You may have noticed that I'm not who I say I am. My name's not JustinCase. It's not even Justin. Let's make things a little squarer between us, shall we?
I've been looking at pages from other writers. I feel alternately sick and sad.
There's the numerous "this is a diary of the life of my family" pages that seem to all be written by the same plain Christian woman who cares about nothing but what cute thing her kid did that week and has a short-haired, suit-wearing, empty-eyed tool of a husband present in some of the pictures (of which there are about a thousand). This woman talks about teaching her kids to pray, the artwork the kids drew, and how she just LOVES her BFFs!
Shoot me in the fucking head, please, I don't want to know these people exist.
There's also the "look at me!" pages: Aspiring writers showing off their vocabularies and acting pretentious because they want everyone else to think they are as awesome as they know themselves to be.
Am I one of these people? God, I hope not...but I might be.
All the characteristics are there: The dorky, "ain't I cool" pseudonym; The high-concept framing device; The desire to have my words read by others; The fear that I'm just not good enough to be taken notice of.
Maybe the difference (if there is one) lies in this: I am well aware that writing this blog will probably bring zero recognition (it being geared towards a very small percentage of the population that might care about the subject of the Video Nasties), and that what I write will not make me famous, change the world, or get me a job writing for some cool magazine or something.
And being aware of these things makes me a little sad. Because the simple act of writing something and then sticking it on the internet where damn near anyone can see it reeks of attention-seeking, and the act of hiding my true identity behind a nom de plume is a paradoxical barrier: "Read what I have to say, but I won't tell you who I am." That way if you like it, I can take all the credit. And if you hate it, you don't hate me, you hate a fictional creation, a cutout of myself that will take all the blame and feel nothing.
I despise pretension, and I will keep it to a minimum. I won't say there won't be any: in this situation, it's unavoidable. But I want to be honest. I want you to know where I stand. I don't want to put myself on a pedestal, looking down on my readers, trying to show how cool I am.
I want to throw my arm around your shoulder, talk of film, and try to feel a little less alone in my love of all these weird movies. I want to know that you're out there. I want to feel that coolness about myself without shoving it in people's faces and making them feel bad. I think you're cool for reading, and I hope you think the same of me for writing...but I won't assume you feel that way, and I won't feel it for you.
About the name: I end every entry the same way because that's something I say in real life. When someone asks why I took some precaution, I will always respond with "Because my name's Justin. JustinCase." It makes me smile. That's all. Maybe I'll share my real name on here someday when I feel a little more secure about who I am. For now, I like the security of being able to say all this stuff without having to think about the fact that it's me saying it. Like just about everyone who's ever used a pseudonym, being JustinCase gives me a little bit more confidence than being the person I am everywhere else. I told you I'd be honest.
So that's where we stand: I will do my best to bring you the meat of the matter, the hard facts about classic exploitation and horror, and to do so without pretense of thinking I'm amazing or better than you. All you've gotta do is read if you want to. Easy, huh? Thanks. I appreciate it. Truly, and from the bottom of my being. And I hope you don't mind if I keep using the name. I like my signoff, and I'll continue saying goodbye the way I have this whole time: My name's Justin. JustinCase.
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