I’m not afraid to be the first to admit that I enjoy a lot of strange media.
Well, I guess it’s fair to say that I enjoy a lot of media, and sometimes the massive swath of content that I consume happens to overlap with some conventionally unusual creations.
Some of the content I engage with carries holds no deceit in what it is. I’m not naive. I know going into a horror game or movie that it is trying to unsettle me. I can reasonably expect that the thriller novel I’m reading is going to get my heart racing and I might start sweating.
But, sometimes… I encounter things that leave an disturbing impression on me that I didn’t anticipate dealing with.
Recently I’ve encountered a new song (and it’s artist!) that I’ve fallen in love with, but some of the necessary lyrics of the song discuss concepts that have straight up wrecked my day. I am absolutely enamored with Tom Cardy and his fantastic catalog of comedy songs. However, the first song I encountered was Red Flags. All of the songs by Tom Cardy have a masterfully written twists and Red Flags is no exception, so I’ll put the description in the next paragraph if you don’t want spoilers on a three minute song.
The premise of the song is that a man is on a date with seemingly the perfect woman for him… except her favorite film is the Human Centipede. The song follows the date as she gets more intense in her passion for the song and he gets over his initial concerns and falls in love with her.
The song is catchy, and for a song about a butt centered body horror movie the lyrics are richly layered with a surprising amount of meaning. It gave me pause and opened up a line of thinking that I had never considered. It really is a gift that we now have the ability to date as we please and have enough options that we are able to reject disinteresting dates even for the smallest red flag of a questionable choice of favorite movie.
Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the song it brought me to a conundrum. In enjoying the song, I had to think about the Human Centipede.
I spent three days straight listening to the song in my downtime, and singing it to myself when I was busy. I made myself ill thinking about the implications of the movie (which I haven’t seen myself, I’m sure it’s fine but it shock body horror is not for me). I was unbearably nauseated. I had to make myself eat anything as I didn’t get hungry.
Fortunately, the feeling did pass (not unlike shit in the movie) and I’m able to enjoy the song without feeling unwell. After I got better and I had a little bit more clarity I realized that this wasn’t a new experience, and I had felt this at least twice before. I realize now that as the times have gone on each time it had gotten worse.
In 2018, a game called Agony was released and it was fucking garbage. The developers promised it would be a one of a kind experience that had an AO rating and wouldn’t pull any punches. In reality the game completely bent to the will of publishers and followed the path of least resistance to chase money. It sucked. I watched a game play of it to gauge if I wanted to invest the money and despite experiencing the secondhand walking simulator it effected me. Being honest, I don’t think I can blame Agony entirely. The situation I was in at the time wasn’t good, and I wasn’t taking care of myself the way I should have. I fell into a depressive state of malaise for weeks. I couldn’t believe that the heavy and extensive concept of hell could be stripped down into the thematic equivalent of a Call of Duty lobby populated exclusively by middle schoolers. Without exaggeration, the colors and my outlook on life dimmed and it took time to return.
Further back, in 2011 Twenty-one Pilots released the single House of Gold. The song was definitely intended to be a loving one, with the singer promising his mother that after his father dies he’ll take care of her after she asks him too. It should have been endearing, but it struck me as a boymom planning to rely on her son for her retirement, and her emotionally enmeshed son bowing to every need. This isn’t TOP’s fault, but the relationships around me at the time reflected an unhealthy dynamic that at surface level could be characterized by House of Gold. I internalized it, and I felt sick each time it played. It was miserable, and it played on the radio constantly. I felt awful, because how could I ask the people around me to skip through this super sweet song. I was so glad when it fell out of the public eye.
These experiences are incredibly uncomfortable, and I’m not going to get philosophical about it and pretend that it was enlightening experience to be vomiting at work because I had to think about mouths stitched to assholes. It was interesting to realize that these events were connected by the feeling of primal revulsion.
I’m sure that this time won’t be the last I’ll have to feel like this, and I wait in fear for when that time comes around.
The Cluttered Library 