My partner and I took a day trip out to Utah County, home of BYU, land of multi-level marketing schemes, mormons as far as the eye can see. We went out there to visit a rare book store, do karaoke, eat suprisingly good food, and see a sacred place from my past: the UVU stain glass window display titled “Roots of Knowledge.”
The windows were surreal to see again. I’ve held immense reverence for them since my first and only encounter (up until now) at a debate tournament I attended in 2018. 6 years ago. 6 doesn’t feel right but it is, both ancient history and yesterday in my head. I remember sneaking away from debate rounds with my new, cool upperclassmen friends to just stare at the massive panes of colored glass. They tells the story of humanity through art and architecture and literature. They’re gorgeous, detailed, vivid, and so loving towards humanity. My memory of the rest of the tournament is seen through the dyed light they shone down on us.
We joked that they changed us all irreversibly. I think the joke was true though, because when I saw them today, I felt the mark of that change. They feel like the kind of thing you shouldn’t be able to just casually walk up to, so unfitting for the relatively new university around them. They were as vivid as I remembered them and I was overcome with emotion. Every time I noticed something new, I was ecstatic.
The most beautiful new thing was a panel that was not glass, but circuit boards, just like all my CYBERSYLK imagery. Underneath it was a quote, “Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.” To look at a piece of art I loved from the past and then see a symbol of my art in it was so meaningful, and for it to have literally told me that I create myself was nearly too much for my heart to handle. Like looking in a cosmic mirror, seeing it’s all been here all along.
I wanted to scream and sob while trying to take it all in. Barely holding it together, I filtered through only my feelings of awe and happiness.
But it really feels so weird standing in the same place after everything that has happened. Strange to be revisiting a sacred space after it feels like you’ve been taken apart and put back together again. Ship of Theseus. I was 15 when I first saw the windows, and when I think of myself then, I think of someone unburdened and able to dance every single night. I think of someone more complete than the iterations that came after her. Yet, I stand in the same spot and have to commune with the truth that she lives inside of me.
She has to, because under the windows I called my best friend to show her where I was. She was delighted and remarked on the holiness of that place. We reminisced for a moment and then I showed some to her. I pointed the camera at one and said “this is my favorite panel, the one with the lanterns” and she said “yes, that was your favorite the first time too.” Which I didn’t remember, but is true.
It all makes me think of Undertale, a game I played that same year. And I am inclined to cringe but really I shouldn’t, right? I loved that game, it helped me through the hardest days of my life. Looking at these beautiful, spiritual windows of my past was just like these interactions with a mirror in game. The first panel is from the beginning, the second from the very end.
Yes, despite everything it’s still me. Yes, it is still me.
I wanted to stay longer at the windows but we had other plans, and it was probably for the better to leave before I broke down.
The windows are indicative of a general theme, really a regression I’ve been dealing with. I keep reverting back to the “before” in my media consumption, habits, mental state. Here, before generally refers to my early teen years. Pre-16, before anything demonstrably bad happened to me. Whenever I’m generally just not doing well, I go back here. And I feel crazy about it usually.
Crazy because it’s often shit I loved in middle school, the time of absolute cringe. And yes, cringe is dead or maybe it isn’t, I really don’t know what the general consensus is anymore. But the point is that I start liking things that most weirdos loved in 2015, and then in 2024 I like it again when I’m feeling bad. And this time it’s very bad, because I’ve come back around on twenty øne piløts.
I should know better than anyone else that within a cringe band there is a certain divinity. Yet tøp (can’t believe I’m using the crossed out o) is difficult for me to admit my love for again. I was fervent about them when I was 12, fanatical in the leadup to their breakthrough album, Blurryface. I wore bootleg merch from the music video from my favorite song (Guns for Hands), listened to clandestine track leaks, and tried desperately to piece together the cryptic lore. I became friends with my middle school bestie really only because he mentioned he could play House of Gold on ukulele. Like he said that and I immediately decided we were best friends.
If you’re unfamiliar with tøp, they’re this broadly alternative duo out of Columbus, OH who are a little quirky with it. Think electropop with some lighter elements like piano and white man ukulele. Tyler Joseph, the frontman, pens and produces these very introspective, self aware songs that usually have a rap in them. These songs are almost always about God or suicide, which was so perfect for middle school.
I should clarify that they were about encouraging you to not commit suicide, one of the duo’s favorite phrases is “stay alive |-/” that weird symbol is their logo, which if I remember correctly also means stay alive.
Anyways, Blurryface was a huge album and everyone was so excited about it. It dropped in May 2015, and was/is fantastic, their best work in my opinion. They got a Grammy for it. Undeniably good and everything I had ever hoped for. I spent the year after it in absolute love with the band, along with many of my middle school friends. I was ecstatic to receive tickets for their live show as a gift from my mom, and cried profusely at their concert, exclaiming that they were the “band that saved my life.” Wrong, Fall Out Boy was, but I didn't know that yet.
When you are a tween, life is difficult, and it is very nice to have some music that empathizes with that. I used to ask myself “god, what was I so sad about in middle school that made me love this depressing stuff?” But I think that question discounts how difficult those years can be for anyone. Plus, even if I didn’t relate to certain lyrical content, I still was moved by it. The first tøp song I ever heard is called Kitchen Sink, here are some lyrics from it.
Are you searching for purpose?
Then write something, yeah it might be worthless
Then paint something then, it might be wordless
Pointless curses, nonsense verses
You'll see purpose start to surface
No one else is dealing with your demons
Meaning maybe defeating them
Could be the beginning of your meaning, friend
That was a beautiful thing to hear as a sad kid, basically a call to create art to heal. I think I still need to hear it sometimes, as a reminder. Most early tøp songs have a message like this. And while I don’t necessarily need music to tell me how to live my life, I think I kind of did when I was 12.
