last updated 9/10/99, never to be updated again.
This site was created about a year and a half to two years ago.
It was the summer, i wasn't in school, i was job hunting and basically bored out of my mind. chatting was boring so i was doing a lot of surfing. a huge tori amos fan, i was directed to a tori hate site.
now, i've been to hate sites before and i've seen the disgusting graphics of hanson's dismembered bodies, or gwen steffani hanging from a noose, but this one was nothing like that. it was a frank, straight-forward site, explaining why this girl didn't like tori. her guestbook was filled with horrible things that i don't really want to believe were coming out of ears with feet's mouths!! even though i didn't agree with her, i knew that as a toriphile, i could not cuss her out for what she was doing. is that what tori is about? no, tori's about peace, love, live and let live. not everyone likes tori, that's part of life.
if the site had said stuff like "death to tori" or "i hate tori because she sucks" then i wouldn't feel that way, but the site just stated why the girl didn't like tori, and let's face it, that's her right!!! when i saw that site, i decided that's what i was going to do about an artist that really crawled under my skin. jewel kilcher. now believe it or not, i know a lot about jewel. i've been to the fan sites, read the bios, looked at the pictures. i don't do anything half-assed, except for maybe this site *L* and if i was going to dislike jewel, i wanted to make sure that i DISLIKED jewel.
my unlove affair with jewel started out the way most do. i started out an everyday angel. i loved foolish games, and even played it on the piano. i stole "pieces of you" from my then-boyfriend and listened to it a lot. even though my dad and sister were like "why is this chick wailing you say he's a queer...?" then as so often happens with artists who get big quick, i couldn't turn on the radio without hearing foolish games. i couldn't open a magazine without seeing jewel. i couldn't turn on vh1 without seeing the video. so i said BLEECH!!
the first thing that annoyed me other than overexposure was the way each and every article exploited the fact that jewel lived in her van. i don't know if it was jewel, her management, or the press, but everywhere it was jewel lived in her van...it began to feel like a marketing tool. because, as i'm sure you know, you ARE a jewel fan right? jewel attended an expensive performing arts school (on scholarship! i know i know.) but she also had to sell her horse to pay for expenses. you can't be destitute if you have a horse that's expendible enough to sell to go to school. also, jewel began living in her van because she wanted to focus on her music. she didn't want to work another job. now i respect that, but let's face it. if you or i didn't want to work, we wouldn't be able to pay rent either. we'd be living in our vans too.
i'm not saying it wasn't a lot to overcome, i don't know, i wasn't there. but whether it was jewel or not, it felt too marketed. jewel, the american dream, poor girl who crawled her way up from poverty to make good in the music business. because that is not entirely true. secondly, at a lilith fair date in 1997, amy ray of the indigo girls went to hug jewel during the encore, and jewel shrugged her away. now i don't know why, but at the time i thought it was because of the fact that the IG are gay, and that rubbed me the wrong way.
would you like to see someone else's reasons for not liking Jewel? here is one of many emails i received.
so i have good reasons for not liking jewel. even when i was a fan i wasn't totally crazy about her voice. i'm still not. so during a really really boring summer, this site was born. during that summer i learned a lot about web design and moved on to create some acclaimed sites, most noteably Pigtails & All a tori amos fan site. now i never hid who i was on this page, because i may be a lot of things, but i'm not ashamed of my opinions. i'm still not. this site is going down because i don't have the time or desire to finish it. and really, if i hated jewel so much, would i really take the time to make a huge site about why i hate her? nope!! i would try to just not think about her or see her, which, i do.
now i had one ulterior motive in making this site. not only am i a psych student, but behaviour has always been a hobby of mine. why do people react the way they do? so i wanted to see, would the everyday angels who found this page take the time to hear my opinions out before bashing me, or would they scream, bite, and cuss without giving my opinions a chance? and i found out. boy did i find out! believe it or not, for every 2 hate letters i got, i got one from a person that like me, can't stand jewel. so don't think you're completely justified in your hatred of me. you're not! sadly enough, most jewel fans reacted just as the tori fans had to the site that inspired me. they cussed, called me names, told me i was jealous of jewel, told my i was stupid, that everyone liked jewel, etc...
truthfully, not everyone likes everything. you can't find one thing everyone likes, not even chocolate! and not everyone likes jewel. i know that not everyone likes my 2 favourite bands, Tori Amos & Placebo. or my favourite folkgrrl, Patty Griffin. (and yes, i know that patty did jewel-stock. that's one of the few redeeming features of jewel in my opinion. she saw the amazing raw tallent in patty. not that it's hard to see it, she's brilliant.)
truth be known, i love music. all different kinds. and i dislike a lot of bands too. i bet you do as well. there's nothing that says we all have to like the same things, or agree. this site is going down simply because jewel doesn't mean enough to me to keep it up. "hate" which was a poor description of my feelings for her, has faded to indifference and really i could care less. i don't take back anything i have said here though. if anything this site hasn't made me like jewel any more or any less, but has seriously made me question us, the fans, and our reactions to people who don't like the bands or artists we do.
prehaps we need to rethink things and realize, i am a person, you are a person, jewel is a person. we look different, we have different opinions, but we are all just people. you might think "jewel is a goddess" or "tori is a goddess" but they are just people like you and like me. they are tallented but they don't deserve or want the pedistals we so often put them on. and it may make you hate me, or ruin your day, but i don't like jewel and probably never will. cussing me out won't make me like her anymore, and will it really make you feel better? probably not. i think that if one thing, true jewel fans who like her for all her music not just her top-10 hits, are probably really intellectual, emotional people who can read what i'm saying here and at least agree to disagree. instead of all this hate and violence.
ah yes, and for those of you who keep telling me that i can talk about jewel once i have a hit song? well keep you ears open loves. because one day you might hear a song on the radio and like it, and not even know it's me. ;)
the guestbook remains open for those who wish to share.
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as always i cannot vouch for anything said in the guestbook. some people have been very negative and downright ugly, and you read at your own risk.
