evil-community | cunt mag

Exhaustion, pulling my hair out and the constant stress of feeling like I’m being watched. Happy fall, and happy days to those who enjoy this incredulously torturous weather. My fall coat didn’t even get a chance to keep me warm, it got too cold and windy too fast. I do miss the days of heat, sweating through my black tank top and the cigarettes feeling like I’m inhaling car exhaust.

So…what’s been going on these past few weekends? Or, let’s say month?

I lost my vision, partially, at an afters. I remember looking at A and saying “There are so many white men here.” D’s “surgical” k, which she received from her doctor friend, had me tweaking at the Isabella Lovestory show. In her beatnik outfit and transparent pleasers, and me in S’s jeans and shredded top that spelled circumcision in Latin on the back, in the upstairs bathroom snorting off a nail tool. What else happened?

K’s party was a packed success. J told me they wanted to bring their own door person because they needed to be strict. I told them I’d kill them. I spent four hours dealing with mostly normal nice people, but also the array of entitled men who were “on the list”.

“I’m friends with the DJ/owner, I should be on the list,” well, you’re not. “Well I should be there,” but you aren’t. “Should I get the owner/DJ,” please be my fucking guest. Also, do me a favour and look up from your phone when you tell me you’re on the list. Don’t type, chew, type, look up, look down, type, chew, “I should be on the list” to me.

One, I don’t know your name. Two, even if I do, through your “social influence”, nothing will stop me from asking “name?” This is the problem. There is a uniquely dick-assery sense of entitlement that is bread in the city in a way that makes me want to scream in a public space. Whether it be men overstepping their boundaries when it comes to touch, or “the list” dilemma, people don’t know how to treat others with respect. It’s uncouth…duh.

Millie Brown, 2014 vomit art. Brown vomited on Gaga in the previous video. Photo sourced from Ripley's

It breeds a bunch of power-tripping adult-babies that think the world revolves around them. For example:

On my 26th birthday, I sat on the stairs of my room devising a plan with J to get “the influencer” out of my house. They stumbled in around 2 a.m., with unfortunately a name I’ve heard one too many times. After a few bartenders from the bar up the street walked in, they emerged from the ill-placed door and my face fell. I remembered all the things I’d heard, all the things he’d done and all the people he hurt along the way.

Looking back, I should’ve stood up and asked them to leave. It was my house after all, and I was well aware of what they’d done. But some sick fantasy I had was I wanted to watch them embarrass themselves around the space and do what they do best; boast. Boast about their career, about who they know and who they were. I was also just too scared to do anything and have to deal with the repercussions of an angry influencer in my home.

What happened that night between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. feels more like a funny story now than the stressful experience that it was at that moment. The name-dropping, the “Do you know who I am”, and the yelling at my friend for a simple mistake.

It’s a story now we tell people, “Remember when the influencer showed up at my house?” or “Remember what they had said to XYZ.” Our community, our small, chatty-as-hell community, will remember them like this. The community will also remember them as something else; an abuser. Someone who has used their power to harm people. Young people, mostly.

That’s how I will remember them, nothing more than that.

However, the problem is this: The generation before mine, the one that uplifts this person and creates space for them, is creating a space for their legacy to be positive. This is the same generation that holds the most power, hierarchally. By giving them access to space, events, green rooms, party fliers and so on, they are allowing them to be remembered as a “pillar of the arts.” Someone to look up to.

Over time, the influencer probably won’t be remembered for the bad things they’ve done. Maybe on a smaller level, more locally, whispered amongst friend groups. But not generally speaking. Those around the influencer, who uplift them, know what they've done and will play a huge part in his legacy being error-free. Over time, when a new generation comes and goes to those events, they may not know right off the bat, because in the eyes of social media, the influencer is a safe person to be around.

Millie Brown, 2014 vomit art.

Photo sourced from Ripley's

Toronto is a clusterfuck collective of people who forgive for the wrong reasons, from abusers of every nature to power-tripping “figures” whose egos grew a little too big.

No one wants to openly talk about how so many sexual assaulters still navigate the scene because they are given space to. No one also wants to talk about how the generation before us, that makes space for this influencer, won’t acknowledge what this influencer does. This influencer is still getting booked, mind you.

The best way to describe it, which isn’t as intellectual as I want it to be, is through the phrase “evil community.”

Evil Community A collective of individuals upholding behaviour that negatively affects the greater public. In the case of Toronto, individuals create space for specific individuals who have had a history of sexual, physical and verbal abuse and/or abusing power. This can be in the form of friendships, letting them access events and putting them near the next generation of Toroto’s creative scene.

Community is central to the existence of “scenes”. What you’ll hear at panels or in Instagram bios or stories, is that community is important, it’s vital to our existence as “creatives” and we must uplift it. What the fuck are you even talking about?. It's the buzzword of the century, I suppose, and no one knows what it means.