Despite that, my love for the band didn’t last. After the concert, almost like a switch had been flipped, I started to lose interest. I think it could have been shame from cooler kids I knew or internet cringe, but also my taste was shifting. I started getting a lot more into musical theatre, particularly Hamilton, so not a whole lot better on the cringe index.
A few years later I had developed a certain disdain for the band. The follow up to Blurryface was Trench, which started incorporating some lore I thought was overdone and tacky. I didn’t like any of the singles I heard, and Tyler Joseph sorta bugged me. I ended up just writing it off entirely, never listening to the album. Same sort of deal for the poppy 2021 release, Scaled and Icy. I felt like I was just too old for their brand of earnest corniness. I’ve existed with a mild dislike for all of their work for years now.
Then something weird happened about a month ago. A friend sent me a video by the band that explains all of the lore, and I hated it so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love when bands do concept albums or have extended lore (see The Youngblood Chronicles by Fall Out Boy or any project from My Chemical Romance) but tøp lore irks me. It involves a city named Dema on a continent named Trench with a character named Clancy who has to like save everyone in Dema through power derived from a weird fuzzy guy with antlers named Ned. And there are dragons, and a lot of magic.
At least that’s what I understand. It’s shallow, but my main issue with everything is the names of all the proper nouns. Clancy serves as an alter ego for Tyler Joseph, but like what a lackluster name. No offense to any Clancys…
The video was basically an album announcement, telling us that a new album will be out in May, titled Clancy. This video made me so mad, reminded me why I “didn’t like” the band. But it also prompted me to relisten to the old albums, suuuuuch a slippery slope. What started as hate listens quickly became moments where I was like “oh damn, this is kinda good tho.”
I found that I wasn’t in fact too old for tøp, but that I was finally old enough to relate and understand what Joseph was speaking on. Listening to songs like “Holding Onto You” and “Before You Start Your Day” now, with a larger knowledge of mental illness feels comforting. It also feels new in a way, because I feel it, not just pretend to feel it. I hear things in the music that I never did as a kid too. The production is genius and I can actually know why now, just because I grew up a bit.
I think I had it all wrong, I imagined they were making music for middle schoolers because I liked them in middle school. Now I think they just make music for themselves.
It took a little under a month for me to throw aside my previous reservations, to embrace that it is okay to like tøp.
Sorry haters! The music is addictive! It’s well produced and has catchy hooks. Josh Dun, the drummer, is talented and lends a certain energetic movement to any track. He’s also a charming person, softening some of Tyler Joseph’s more obnoxious moments. Yes, he lyrics are often on the nose, corny, and painfully aware of themselves. But they are honest, they are usually well meaning, they point largely towards hope and perseverance.
The final factor in my turn back towards the skeleton clique (groan inducing name for the fanbase) was their most recent single. It’s called “Next Semester”, this emotional indie rock track about being young and lost.
And it’s good. Like really good, give it a listen. It also helps that it speaks to stuff I’m dealing with. Right place, right time I guess? It’s honest, it’s lovely. Lyrics that speak to the staying power of details from traumatic memory.
“I remember
I remember certain things
What I was wearin'“
But it also looks towards the future, ending like this.
“Can't change what you've done
Start fresh next semester”
I’m accepting that I like this band again, 9 years after the last time I loved them. It feels like time travel back to middle school, some inner-tween work.
They’re not perfect, by no means my favorite band or even top 10, but that’s not the point. The point is to overcome shame in order to just like something, to accept love, even if it’s cringe.
Listening to them is the same as standing in front of those stain glass windows. Engaging with art that awed me years ago. A practice in love, in fundamental truth. Seeing past loves again in a new context, time granting you a greater ability to understand it, letting you access it deeply.
I’m having a really hard time lately, every day is a struggle and not in a cute way. I won’t get into specifics because I think that is often soooooo boring, but I also don’t want to put my suffering on display. I will say this: I hate getting out of bed in the morning, but playing an old tøp song as I get up has helped. I can nitpick the lore all I want, but the message is getting across to my brain. Accessing my old love for this band is helping me. I cannot fault myself for that.
It feels so silly to be struggling with my mental health and simultaneously getting back into the most mental health oriented band ever, but whatever. Kitchen Sink whatever. Stay Alive fren whatever. Sahlo folina whatever.
In the beginning days of CYBERSYLK, I used to have calls to action at the ends of posts, which is very thought-leader of me. I’ve got one again.
Let yourself love one of your old loves, preferably one considered cringe or surrounded in shame. Try to access the love you had for it in the beginning, time travel with me. Let me know if it’s also twenty øne piløts.
Take care.
Thanks for reading CYBERSYLK, if you enjoyed this post please consider giving it a like or reaching out with feedback. You can comment with a Substack account or contact me through email at cybersylk@gmail.com. I love emails a lot, so please give me more to read.
If you like my work and have the means to do so, please consider upgrading to paid. This doesn’t get you anything extra on the feed right now, but it could in the future. Currently, a paid subscription just makes you a patron of the arts, which is pretty cool if you ask me. You can upgrade your subscription with the button below.
Lastly, you can find me on Instagram, the platform FKA Twitter, and TikTok. I’m cybersylk on all platforms. I use Instagram the most right now, posting fun little stories, project updates, and publication-related photo dumps.
This resonated with me so much. Such a beautiful essay. (Cringe is dead (just so you're aware))