I didn't know what to call this blog post so I titled it with a lyric from "All Of This And Nothing", but it is connected to something I want to talk about.
A year ago on my blog I had written a post about a few things that happened on the Psychedelic Furs fan page on Facebook which made me really fed up. I wanted to vent to get it out of my system, and so after writing it I published that post. But a month later I deleted it. By that time my frustrations went away and to be honest I got scared of the thought of people reading the post and would criticize me for what I said. But today I decided to talk about it again. Nowadays when I think about it, I'm not upset anymore but I feel disappointed and done with it, and confused too about why those things happened.
I first joined the fan page back in 2020 and it was great being on there. It was fun interacting with other fans and I had no problems with it whatsoever. But sometime in 2022 the guy who ran the page announced he was not going to run it anymore and so left it to new administrators. After this happened, in early 2023 I noticed that I started to have issues with the fan page.
During that time I was posting a lot of polls and a great idea entered my head. As I mentioned on my blog post called Self-Written Compositions I wanted to do four polls and they would be about the songs that Tim Butler, John Ashton, Rich Good, and Paul Garisto composed by themselves. I would do a poll for each member, list the songs they wrote, and the members would vote for their favorites. I did the poll for Tim Butler first, and I waited for it to be uploaded. But suddenly a few days later, I heard it got deleted by one of the administrators. I thought it would be a fun and harmless thing to do, and I didn't understand why it got deleted. So after that I abandoned doing the rest of those polls. But this was not the end of them, because there were a couple more polls that got removed, much to my confusion and irritation.
The second poll I did was one where I listed all of The Psychedelic Furs' compilation/greatest hits albums. I wanted to see which compilation was the favorite, but that one didn't get approved. Then with the third poll I did one that asked people which song from Richard Butler's solo album was their favorite. Before that I did polls about The Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love albums so I wanted to do one for the solo album. It got approved at first, but suddenly it was removed. I got a message from one of the administrators and they said they deleted the poll, but told me to "keep posting". I felt really upset at the time, and I've seen people talk about the solo album on the fan page before, but it's wrong to do a poll about it? It didn't make sense at all, and to me it just wasn't fair.
One day I did a post and it was a quote from Richard Butler on a song and with the quote I posted a picture of him. Again, it got deleted and I was very annoyed of course, but eventually I found out the reason why. Months later I posted that same photo on my Instagram and I wrote how I was enjoying my days off from work, until I got a DM from the main administrator. She said that the photo of Richard Butler was a personal one that Richard's wife took of him, and asked me if I could remove it. Out of respect, I deleted my IG post.
Oh, before I move on, I just remembered another post that didn't get approved. I did one which featured a quote from Tim Butler that was from his interview with the Tallahassee Democrat in 2023. The interviewer asked Tim if there was somebody who inspired the lyrics to "The Ghost In You", and this is what Tim said:
"I wouldn't want to speak for Richard. I think Richard likes his lyrics to be interpreted in a way that makes you feel something. So, whatever an individual wants to make of it that's OK. That's why also I think it's a timeless song. I don't think it ages."
I mean, it sounds like a good quote to post, right? But once again, it didn't get approved. Was the quote really that offensive, or was it the mention of the Tallahassee Democrat because it features the word "Democrat"? I guess I'll never know.
Last October I found out from the main administrator that there's someone who, while not active on the fan page, looks through it, and if there's posts they don't approve of seeing, they would tell the main administrator to delete them. The person and the administrator actually know each other and are friends on Facebook. After hearing about this I was worried I would post something that the person would not approve, and I want to truly respect them; I don't want to post something wrong that would make me look bad in their eyes. I don't know how long they have been on the fan page but it makes me wonder if they looked at the posts I mentioned, which I really hope not. I'm not going to say who it is because I want to keep their privacy.
Because of the person viewing the page there are a couple new rules that the administrator posted. Fans can't discuss about the band members' personal lives, and can't talk about how good looking or sexy Richard Butler is (I've seen a few female fans do that on the page). I wholeheartedly agree with these two things because it's all about the music, although I might be a hypocrite on the latter; because if I was on a Green Day fan page, I would probably type out comments on how handsome Billie Joe Armstrong is!
Ever since I've been working I would only post on the fan page once in a while because my mind would be so exhausted from work and I just didn't feel like interacting with anybody. And also I didn't post on there as much because of the things that had happened. The last time I posted on the page was back in January when I shared a link to my blog about my top 5 favorite Psychedelic Furs concerts. And it turned out it would be my very last post ever on the fan page.
Three months ago when I finished the first part of the fifth anniversary special of my blog I thought of sharing it on the fan page. I wrote out the post, pasted the link, and I hit the upload button. A day later I got notifications that showed people leaving comments on my new post. I pressed the notifications so that I could see the comments but they would only take me to the home page. I tried to look for my post but it wasn't there at all. I had a feeling it got approved at first but for some unknown reason the administrators decided to delete it. That was it for me. I took it as a sign that it's time for me to not post on there anymore and move on. I'm so done with everything that had happened and I don't want to deal with this ever again. What was wrong with talking about how I got into blogging and celebrating the anniversary? Or was it the photos featured in the blog? Because of that I didn't even bother trying to post that blog again or post the second part of the fifth anniversary because it would probably happen twice.
Despite the things that happened I'll still be a member on the fan page but I will only leave comments on people's posts. I'm not going to post anything or share my blogs on there anymore. It's hard because I used to love being on the fan page, but sadly it's just not the same as it was before and I don't want these experiences to ruin my love for the band. At least I have my blog where I'm the only author running it, and I can make my own decisions on what to write about on my posts, and know what to do and what not to do.
I don't know if there will be a point where I will get worried again and delete this blog post, but at the same time I don't want to censor myself. I wanted to share my honest thoughts, criticisms, and feelings on the whole situation. The important thing is that I need to be true to myself.
