setting the record straight

I've decided it's time to reclaim my identity from the depths of indie twitter, and therefore the narrative around me. it's time for the truth.

There’s no better thing than being in a crowd colliding bodies with like-minded people, everyone in unison, dripping in a mix of sweat and stale, overpriced beer - arguably the real nectar of gods. This is community, physical connection.

You’d think that an attempt to unite a small but dedicated fanbase of a new, witty post-indie band whose lyrics speak to bored, suburban teenagers in the depths of middle-English hell would work well. A whatsapp group to embody how music can bring people together so well, with the only risk being a little bit of personality clash or misplaced banter, right?

If only. What followed was an actual fucking nightmare, a group of people dominating a chat and deciding who was purely good, and who was purely bad. Imagine The Traitors, but it not being a game but rather a bloody fight to the virtual death, with very real offline consequences. *sigh*, I MERELY WANTED TO BE CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN. After a very laborious three years of trying to move on, I’ve been followed by distorted whispers, false rumours and accusations of what other people have had to say about me. I fell out with the most active members of this group, about fifteen of them, and believe I was baited, bullied and exploited, especially as I had told them that I was really struggling, was isolated, and it was clear that I was an impressionable, mental sixteen year old, who was far too online and far too trusting. They were looking for an excuse to justify their dislike of me and extreme behaviour (constant taunting, sending pictures, scrawling through social media of mine for posts from years ago, messaging people about me), and I’d say only three of the fifteen had valid reason to be upset - valid reason they had only let me know about three years later. Trying to move on and talk to people my age who have mutuals in that community, and even simply enjoy this band I like has been near impossible. More people privately messaged me, concerned about me and my wellbeing than there were people having a go.

I decided the only way to actually be allowed to move on is to reclaim my identity, and therefore the narrative around me.

I will not be naming the band, because this is not about them, they were in the middle of the press cycle of their debut album and therefore probably weren’t particularly concerned over a load of extremely bored teenagers ripping each other apart. Whilst I think the group itself was a nice idea but not very well thought out of in terms of safeguarding and relations between legal adults (including those who had sent pictures of them pissing to people as an attempt to make people uncomfortable disguised as “banter”) and vulnerable, impressionable children (including myself), there were people there with the power to fairly try and calm matters, or put an end to certain topics of conversation (especially those revolving around accidentally divisive female actress-writer-HBO-show-creators), and have not made sufficient efforts to stop the three years of bullying that have followed, all of which I have evidence. I’m not going to name names either, because that would be hypocritical of me and would drag this discourse out further - a discourse I am hoping to make a permanent stop to, even though I should have been the last person to have had to stop the bullying of myself.

Let me re-introduce myself to those of you who’ve never actually spoken to me before. I’m Adam. I’m nineteen years old (16 at the time), I’m a young writer, and I absolutely love music. The typical bands that appear in the post-punk-indie sphere? Yeah sure, but I am also a diehard Swiftie, a huge advocate for the recognition of the genius of Marina and The Diamonds, and someone who relates far too much to Fiona Apple and Beck. If there ever is found to actually be a 4th HAIM sibling, I’d be first to claim it. I also am a pragmatic secret political nerd, and if I didn’t have a fear of needles, I’d be the sort of typical leftie 6 music dad to get the EU flag and the XR logo tattooed on him. I also wash my sheets every week and wear (a clean pair of) socks in bed. Weird, I know. I’ve always been one to get cold feet.

I’ve been incredibly devoted to the feminist cause since 2015, and I’m not afraid to not go down without a fight (more on that later) about it. I would rather lose friends than lose integrity, always staying true to my beliefs of what is right, and what is good for everyone. I’d like to consider myself a kind person, and as someone who is insightful, witty and loyal. Do I have my faults? Buckle up. Of course I do! I am at times particularly unbearably pretentious, obnoxiously nihilistic, millenial-cringe, bossy, uptight, self-indulgent, nosey and slightly grating on the internet. I also have previous form for not knowing when it’s probably best to shush online. I am the first person to now admit where I’ve gone wrong before, and I genuinely always will be dedicated to being a better person, growing and learning. Knowledge and wisdom are two of the most under-rated superpowers we have. You can imagine my horror then when I heard I was being described still to this day as “a racist who supports sexual assault and stands by abusers”.

Let’s rip the first band off here. I have to confess something: I don’t understand why Beyoncé has the demigod status she has, and I have made clumsily-worded but well-intentioned statements about this pedestal she has been put on, mainly by white people who use their appreciation of her as a means of proving they’re not guilty.

