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It's times like this, when I'm curled up in bed with an empty pizza box* at 4:30 in the morning, avoiding writing a paper, that I realize just how much of a college student I really am. SIGH.
*Yeah, literally. I mean. The trash can is really far away? /o\
So hey, you know what I've been thinking about? Unironic love! Because, okay, let's just admit it: a lot of my fannish love is at least partly ironic. (Paul Gross and Ryan Ross, I'm looking at you.) I mock because I love, I promise! But there's also some of my love that is totally, completely unironic, and, well. You know who gets a lot of my unironic love right now? GERARD WAY.
Yeah, this is the Gerard Way Love Manifesto.
*Yeah, literally. I mean. The trash can is really far away? /o\
So hey, you know what I've been thinking about? Unironic love! Because, okay, let's just admit it: a lot of my fannish love is at least partly ironic. (Paul Gross and Ryan Ross, I'm looking at you.) I mock because I love, I promise! But there's also some of my love that is totally, completely unironic, and, well. You know who gets a lot of my unironic love right now? GERARD WAY.
Yeah, this is the Gerard Way Love Manifesto.
- The first and greatest thing that I adore about Gerard Way, the real gooshy center of my Gerardphilia, is the stuff he says in interviews. With pretty much all of these bandslash boys, there are occasionally things that they say or do that make me want to punch them in the face (oh my God, Brendon, if you put on a huge flashy show and wear lots of make-up and tight pants and touch yourself, you don't get to complain about people liking the way you look). But Gerard? Consistently, over and over again, he says exactly what I most want him to say. Watching him talk in interviews is a bit like watching a Joss Whedon storyline about women, in that I'm not constantly tensed against possible outrage. It's relaxing! I enjoy it!
- Oh, hey, you want specifics? He defends his gay fans: homophobia was one of the reasons My Chemical Romance distanced themselves from the punk scene. He defends his female fans: "If you ever see shitty ass rock dudes in shitty ass rock bands trying to get you to show your tits for backstage passes, I want you to spit right in their fucking faces and yell fuck you." He defends his young fans, his new fans, his fans who have never been part of any kind of scene in their lives. He's anti-elitist and pro-freak. I like his politics, and I love that he is so fearless about telling people that hatred is not a legitimate point of view.
Hey listen up! All you racists, sexists, homophobes, and just plain assholes, we've got a message for you: go the fuck home! We don't want you here. Don't buy our merch, and don’t listen to our music. If you have our CD, break it. We don't want you, and we don't need you here.
Hey, girls, you're beautiful. Don't look at those stupid magazines with stick-like models. Eat healthy and exercise. That's all. Don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough. You're good enough, you are too good. Love your family with all your heart and listen to it. You are gorgeous, whether you're a size four or 14. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, as long as you're a good person, as long as you respect others. I know it's been told hundreds of times before, but it's true. Hey, girls, you are beautiful.
(What kills me about that second one is that he MEANS THIS. He is SERIOUS. This is partly because, oh my God, he is totally freaking gay, but it is also because he is kind and generous and oh, I am such a fangirl for him it is not even funny.) - He's a genuinely smart guy. Every so often, it occurs to me that I will most likely never be stuck in an elevator with Gerard Way, and this makes me very very sad. If I were stuck in an elevator with Pete Wentz, I'd probably ask him if he wanted to make out or something, but if I were with Gerard? I would love to just talk to him for a couple of hours, hear what he has to say, because he's fucking INTERESTING. He's smart, and he's unpretentious, and that is a powerful combination in my book. He went to art school! He's TALENTED! He must be so much fun to talk to, I can't even.
- He's a recovering alcoholic. And, okay, this might seem like a bad reason to love someone, and that is fair. But I've known, really intimately known, people who are recovering alcoholics; I've gotten a glimpse of how hard it is, how amazingly difficult it can be to get through one day without drinking, even five, ten, twenty years after you quit. I know how horribly it can affect everyone you love, how profoundly it can fuck up your own life, how difficult it is to ask for help and admit you have a problem. And I've known people who've done it, who made it, and people who haven't. Gerard, he's doing it. He's going the distance, in one of the most difficult contexts imaginable: I have no doubt at all that he's constantly under enormous stress, with lots of drinking going on around him, and drugs and alcohol are readily available whenever he has a weak moment. I'm not sure I can explain how much it tugs at my heartstrings to know that he's in recovery, but it really, really does.
