HATE
Depressed Vampires: I love vampire lore and subsequently, vampire entertainment but I am getting tired of the sad-ass vampire trope. Like you mean to tell me you don’t have to suffer the ailments that plague mortals, you don’t have to adjust to a changing appearance or bodily functions that comes with aging, you ain’t gotta wonder what the fuck you gon’ make for din-din tonight and you’re probably rich (and let’s face it, if you are centuries old and still broke as fuck you might as well run that heart into a wood stake your damn self) and you're still out here moping like you on your “🎶 because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you…over againnnn🎶” type shit like a teen drowning out their pre-divorced parents’ heated argument with their AFI playlist. Be for real. You got all the time in the world, and you choose to spend eternity whining about it? Brooding in a leather chair? Go do something. Start a salsa company. Learn to play the mandolin. Open a chain of burger restaurants (fries included). See, Le Stat in Queen of the Damned had the right idea because he moved with shifting time, and started a band and chose to not just sit by candlelight in an off label ruffled shirt.
Even in fiction, regular ass humans are out here aging towards a fixed income, putting their back out because they sneezed too hard, and getting taxed for merely exhaling, and we still out here on these streets having a good time. You really expect me to feel bad for someone who doesn't even have to worry about genetic health conditions or landlords? Fuck outta here.
I need vampires to be the life of the party. They already nocturnal so they can bring that “dancing like no one is watching at the boiler room dj set” energy to the function. Be dramatic. Be sexy. Talk shit. I want these blood sucking motherfuckers out here throwing lavish parties for the ages, dressing like they're about to ruin someone's marriage, and actually enjoying the fuck out of their immortality and safety from human ailments. If I was a vampire, you wouldn't catch me crying at the crib, I'd be out here living my best life, turning into a bat at the snap of a finger, robbing billionaires, giving money to the needy on my Robin Hood type beat, throwing wild underground raves. Invite Natasha Lyonne. I would be insufferable. They need to get it together bruh.
Praising Billionaires: Y'all be out here defending billionaires like they found you as an infant near the dumpsters of a 7-11 and raised you as their own. Like they wouldn't personally set the house you rent on fire, if it meant they could make an extra two cents on their stock dividends. Always talking about "they worked hard for their money,” well you do too but you ain’t a billionaire; you ain’t even a millionaire. You’re two missed paychecks away from selling feet pics sport, what’s your excuse? Why don’t you have a yacht? Better yet, why don’t you have a savings account? Y’all out here living paycheck to paycheck, dodging overdraft fees like you’re standing in PE class avoiding the rubber ball, and still ready to throw hands for some motherfucker who doesn't even know you exist 😬 couldn’t be me. Men in particular will dog out their own homeboys for merely treating women with respect and loving their girlfriends/wives and call that simping but imagine simping for men who don’t know you exist and if they did know you existed, wouldn’t even let you make eye contact with them if you were shining their fucking shoes okay. If they caught a glimpse of your reflection is their perfectly shined shoe, they’d take you off the payroll. They're not your homies. They're not aspirational. They're just really good at making sure you stay broke and delusional into thinking one day you’ll be like them, while they get richer and benefit exponentially off you buying into the false dream of one day becoming a billionaire too.
Biopics: I deadass hate biopics at this point. They are always so formulaic, predictable, reductive and entirely award season bait. Every time I see one it’s like, congratulations, you made a two-and-a-half hour funeral montage set to a Clint Mansell score with two scenes of joy and somehow wiled the masses into thinking it’s cinema at its peak because the actor portraying the beloved protagonist bodied the role. These movies are always the same: a depressing childhood filled with trauma and bereavement, a moment of triumph via discovery, a tragic downfall, and then the credits roll while a real-life photo of the public figure fades onto the screen like that makes up for the three hours of suffering we just endured. I don’t need to see another film sequence of a man looking in the mirror, plagued with inner turmoil, contemplating his demons while dramatic orchestral music swells. We’ve seen that a million fucking times.
And let’s keep it a buck, these films exist solely as Oscar chum. It’s never truly about the complex life of the real person, it’s about making some A-list celebrity look ugly enough to be taken seriously or for us to be so moved by how much an actor can look like another famous person with the versatility of makeup and prosthetics.
And don’t even get me started on how painfully predictable they are. You know exactly when the fucking music of triumph is gonna kick in, you know the exact moment the protagonist is gonna hit rock bottom, and you definitely know that some supporting character but consequential to the trajectory of the main character’s life is gonna say some shit like, “you’ll never make it!” before a dramatic cut to them proving the motherfucker wrong. The dialogue is always mid at best, but people let it slide because it’s based on a true story about a figure that was or is beloved. Bro, that doesn’t make it good. That just means someone suffered in real life and now we have to watch it reenacted with someone who looks better lol.
Also, why do they never focus on the fun and wild parts of these people’s lives? If I’m watching a movie about some highly revered rock star, I don’t wanna see two hours of drug addiction, domestic violence and menty b’s in random hotel rooms – show me the ridiculous shit. Rich people surely engage in a high number of shenanigans that us poors will never relate to. Where’s the scene where they buy a fucking pangolin in a dark parking garage because they can? Where’s the sequence in which bro gets into silly fisticuffs with a ghost in his haunted hospital room after falling off a two-story balcony 🤪? Let’s see the night she had a bisexual tryst! These movies drain every last drop of positivity out of the story so they can focus on pain and trauma because apparently, Hollywood doesn’t believe a movie is esteemed unless it’s depressing as fuck. And don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch a bleak ass movie. The French and Spanish always manage to devastate me through cinema, but I’m tired of seeing people who changed history and were undoubtedly—interesting and complex—have their life story reduced to the “sexy” traumatic shit. I never feel invigorated after watching them bitches. They’ll never be Shrek 😌.