I think Beyoncé has the fame and huge status she has because she is a great live performer, and is an extremely good businesswoman. She’s crafted the narrative of Beyoncé’s identity revolving around being the ultimate god-like strong Black woman who can do anything, and I do genuinely think she’s a good role model for young women of any race, and acknowledge and appreciate that she’s had a level of adversity that others haven’t. Here’s the thing though, if we strip that down to simply her songs, I think she’s a bit…. “mid”. There have been other iconic black female artists before and after “Queen Bey” who deserve it more, artists who didn’t only reclaim an idea of Black identity only once it could become commercially lucrative, artists who have innovated and written their own stuff and shaped the industry in a way that isn’t forming writing camps or using samples in a way that’s a bit…. dare I say lazy. Beyonce is a billionaire with a recent use of ableist slurs (nobody would let Lizzo breathe after her doing the same but everyone was scrambling on twitter to justify it for Beyonce), used lazy stereotypes of African culture in her film “Black is King”, has a fast fashion brand that uses and exploits sweatshop workers, has more emissions than other certain private-jet-using musicians, and arguably had a huge leg up in her career and a place in Destiny’s Child from her record executive father. Beyonce refused to credit smaller black artists she had sampled on her new album “RENAISSANCE”, such as Kelis. Even bell hooks was shut down for criticising Lemonade, saying that Beyoncé did not explore adequately the path to healing but embraces stereotypical tropes about Black woman and violence that are counterintiutive to the cause.

Yet, people refuse to accept this criticism of her, and I get why. Both white guilt and a very valid worry that if we start deplatforming successful Black women (the most marginalised of society’s groups), we start validating the racist structures in place in society that play a huge factor. Beyonce is untouchable and I don’t think she should be, because she arguably only has the god-like status because of the brand she’s created around herself. I’m not saying let’s take away the biggest role model of thousands of young Black girls, but rather we amplify others more and be brave enough to question if Beyoncé deserves to keep the platform she has with no accountability. Where do we start? I’d simply point you to Solange (her more talented sister, but if you lived in her shadow growing up you too probably work harder to prove yourself), Santigold, Brittany Howard, Lizzo, Megan thee Stallion, Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman, Janelle Monae, and start amplifying young black women in music, like Arlo Parks, RAYE and the wonderful Rachel Chinouriri. I don’t think Beyonce is only famous because she’s a black woman, that would be utterly ridiculous when you consider all the extra challenges black female artists have to go through in the industry, but surely we could branch a little further than the Girlboss with the great branding and the dance moves, and not much else? That doesn’t mean however that we’re never allowed to enjoy her music ever again though.

Right, I hope I have been able to prove that I am indeed not a racist (I have very strained relationships with narcissistic, racist conservative family members and I refuse to make nice because it’s time we stopped excusing this white bullshit).

Time for a bigger wound. We need to talk about Lena. This topic may include dialogue around sexual assault, so please skip to the next paragraph if that may trigger any memories or potential upsetting emotions. Like me, Lena Dunham is someone who has a history of not knowing when to shut up, and saying things that we think are funny or candid and well-intentioned!!! but are actually a tad ignorant. I think the expectation from generation BeRealBeKind(BePricks) for everything a person says to be utterly always perfect, and therefore never learn from anything because there aren’t allowed to be those lessons in the first place, is utterly stupid but I even admit there’s a bit of a lack of social awareness that does come as a symptom of unacknowledged privilege and unconscious bias. Lena Dunham is a marmite figure (some of the reasons why are unfair but I do also “get it”) and when she wrote about finding out what a vagina was at age five by touching her baby sister’s, people used it as bandwagon ammunition and called her a molester and a pedophile. I think we can all recognise this is utterly ridiculous and we don’t need to discuss why a child curiously wanting to know what a unfamiliar looking body part was is not sexual assault. What I did do wrong, however, and completely hold my hands up to is ignore the fact that me refusing to accept this criticism of Lena was triggering and potentially invalidating to victims of child abuse and sexual assault, which I promise was never ever my intention, and I completely regret how my lack of social awareness in this situation resulted in consequences that had a real impact. Saying that, there was no indication that it would be a triggering topic to anyone in that group, and if I had known I would have simply asked someone more senior to shut that conversation down as soon as someone mentioned it, instead of it being dragged on in arguments at 4AM, all of us completely exhausted barely able to string a sentence together never mind a cohesive valid argument, for days on end and accusing victims of sexual assault (I only found this out yesterday) of having internalised misogyny. As a victim of abuse (not sexual) myself, I empathise and should have learned when to shut it, show more care for victims, and I applaud and thank those who came to me, told me how I had hurt them and let me apologise for it. I wish them nothing but a lifetime of healing and hope.

