Hello all. I’ve been wanting to write this for quite some time now, especially after some things started to go downhill in my place in the KISS fandom. This entry has been put on hold due to midterms but I might as well write about it now.
Right now I feel as if there are too many challenges being a KISS fan. Has there ever been a time where there’s peace and I’m left alone to just love them and get on with my life? Not recently in the past few weeks this spring.
The biggest problem I’ve dealt with for a year now has to do with my duration as a fan and the fact that Gene Simmons is one of my role models.
I’ll talk about the duration of being a fan first. There is a great many of people out there who say things like: You don’t have to grow up with KISS in the 70’s to be a KISS fan, along with also saying: I like how there’s a new generation of young fans coming up, they help KISS keep going.
Those statements are all true but there is still a certain amount of people who act superior in the fandom as if they tell us you have to be around since the beginning or else you’re not a fan. This is hurtful to any young fan and any other statement meant to bash young fans. If I had kids of my own and they became KISS fans through me because let’s say…I was playing KISS music when making dinner for them or whatever, and then one afternoon my future 5-year old son/daughter comes home and says “Mommy! This man who looks older than you saw my KISS shirt and said I’m a fake fan! What does that mean? Why did he tell me that?”
If that happened I would tell this future son/daughter that that type of person is someone who loves to bash KISS and the new fans and still go by the title as a fan. I think people like this are just abusing their status as a fan don’t you think?
There is a fine line between opinions and discrimination. No one is a fake fan just because they didn’t grow up with the original lineup like me I’ll tell you that. I’m not really interested in having kids when I’m older but if I ended up changing my mind then I would introduce them to KISS but I wouldn’t want haters that are 40 years and older to pick on them just because they know Eric and Tommy better than Ace and Peter.
Anyway, I have had a few people come up to me and judge me just because I’ve been a fan for a year and not for 30+ years. I am currently one of the admins of a KISS Facebook group that consists of over 1,000 members now. Some people on there are kind and some of them are assholes. One of them called me a fake fan just because I happen to like one of Gene’s most recent creations: KISS Hello Kitty. If someone is disrespectful to me in that group in any way I ban them.
But I almost reached the tipping point of considering leaving the group when one of the admins talked back to me. He seemed to look at me as not a fan because of how long I’ve known KISS this way. I gave him my polite but firm attitude which is usually what I do before deleting any comments. He got pissed when I asked him politely but firmly to show some respect and not hurt the feelings of me or any young fans.
He lost his mind and said I was unprofessional and didn’t know the true meaning of respect for his so-called opinion. Basically I had set up the rules in the group to be that being respectful of what people post means that you are entitled to your opinion but at certain times it may be necessary for you to keep that opinion to yourself because depending on what it is; it may be offensive or hurtful to others. This is something my parents taught me, and I’ll be quite surprised if no one else has been taught that. All I can say is that he was the unprofessional one. If you’re an admin of a group you should act as if you are respected, not abuse your power by talking rude to other admins and other members. Then make the necessary decisions if something does not go the way it should be.
I know this wasn’t such a huge thing but since this judgement still keeps coming I’ve reached a stage where I almost no longer want to interact with any more fans. Also I have made the decision to no longer disclose certain information related to my status as a KISS fan, especially when I became one.
The second problem I’ve been dealing with as a KISS fan lately is people who lecture me just because I look up to Gene Simmons. Some of these people are fans and some of them aren’t at all.
Some haters were like, go shove your head up Gene’s ass. Most of these people are obsessed with Ace. Here is my clarification. I do not have my head up his ass. I am supporting him. Is that such a crime? No.
I made a dumb decision to watch KISS on American Idol. Why? Because there were more pop acts on there rather than acts like KISS. This sounds really cruel but it comes from my personal feelings, I already talked about this elsewhere but I need to express it on here. It’s the best way to let it go. I wasn’t happy when I saw Caleb hug Gene after the performance.
Don’t ask me why, you should know by now. Yeah, I’ve always wanted to hug Gene, but I can’t accomplish that unless I fork over $1,200 or bump in to him on the street somewhere and he happens to be in a mood friendly enough to allow a fan to hug him when she asks politely. Aside from that I have no issues with Caleb and I guess I should send my congratulations to him for winning the competition. When he brought one of his friends on to the stage to meet the band and said he was their biggest fan I felt like saying, no I’m the biggest because I’ve been dreaming of that as well more than anyone knows.
Finally, I was extremely offended to see a photo of Demi Lovato with Gene which appeared on my Twitter feed. Nothing against Demi, however she has some pretty decent pop songs and I’m glad she made a smooth transition from Disney to being a classy young woman unlike some other artists I know. But when I saw that photo I was pissed and felt like I deserved it more than her.
