a return to my roots

i'm in a college class about drugs, health and society. my professor posted an assignment about exploring an aspect of our culture and sharing with others in a short essay. then we're tasked with following up on two others' posts. a few classmates have posted about food, or their ancestry. and it got me thinking.

what the fuck is my culture?

i'm white, whiter and whitest. my ancestry is littered with problematic stuff. my family doesn't celebrate any of my heritages (Irish, French, German, and so many more) and i'd probably cringe if they did. i also don't participate in the Americanisms the rest of my family does.

what the fuck is my culture?

i began dissecting my identity.

i'm Queer, but i'm not really part of Queer culture.
i'm a Satanist, but i left TST and don't keep up with Satanism anymore.
i'm in AA and SLAA but i wasn't going to talk about that.

then a thought rung out, rather loudly.

what the fuck is my culture?

what was one of my first special interests? what do i talk about on YouTube? what kind of music do  i listen to when i'm feeling the most nostalgic? the answer to all these things was being immersed in Juggalo culture.

my profile picture (at time of writing) is based on Insane Clown Posse's first album. i'm running merch with this logo on it. whenever i can find any in San Francisco (and it's very rare here!) i buy Faygo. i have a few shirts and bandanas leftover from two moves. when i see someone wearing Juggalo merch in public i try to talk to them about it.

what is a Juggalo?

me. i talk about this extensively on YouTube.

how could i have blanked so hard? i got to work. i watched a few videos and mini-documentaries, grabbed a link for one of them and wrote my essay.

this was my realization

there are few things i am involved in these days, but something that defined my late teens and early 20's and continues to pervade into my 30's is Juggalo culture. i joked with a friend of mine that it's more embarrassing to be a Satanist these days because of the stain TST has on it, but that's a rant for another time. i've talked about this on YouTube as well.

i got into ICP about the same time i found LaVeyan Satanism, but i was enmeshed in the music more. i have traded labels a few times between religion and politics, but i never "dropped the Hatchet."

so here's the plan moving forward:

i'm going to return to my roots. i'm continuing to listen to the music. i'm going to keep producing YouTube content exploring the lore, culture, and politics of of Juggalos. i'm going to stop being embarrassed about my past as a horrorcore rapper. i'm gonna keep drinking Faygo whenever i find some.

i wish i had saved the other essays i have written in the past, but i'll write more. i'm going to re-immerse myself in the online spaces. i'm going to make friends and connections.

i'm going to live up to what i said when i was 17, listening to to the Great Milenko album:

"i'ma be down, i'ma be down, down with the clown 'til i'm dead in the ground."

i hope you're cringing, because it only gets better from here.