LOVE
When revolting people’s outsides match their insides: it is ever so gratifying when an individual with a revolting personality has an appearance to match. It’s on par with the sensation one experiences when you are cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide or you have the exact right amount of cash for an item at the register. Ain't nothing more diabolical than a repellent motherfucker with a face and body that doesn’t harmonize with who they are as a person, it throws off the natural order of shit, they don’t deserve to reap the benefits of being considered attractive. But when someone who has the moral compass and personality traits of a cartoon villain, looks like they were smuggled onto Earth via an orbiting asteroid and exhibits how aberrant alleles really can get, that’s the universe speaking.
I love when someone who is a despicable human being, moving through life making decisions that would be on Lucifer’s Pinterest moodboard is built like a deflating balloon lying on the asphalt of a seedy alleyway in Modesto. The hills really do have eyes. Like, yes every unsavory trait you possess, the hate-filled aura you emit and the lack of empathy you have has manifested as your appearance by settling into every crack, crevice and fissure of your very being. It's in the eyes, the gait, the knuckle hairs, the way those motherfuckers even masticate. There isn’t a soft corner on their body, no inner radiance, no evidence of a conscience, just a general atmosphere that reads as "I've never felt compassion, and it shows” and reflects the same vibe one senses at the DMV or near the dumpsters behind a Little Caesar’s in Tulsa. Some people are ugly in a way that is earned, and honestly, that’s how it should be.
Bait shop chic: I just wanna say, I love how millennials and Gen Z have fully committed to appropriating the hunter/doomsday prepper aesthetic and are dressing like they are tryna get the attention of producers casting for the next installment of Duck Dynasty. Like, these bitches woke up one day and decided that the real drip is looking like you subsist on venison neck meat and spend your mornings laying down bear traps. Realtree camo pants? Oversized workwear jackets? Trucker hats that look like you can only cop them at a gas station off Route 66? They out here looking like they spent their entire morning making clove hitch knots when really all they did was spend five hours doomscrolling TikTok while looking for their elf bar vape, and me? Well, I think that's beautiful.
I know Bass Pro Shop’s most loyal customer base are foaming at the mouth at the sight of a self-identified heteroromantic bisexual 25 year old named Praxis, wearing a Realtree camo sweatsuit adorned with pink bows in the condiments aisle of the local grocery store. I revel at the thought of this. I also love the fact that absolutely zero yutes sporting this trend have any intention of actually “touching grass.” The only thing these bitches are hunting and gathering is the hot tea chile. Like, these fashion boys, girlies and eligibilities 🏳️🌈 are nearly wearing whole ass waders and yet have never stepped into a body of water that wasn't a swimming pool at an AirBNB in Puerto Rico for their birthday month. That's the energy I love.
And it's not just the camo either, it's the entire bait shop aesthetic. Like they are appropriating everything with a price tag. It’s the Realtree camo, it’s the Oakley-style sporty sunglasses dads wear when they go fishing, it’s the mesh-back trucker hats that say some shit like "Carhartt, built for the great outdoors,” meanwhile the only time they stepping outside is to grab an iced coffee with the divas. If they saw a glance of swampy green water they would be like “omg that’s so matcha coded!.” I love it because it’s a bit chaotic and confusing, who can say if the person in front of you at the convenience store wearing a camo dad hat is a conspiracy theorist with a taxidermy Bison head above the fireplace at his crib or it’s just like socially queer, fiscally straight Evan on his way to grab lunch with the boys at the new Korean bbq joint? The concept of dressing like your personality is going out the window, but I’m kinda here for the ride? Nothing matters!
When someone singing at karaoke is good af: I know the whole point of karaoke is that it’s supposed to be fun, crowd-pleasing and not a talent competition, but there's something truly magical about someone walking up on that stage, grabbing the mic, and absolutely bodyingggggtheir song of choice. I'm talking about the motherfuckers who have shown up like this is their Beychella. I love the build-up. The bit of quiet before the first note hits. Everyone in the audience not fully paying attention yet then here comes the runs, the riffs, the vocal control, the power. Bitches in the audience gasping. I’m one of them. Someone clutching their chest. One of the bartenders is so shook they spilled a little tequila mid pour. A couple at a nearby table realizing their bond ain’t strong enough to survive this moment in time because one–if not both–of them just became besotted with the singer. The power and dedication in their voice shifts the whole room.
At first, everyone's laughing with each other, talking, checking the apps on their phone, half-listening to anyone on stage who they don’t know, but when a good singer starts eating that mic up, suddenly realize we’ve been blessed with a free concert that people would pay to see. Patrons who were peeping their hinge messages, put their phones down expeditiously. We are all cheering them on like we are their long-lost A&R rep ready to “jump in the stu.” It’s no longer just karaoke, it’s a whole sensorial experience and I live for that shit.
until next week, stay hating x
Marquita 😙