This resulted in the lectures. At this point I felt like my friends didn’t understand or support for that matter my desire to look up to Gene and my dream to meet him in or out of costume. In reality I want to meet him in costume more and she achieved that, she achieved something that I may never have unless I have over $1,200 which I won’t be able to start saving for until I am done school so I feel stuck and helpless at this moment until I graduate from my program.
They started defending Demi saying she had as much right to have that and it sounded like they were saying she deserved it and I didn’t. Like, she is his colleague and in my opinion that is bullshit. I would only consider them actual colleagues if Gene actually helped produce her album. They may both be in music business but they have NEVER worked together. People claim she is a metal fan but I refuse to believe it. She never talks about metal nor does she play metal.
In my opinion if you really love metal then really love metal, ditch the pop stick with the metal it’s obvious. Of course there are disagreements here like not everyone is meant for actually playing that kind of music which is understandable I guess. But what they didn’t understand was that I considered myself a way bigger fan of Gene, KISS, and metal in general than her.
I was the one who was listening to this stuff whenever I had down time, I was the one who always talked about it and dreamt about it. Demi never did, EVER. That’s why I felt in a sense that I was the one who felt more deserving of it and beginning to work my way towards achieving it.
Believe me, once I’m finished my program in August and after I get some time off, I will begin looking for a job. As soon as I’ve got one the first major thing I’m going to save up for is a KISS meet and greet and hopefully Gene is still in the band by the time I have the money for it, not just for myself but for a friend as well who wants to meet them as much as I do. If Demi got a picture with Eric Singer instead then I wouldn’t be so serious about this.
That’s not the only thing connected to this issue involving my idolization for Gene. Did you ever read on the incident on a plane with Eric Stonestreet’s mother? I didn’t think it really happened because since I support Gene and always will, I believed that he would never do something like that these days because he is a good man and has done a lot more good things for society than bad things. The news of this rumor reached my family and they asked me about it at dinner. I tried to avoid the subject but my brother called him a dick and that made me angry inside, he may not realize it but opinion or no opinion; Calling one of my idols any inappropriate name is not only insulting them but it is also insulting me because they are in a special place in my heart. I will say no more about what my family thinks about this situation because the last thing I want is for them to think this blog is meant to bash them and it is not.
I tweeted to this Eric guy and told him to stop this bullshit and what did I get? A rude guy from the Lordi fandom came at me. For some reason he has never been nice to me. I don’t know why, I never did anything to him. I remember last year when I was upset to be missing Lordi’s 2013 tour I vented my feelings on Twitter which was before I owned this blog and that rude fan came up to me again.
I didn’t know what the hell his problem was and I never did anything in any way to make him be mean to me. But it was clear he was an Eric Stonestreet fan. Soon seconds later we get someone else coming in saying, Gene’s not perfect and it was as if they were taking Eric’s side and when I continued to defend him saying he would not do that they said I don’t know Gene personally. Excuse me, I don’t care and I don’t need a personal connection with Gene to know who’s side to pick.
What kills me is that the rude fan took the tweet from the other person that was meant as a lecture to me and added it to his favourites. I think that’s mean, how would you like it if saw a tweet that was meant to tell you off or pick on you and add it to my list of favourite tweets? I bet you wouldn’t like that because someone can look at it and say “Hey everybody! This is my favourite tweet because this person is telling off this girl who is obsessed with Gene Simmons!”
I would have been hurt by that, you have no idea. So as you can see these issues are Internet problems, and even though they may not be as serious there are times when words can hurt even though sticks and stones are really what hurt. It all depends. But I wish people would just leave me alone and let me look up to Gene as I please. That’s all I ask, for anyone that I admire, not just him. But it looks like with Gene I have to ask for it more.
So to conclude this entry I am sick of being lectured or picked on for how I define myself in the KISS Army. I’m a different fan, a young one and one that only wants to be respected. You respect me and in return I shall to you. You get what you give. I look up to Gene Simmons, you got a problem that just because I prefer him over Ace Frehley? You’re on Ace’s side or society’s side than his? Don’t lecture me, leave me alone. Don’t say anything. I prefer you don’t. I’ll look up to whoever I want. Just be glad the people I admire are not serial killers, rapists, or whatever.
Okay, my rant is over. These incidents by the way happened a while ago but I need to write about them. Some people out there still don’t get it and that’s why. If you start to get it after reading this I’m happy, but if you still don’t I won’t bug you about it. It’s your loss.
-Emily
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