured some truly, truly awful things. I will never understand it.
As an adult, I have the luxury of staying away from a lot of things...my current job is relatively tame, much better than the last one filled with racist bigots and homophobes (despite a team leader being a lesbian Jew...I won't get into that, another time), but I still here some pretty reprehensible things (I just don't know why you wouldn't believe in God). People in public are still awful that openly boo and curse gay couples holding hands. I need to get out of this toxic place, but...one thing at a time.
Thanks for always being there for me, Chew. For making me a (much) better person.
* * *
I grew up (and at the moment unfortunately still live) in a poor-ish environment, in the small quaint taint town of Owensboro, KY. Small town USA is a pretty common theme among us Patriots, and we all have a great time exchanging messages on the top of Federal Hall.
About my parents. My mother has always loved me, and supported me and my dreams. She pretty much raised me the way I am, and a lot of my humor stems from her. Hell, she works with me at my current job. I love her very much. Even when she's gone off the rails and started a loco-emotion train that can't be stopped (and I can't say that I don't see a little bit of that in myself sometimes, unfortunately) she's still amazing.
My father is a tough man. I grew up in Kentucky, and I know it's different everywhere, but the culture here pretty much boils down to "work, work hard, grow up fast, you'll have sleep when you die and meet Jesus". Real quote, by the way. He was no different. He never understood why I liked video games, equating it to baby 'fag stuff'. I learned a lot from him, and a lot of his humor rubbed off on me, but he was pretty tough on me. He's gotten better as he's gotten older, and I still love him a lot, but I can tell that he was an awkward sort of person that didn't know how to control their feelings.
I was tormented for a long time about not having a job. Immediately when I turned 16, I was fully expected to start working, get a car and start driving, and save to move out of the house, swiftly, by age 18. Go to college, work. Unfortunately, when I turned 16, America experienced one of the worst recessions it's experienced in a long time. I could not find any place that, understandably, wanted to hire a no-experience babyface teenager.
Many of my friends got jobs. They had connections. My parents, being very anti-social, had no friends and hated society as a whole - which is why I lived in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I don't think too much of that rubbed off on me, but I did have a deep hatred and awkwardness around people, and I can't help but think that was bred into me. So for a long time, until I got back from college and finally found a job at age 19, I had this 'lazy, piece of shit, ugly, no-good video game playing faggot' driven into me. I was pretty depressed, and I mean actually depressed. My father never hesitated to tell me how awful I was, to scold me for being lazy. If it was not for this website, this amazing site with amazing people, and my incredible wife (then-girlfriend), I would have probably done things I don't want to think about to myself.
Some of those memories are bent by teenage emotions of course, and once we grow up we throw away such things, but I definitely feel that anger and depression well up sometimes, even still. My wife was out of work for a while a few months back. She's from San Diego, CA, and she said she never felt like this, ever - she felt awful, like a horrible person, because that is drilled into everyone's head here. 'Only niggers use SNAP. Only lazy pieces of shit don't work. There's no excuse. You need to have a job. I've worked for 30 years, never called in sick, no gap in employment. You have no excuse.'
This place is toxic. Everyone thinks the same. And, as you can tell from the harsh language I'm using, racist and homophobic (more on that later). They care so much about everyone else, all the time. Comparing, whispering, it's pathetic. Like there's some kind of scale we're all racing against, to be better than one another. Well, almost everyone. I've met a lot of really good friends here, and, the story is true, there are a lot of fucking nerds here in Kentucky. In this town alone there are three dedicated nerdy game shops, which is a lot for a small town. I've only ever lived somewhere else once - in a college town a few years ago, and while that was different, it was still Kentucky. I visit Evansville, Indiana quite a lot and it's much, much different. I like it there, and perhaps I'd like to move there. We'll see.
Anyway, yes, this place is deeply religious, being firmly settled in the bible belt. This topic comes up time and time again, but it was truly awful, especially when I stopped believing around age 14. I don't want to get into it, to upset people, but people use this religion to mask hatred of others, and that includes minorities (blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc) and especially the LGBTQ community. It's (not to be a newscaster) absolutely disgusting. The hatred for gays here is despicable. I was raised to hate them, and I will openly admit that I did until I started thinking for myself.
You want to know why? I was raised to believe that gay people - especially men, for some reason - were literally demons. And this is not unique to me, a lot of people I spoke to have said this. Satan sent them to sodomize people. I wish I was being hilarious, but I'm not. My dad used to say, "If you do this bad thing, you'll go to hell and be fucked in the ass by Satan forever'. I'm not sure if Dad was into something or if he truly meant it, but that was that. Gay rights has no place here. It's automatically assumed that people are being gay for the sake of being gay and that they're willingly sinning against God, being 'freaks' and 'disgusting'. As an aside, if you identify as atheist around here, people think you are gay. It's like an immediate connection, and it works both ways. Only gay people don't believe in god. Truly, another layer of 'gay demons' that I spoke about in the Tales of Merlin.
When I went to church (and I was raised Catholic, and that's all I'm going to say about that) he openly prayed for gay people to turn back to God. To stop sinning. To stop being freaks. I realized very quickly (right around the time I started using the internet like a madman) that it's wrong to hate any human being, that this whole life thing should be about loving one another, but no, not here. Oh hell no.
So when people say "I don't know why some people just hate gays, with no reason" well they have a reason. The bible says. Church says. And if you question either, you're just as bad as the fags you wanna defend. And yes, faggot is a perfectly acceptable term around here, as sad as that is. Slightly related (because it's not a word you'd get in trouble for by using it in class) I don't want to delve into the awfulness that the school system is here, with the stereotypes being true, with the average ACT score being a fucking 16 at the school I went to.
Racism is also equally disgusting. I never understood my parents going on about 'swirly girlies, don't need to mix the races' when I saw a couple of (very cute) mixed twins one day. As a child, I thought, after reading about MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights movement at school, that racism was gone. And then I grew up. And it's awful. (I guess you can use that sentence to cynically describe adulthood, ha). I've never understood it. When I worked at my awful retail job (which I won't detail here, that's yet...another matter) I worked with a guy that was extremely racist. I won't...can't...repeat anything he said. He hated everyone that wasn't his color...his saying was 'If you're not white, you're not right." There was nothing I could do, of course, because management was just as racist as him. I didn't want to lose my job, so I endured some truly, truly awful things. I will never understand it.
As an adult, I have the luxury of staying away from a lot of things...my current job is relatively tame, much better than the last one filled with racist bigots and homophobes (despite a team leader being a lesbian Jew...I won't get into that, another time), but I still here some pretty reprehensible things (I just don't know why you wouldn't believe in God). People in public are still awful that openly boo and curse gay couples holding hands. I need to get out of this toxic place, but...one thing at a time.
Thanks for always being there for me, Chew. For making me a (much) better person.