My Epic Apology To Black Metal — The Bigger Picture

By Staci Traynor

Hello. Guys? I think that maybe — just maybe — we got off on the wrong foot here.

Let me explain.

It has occurred to me that my recent article, "Why 'Black Metal' Girls Will Never Be Happy" has, to an egregiously large extent, gone completely misinterpreted. For that I am deeply sorry.

Many a harsh sentiment against me has been absorbed into my consciousness, yes, this gnarled underbrush where the leaves of littered words doth lie. You hurt me. But that is okay.

Sometimes even writers get caught up in emotion, I suppose.

Real talk. I am deeply embarrassed with how certain things were stated on my end, in retrospect, after having had these fallacies in logic pointed out to me by the esteemed and respectable members of the black metal community. (I don't know how to word this without sounding like a dick but I am being serious. You guys called me out on some broken logic and I guess what you were saying all along is finally resonating and making sense to me.)

I feel like a nightmare's baby.

At first, I admit, I was virtually blind towards the blatantly idiotic nature of the points I was trying to make. I attempted (and failed miserably, I now understand) at highlighting the fact that rudeness and arrogance can send the wrong message to anyone not associated with a particular community when a member of that community displays these symptoms towards the other. These were two people who were exceptionally rude, NOT the black metal community as a whole. Let that be clear. I can now see why you would be angry as it appears that I was lumping the rest of the community in with these two girls who, for all intents and purposes, might actually be nice people in a different setting or on a different night. A week ago I never would have found myself saying this, but, perhaps I am the problem.

In light of my new perspective, I am angry at myself, probably more than you would care to know. There were passages in the article that nearly everyone was baring their teeth over... But my friend Yvette offered me her sound advice and insight and I have her to thank for helping me finally see the light, as it were, but the real thanks goes out to each and every one of you who first called me out on my bullshit. I am so sorry.

Thank you for helping me to see where I am going wrong with my thinking. Otherwise... ugh...who knows how long I would be making the same mistakes? I cringe now in utter embarrassment at the thought.

Addressing how the girls were dressed, even in what I thought was an innocently if not slightly cheeky and wantonly descriptive way, obviously comes across as petty and this is certainly NOT AT ALL what I stand for. Hell, I can now see that I was doing exactly what I observed (or at least perceived at the time) them doing to me: being ignorantly judgmental. I apologize to Tiffany and her friend, and to anyone and everyone else who felt these lyrical barbs as a personal attack on their own character and personality. I feel ashamed that I was unable to pick up on the irony of the situation as I was crafting the article, still shook from the reverberations of a night that I could no sooner hope to forget. Emotion was running dark and strong within me the night the piece was composed and I should have known better than to take it and run with it while the iron was still blazing hot. Never a good idea, folks.

Never.

Not that I am worthy of even attempting to convey any wisdom at this point but let me humbly frame this whole fiasco as a lesson to everyone: COOL DOWN before you speak, lest your emotions get the better of you, carrying away your words at the clutches of the dragon of anger — a dark, twisted entity hell-bent on goading you into saying that which you do not mean and, in your futile attempt at conveying meaning, doing so in words that the rational, emotionally-sober version of yourself would dare never say.

The dragon got me this time, folks. I fucking hate myself for it.

The fallout from the responses the article has garnered has been a morose oddity that in all of my years as a writer I could have never imagined I would experience. It is a degree of foggy, dirty, perplexity that has me sitting here, staring out at the moon betwixt the cascades of my sheer canary yellow curtains, wondering why I didn't pick up that bottle of Pinot Grigio on my way home earlier, dreading the thought that my own ability at reasoning might very well be in question. To this end, I am without words. But I have plenty of tears to keep me busy.

I won't even bother to try and rationalize my intent at this point because I again feel emotion swirling around me, heavy and brooding like the most violent of churning pillars cast downward by the fucking Niagara Falls.

This time though, it is a different brand of emotion. It's the sad kind. The sorry kind. The worn, tired, and existentially defeated kind. It is the type of feeling that puts me in the place of a wax candle that has been left burning all night, down to the curling wisp of smoke that crests outward in it's dying breath.

You hurt me, but only because I hurt you first. For that I will never forgive myself.
 

— S


P.S. If anyone knows where I can buy this exact Burzum shirt but for women let me know cause it's the coolest I've ever seen: https://amzn.to/2KupfHb

Yes, I do happen to like some black metal now by the way.