I do have things I want to hold my hands up and publicly apologise for, even if I did immediately privately apologise at the time. I said some silly, ignorant assumptions about addiction, because I viewed addicts as bad - this is because of a personal experience I can’t expand on for privacy and safety reasons that lead to me having a certain view of what an addict was, even if this was narrow minded of me. As someone with clinical depression, I understand how dark things can get and nobody can help or really understand, so I genuinely apologise for making those comments, regardless of whether or not I actually meant them (I didn’t). We help drug-users or recovering addicts by providing them with as much support as we can - we do not demonise them.

I expressed earlier how dedicated I feel about my role in the world as a feminist and being a great advocate and ally. I, however, have been guilty of saying things that were either stupidly-worded or off-the-cuff that could be understood to be transphobic and classist. Growing up, I worshipped the words of feminist writers like Hadley Freeman and Joanne Rowling, and therefore I saw their gender critical concerns as completely valid and wanted to join in the campaign for single-sex services, with other provisions for people who are trans. I’ve “seen the light” (Hadley Freeman started criticising the wonderful Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, which made me believe perhaps she isn’t a friend of all women) and have devoted myself to learning more, challenging preconceptions and prejudices I hold, and making sure it’s clear trans women are not our enemy - our enemy is the patriarchy and those who go out of their way to keep it in place (hint hint: a certain man with small-dick-energy and a now even smaller car collection). Growing up as an artsy fartsy liberal feminist loudly-advocating teacher’s pet (shoutout to all my wonderful English, Media and Film teachers, who I genuinely wouldn’t be alive without) and wannabe activist, I got bullied heavily in school by predominantly working class boys, but it was unwise for me to let this shape conceptions about working class people and their beliefs, and I said some silly things that were childish - things I do not agree with anymore and probably never agreed with really in the first place. Lesson learned to not call people chavs. Education is the way forward for all. If I had the resources, I’d create this website which is like google but for combating prejudices because a lack of adequate education and a lack of resources in a digestible way is how we get ourselves into populist messes and how those in the hegemonic source of power stay there. I do still think there’s a special place in hell for people who buy The Sun, though.

There were some things deliberately constructed to cause a dogpile on me that were completely false, however. This is where the three years of bullying, constant circulation of lies and false rumours has no part in any valid discussion. People I had never met, or certainly never recognised if I did see them in person, claimed to have met me and said I was harassing them and went to their place of work and spoke to them. Unless these people, who I still have no idea who they are to this day, happen to work in my local tesco, Rough Trade or independent cinema, they are lying. It’s exhausting to leave the house, never mind playing wild goose chase with people I have no interest in. I wouldn’t even try and find Taylor Swift in public, never mind some unbearable teenager (I assume my age) from the internet. Some girls who I had previously had a silly argument with the year before (2019) fabricated a lie about me stalking a boy in the group, who admitted this to me privately. This boy was around my age and lived not too far away from me, having recently moved from an area three hours away. I asked if he’d like to get coffee or meet at a gig we were both going to anyway at some point if he ever felt lonely, and his response was most likely “I’ll let you know”, and that was literally that. There have been many horrible things said and done since I’ve left the group three years ago (all of which I have evidence of, but like I stated earlier, the point of this piece isn’t to name and shame - I am simply exhausted and wish to not even be on their minds, never mind the predicted words on their phone keyboards), despite me reaching out and trying to extinguish the flames and apologise many times. Thankfully, people have actually started to acknowledge they were mean and have accepted my apologies. I just want to be able to reclaim my own identity and make it be known to everyone that the rumours aren’t true. I have always deserved a chance to tell the truth about what happened, I just always hoped it wouldn’t ever be necessary. I felt dehumanised and like I was some sort of target on a hitlist, and not even because of any of the valid reasons they’d have to be upset with me (and politely tell me and let me apologise) for.

So, here is the truth. I’m not a racist. I’m not a stalker. I’m not a TERF. I’m not a bully, or classist. I’m not a creep, and I certainly don’t support abusers. I’m not perfect, but nobody is and I am always actively trying to grow, develop and be more mature and open, which is more than can be said about most of them. I was a silly kid, really struggling who thought he had jester’s privilege and said some silly things half asleep at 5AM.

I’m not always going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I deserve a fair chance for people to get to know me first.

I’m not “Adam from the sports team group”, I’m just Adam and I simply want to live in peace, and not have to worry anymore. I want to be forgotten. I want to live in peace. I think, deep down, that’s all we want.

Cheers. If you’d like to ask me anything (or… god forbid, apologise), you can message me on instagram @francoistruffaux. If you’d like to support a young writer to be able to continue what he’s doing, feel free to buy me a Kofi if you enjoyed this.

Thank you.