- And this fits into a larger theme of my Gerard love, which is that he makes BAD DECISIONS. Again! Not so much with the obvious lovable-ness! BUT. He makes a very specific kind of bad decision, which is self-destructive, and inwardly-directed. He sets out to hurt himself, not other people. Instead of being mean to others or irresponsible or insincere, Gerard's flaws tend towards things like "dates boys who are bad for him, becomes an alcoholic, gets really depressed." Everyone has flaws, but these are my kind of flaws, babies: these are flaws I can work with. And most importantly, crucially, after he screws up, he fixes it. He tries his best to fight out from under the messes he gets himself into. He comes up swinging. That, my friends, is a boy who I could love.
- This is such a silly reason, but he LOVES NEW JERSEY. Oh my shit, every time I hear those boys talk about it I get so homesick. OH, JERSEY. Land of my soul forever.
- He's a sarcastic little bitch. "Oooh, what do we have here? Oh my God, it's a WHITE T-SHIRT! God, I love these things, thank you!" He's witty, and sharp-tongued, and he doesn't use it to make people feel shitty. He's funny, you guys! "It tastes like somebody stole my wallet."
- He saves lives. And I mean, okay. You can make fun of him for his earnestness (and I do) and for his grandiose pronouncements about What Music Is For (and seriously, Gerard, why didn't you become an EMT?) but you guys – he believes it, and his fans believe it. He really, honestly means it, all that stuff about caring for your fans and setting a good example and connecting to people through music, and allowing kids to not feel like freaks for once, because they finally found someone who's saying what they're thinking. Which is not something I personally found through music, but it's something I get, you know? I understand that for some people, a CD can honest to God save their lives, and Gerard Way, he really wants to do that for people. And judging by the fans, he kind of succeeds.
If for one minute you think you're better than a sixteen year old girl in a Green Day t-shirt, you are sorely mistaken. Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.
- He's a HUGE GEEK, oh my GOD. There's an interview where he gets asked what his favorite comic book hero is, and he names some team that I have never heard of, and goes off about their history for five minutes. It's GREAT. He's just, he was canonically a loser. Oh man, I love it. He was CHUBBY as a kid! Best ever! He was a weird little art freak who played Peter Pan in the school musical! He totally and completely wore wolf t-shirts! Oh, my God. OH, HEARTS. My love for nerds is so huge, and my love for nerds who grew up to wear tight pants and eyeliner is even huger.
- And speaking of those tight pants and eyeliner! He fucks with people's expectations. He fucks with gender, and with heteronormativity, and with people's heads. He wears SKELETON FOOTIE PAJAMAS. One time in art school, he dressed in (apparently, very convincing) drag for a whole day, to see what it was like. He frequently winds up wearing feather boas and tiaras on stage. I love his weirdass clothing choices not only for themselves, but because of what they say about him: that he's someone who doesn't need to project normalness and straightness, that he wears his freakiness like a badge of honor. Or, well. A skeleton-print tiara of honor.
- He's, um. He's really, really gay. As in, I'm pretty sure he is the gayest of all the band boys, and oh my God that is saying A LOT. He – oh, my heart – fudges his pronouns. He mentioned in a recent interview that he had "met someone special," but that's all he wanted to say about it just then. And I mean, yes, the make-up, and the feather boas, and the boykissing, whatever. PRONOUNS. If it turns out he's dating a girl, I will be so sad, because he is SO GAY. He officially has my vote for Most Likely to Be Gay in the Real World. (Brendon Urie is possibly the runner-up.) I have not seen him convincingly demonstrate interest in a woman ever, except Christina Ricci, and whatever, a) straight girls would do Christina Ricci, and b) I submit that he would rather BE her than fuck her.
ETA: Just kidding, he apparently dates ladies! But he also talks about how much dick he likes to suck (a lot), so, uhm. I stand by my statement. - He cracks his rib, and keeps on going on stage every night. He has horrific pain in his tooth while they're recording their first album, and sings through it. He tears all the ligaments in his foot recording a music video, and tries to convince the doctors to let him sing anyway. He tries SO HARD, and he doesn't take the path of least resistance, and he comes through for his fans and (I assume) his friends.
So. In conclusion, Gerard Way: a nice, genuine, nerdy, talented, smart, earnest, sarcastic gay boy who loves New Jersey and tries really fucking hard. And saves lives. And hey, he's also pretty cute.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Oh my God, that was really embarrassingly sincere. So, talk to me about unironic love, my pretties! Tell me about the last time you really seriously found yourself admiring Pete Wentz's literary skillz, or how much you would honest to God give Paul Gross a blowjob if the opportunity presented itself, or how Ryan Ross is actually kind of a misunderstood genius. I am listening! I will not judge you very much!
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