Community is, in its truest form, where you feel like you belong. It’s chosen family for many and it’s meant to be a safe space. Right? Right. Community is finding people just like you, whether that be in interests, socioeconomic background and identity to name a few. In queerness, there’s a constant need to fight against power structures that are imposed by societal norms and capitalist systems that are built against us and other oppressed groups. Whether that be in a class way or when it comes to imposing on our physical bodies.

This isn’t some academic explanation, this is what I know and feel from experience. There’s a lot to break down here, it’s a little overwhelming, and for the sake of my sanity, and yours, I’m going to write from experience rather than quoting a few academics.

In conversation, I was told once that it’s surprising how our biggest BIPOC and queer-focused spaces are so “corporate.” It’s also a space where abusers get slaps on the wrists rather than ostracized. It’s semantics or more so “culture business.” “I’ve known them for years,” or “they’ve done so much for the community.” Does that matter when they’ve used their power to hurt other people?

Parts of the underground are now corporate-a-fied, with the excuse of cost and production at the center. Big names are being prioritized to generate higher ticket sales, and international artists as headliners. Moreover, while corporate sponsorships were bigger last year, they still exist today. DJs and collectives become associated with corporations that have actively denied access to Palestinian voices, just for a dollar.

This all can’t be the only solution to creating nightlife and culture in the city. Falling at the hands of corporate greed to “create culture” and “make inclusive spaces” that create class barriers instead, seems…wrong.

“Well, we have to pay our artists, and rental fees blah blah blah?” So, who is the party for anyways? The number of times I’ve been told I don’t understand how much work, time and money goes into these, as though I complain blindly. Well, one, it’s not that hard to break down, and two, my point will remain…is it all necessary?

Is it all, at the end of the day, necessary if it alienates the people who rode for you from the start? If it alienates the poor?

Let’s break it down, and if I miss a few things, feel free to chime in.

Venue (some have SOPs, licenses of some sort, or work as just a hybrid venue.)
A crew of people working the event, if the venue doesn’t provide (bartenders, door folks, security, maybe even food services)
People trained in overdose prevention and safety training (rarely)
DJs, local or international,
1. Accommodation, travel, rider, other expenses like the damn dinner
If you’re working with a ticketing app, whatever shit you have to do for that
Deposits for damages (some venues)
Cost of equipment
Lighting team
Audio team

This is what it takes to throw a major event. Remove a few, and add some other things, sure. But this is the structure of the events that have overtaken the city and become a costly nightmare in my mind. Some of these also cost an arm and a leg to access, because events “need” these things.

Why did we make it mainstream and acceptable to profit off parties and make it someone's career? What happened to the core qualities of raving, dancing, music cultivation and education through nightlife? What happened to throwing a party to have fun? A party, in my opinion, should never be a career. When you begin to capitalize on partying it loses its purpose and meaning. It becomes a business.

And now, I’m watching members of my generation fall into that trap. Young organizers prioritize clout and profit over the community. We’ve built a business and hierarchical system of power in this city and an unofficial rule book about “how to be successful” in nightlife. Money is at the center, clout is coated around it like a thick gloss. It’s an immoral trap, a capitalistic cycle that we have not seemed to break from. It’s everywhere.

However, to counter my own point, that doesn’t exist for other young people trying to create. These high prices and hovering capitalistically structured parties have pushed young queer out and back to the depths of the underground.

Now, while some are falling into the cyclical traps the previous generation couldn’t escape, other young people are creating cheap, simple, dirty, sweaty nights that put dance and community at the center. The best part is that they don’t use “community” as a buzzword, they don’t even say it! You just feel it.

How do you feel it? You feel it in your scalp when you dance and you feel it in the shitty sound system they rented out. You feel it at the end of the night when you're walking home, it’s cold as hell but for some reason, you’re running hot. You’ve been dancing for hours and spent less than $50 all night. Some nights, you’ll spend nothing at all.

Whether the collective is new or has been around for a couple of years. It’s about the crowd and the exposure to sound.

It is this counter-hegemonic practice, a possible counter-culture to what was counter-culture decades ago and now is mainstream. Is the counterculture now really just opposition to gentrified corporate nightlife? Class-conscious nightlife, perhaps?

How the fuck did we make nightlife neoliberal? Well, maybe ask some of the city’s biggest DJs and organizers.

These folks aren’t doing this ill-prepared either. They know the risks of overdose and providing harm reduction in their spaces, they know how to manage a large flow of people coming and most importantly they know how to make space for their crowd. They’re finding venues that won’t charge them insane amounts of dollars and that are also accessible by transit. They just have to navigate a world that is unaffordable, inaccessible city, and they do it without spending thousands of dollars.

They are burnt out, they are tired, yet they still push forward.

There is always hope, even when all the forces in the city are against you, even when the people you look up to make you feel like they don’t care about you. While there will always be people in our communities prioritizing money and image, there will be people on the other side saying “Who gives a flying fuck, let’s just throw a party.”