twwoheadedboy

[twwoheadedboy]

why is pw the villain in this panic thing? I just know they were signed to his label/imprint/whatever, but weren't a lot of bands signed to him at one point?

That was vaguely hyperbole but also I don't think that pete handled the panic situation well at all. He signed those kids and had them scheduled for a national tour before they had ever even played a show or released an album, so when they became famous by association with fall out boy they had absolutely no precedent for handling it because it wasn't a gradual change at all.

I find the way that Ryan and Pete met extremely shady. They met on livejournal, after Ryan had been using mcr and fall out boy fan spaces to drum up interest in panic. Somehow he managed to contact pete on the site, but none of them have ever told the same story twice about how that came about .

Also I just feel really bad for how the first panic split went down for Ryan. He obviously spent a large chunk of his teenage years idolizing pete, and when the split happened, pete unequivocally took Brendons side. Like that's not particularly a villain moment but it had to hurt to have his childhood best friend, Spencer, and his hero gang up against him.

I don't think it's exactly a case of villain-ness but pete just. Not understanding personal responsibility when it came to making a traumatized teenager famous overnight and then completely stepping back when the fallout from that happened

[twwoheadedboy]

Average guy in a emo band

[twwoheadedboy]

Hey William can we talk about this like real quick <333

[twwoheadedboy]

i offer to you all a compilation of some of my personal favorite screenshots from 2000s movie maker bandom love stories that i’ve gathered from the span of 2016-2023:

[twwoheadedboy]

Your name is ANTHONY PADILLA.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING HEAT, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of STRAIGHTENING YOUR HAIR. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to HAIR CARE. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of STRAIGHTENING, sculpting your hair to match the SEX GODS from your dreams.

Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

You are one of the few of your kind who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

You are one of the few of your kind who has developed a zeal for THE WAY YOUR HAIR LOOKS. You kindly ask other to not make fun of your GIRLY LIPS. You are a RAINBOW DRINKER. Your lips were just made that way. You decorate your hive with STRAIGHTENERS and LEATHER JACKETS, as delicately or aggressively as inspiration demands. You wield a BADASS CHAINSAW and use it to DEFEND YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS FROM ANYTHING. You would DIE for them.

You are in CAHOOTS with MARI to pull LASERCORN and IAN out of their PALE QUADRANT because you yourself want a MOIRALLEGIANCE with Ian. You are happily in a MATESPRITSHIP with KALEL.

Your gamertag is smoshAnthony and you Tend To Enunciate Each Word You Speak Very Clearly, And Laughing Very Loudly At The Littlest Things

What will you do?

[twwoheadedboy]

ryan ross is like a y/n who got sold to pete wentz if you think about it

[twwoheadedboy]

Omfg lmaooo poor Keltie

[twwoheadedboy]

the reason everyone thinks this fandom is full of insufferable abuse apologists is bc a teenager will tweet a joke about pete being a creep and then a grown adult will qrt them like “um didn’t you write a bad no-no fanfiction and get called out for it 🤨 so really you’re just as bad as he is. checkmate woke moralists”

[twwoheadedboy]

ryan ross and z berg’s fake wedding is so funny. they wouldve had such a great lavender marriage in the 30s

[twwoheadedboy]

Thursday, August 16, 2007 eyes the size of the moon. iron and wine "the trapeze swinger" posted by xo at 4:00 AM

[twwoheadedboy]

Sorry I hope this isn’t weird but can you explain your post about Pete wentz about girls to the front and girls playing in thongs or whatever? Specifically when/where did he say that? I don’t like him either lol I just hadn’t heard anything about it and can’t really find stuff online.

None of this is new, but it’s not OK that it’s happening, and I’m going to continue posting about it until it stops lol. I'm not an idiot nor was I born yesterday so I know these people suck cock and balls however they still need to stay in their lane as the emos that hate sluts

Girls to the front 

In 2023, an emo history book came out that misrepresented a lot of women’s related issues in emo in ways that were intentionally misleading or dishonest. It was very disparaging towards Hayley Williams and conversations about sexual misconduct. One of these things was claiming that one of Pete Wentz’s hardcore bands were one of the first bands to talk about “girls to the front.”

 “Girls to the front” was a riot grrrl mantra. Riot grrrl as a movement started 7 years prior to this band being founded. This band, while not explicitly endorsing these views, shared a lot of connections with Hardline, an extremist hardcore movement that advocated that abortion was the Holocaust, believed women should not be allowed to access birth control, and whose members referred to feminists who disagreed with them as “yeast infected lard cunts.”

Pete Wentz was the only true celebrity who consented to participating in the book. People like Hayley and Gerard declined. 

Around when the above book came out, Fall Out Boy also re-released an oral history of theirs as a book. This oral history involved several prominent figures associated with Hardline. Fall Out Boy did a lot of revisionist history such as removing references to politics in hardcore and a joke Pete Wentz made about sleeping with fat women. The original oral history was written by Ryan Downey. Around when Fall Out Boy re-released this as a book, Ryan Downey co-wrote Ronnie Radke's memoir. Ronnie Radke was arrested on domestic violence charges and has been accused of rape. Ryan Downey was also a prominent member of Hardline and made many statements I mentioned above. This is who Fall Out Boy are giving their money to and who they are working with to pretend Pete Wentz is a feminist.

Performances 

Roughly around when both of these things happened, lineups for WWWY and later Warped began to leak online. Virtually no women were performing, which resulted in an ongoing conversation about sexism. It is my understanding that in response to this, about 3 of the female fronted bands on Pete’s label were added to the lineup(s) and began posting online that they all deserved to play and any woman who criticized this decision was ugly and jealous. For context, 2 of these acts are very sexualized and 1 heavily relies on the sexualization of imagery associated with children, including performing in a thong, a toddler tutu, and a “daddy’s little princess” shirt. 

While much of the criticism leveled at those women online is rooted in misogyny, there is still a broader conversation to be had about why female-fronted legacy acts associated with emo culture such as Evanescence, Flyleaf, Paramore, etc are rarely included the way bands like Fall Out Boy and MCR are. There is also a conversation to be had about how the women mentioned above were not included from the jump. There is also a conversation to be had about why highly sexualized acts signed by men with a history of sexist or predatory behavior are the virtually only women permitted to perform at these festivals, and recent alternative bands like Pinkshift, Meet Me At The Altar, Ayesha Erotica, Mothica, etc are not ever invited to perform despite the latter having way more career success. There is a conversation to be had about how these highly sexualized female-fronted bands are only invited to play at 12pm on undesirable stages, while men like Ronnie Radke, who has been arrested for domestic violence and accused of rape, are invited to be some of the biggest attractions at these festivals. 

Also, as important context, both Victoria Asher and Bebe Rexha (two women in Decaydance bands from 10+ years ago, neither of whom are performing at the above festivals) have expressed that they were treated poorly while in the bands because of their gender. They have both also stated they were pressured into dressing in ways that made them uncomfortable by their label and by Gabe Saporta and Pete Wentz respectively. This history is relevant when the sexualized bands on Decaydance are being marketed as feminist. Tabloids also printed that Pete Wentz cheated on Ashlee Simpson with a woman on his label. This may not be true, but if it is, it is worth mentioning that Bebe Rexha and Casadee Pope were the only women on the label at the time and—in addition to being his subordinate—were both 18/19 when he was 31. 

Hypersexualized art can absolutely be a form of feminist expression. However, calling people who feel uncomfortable with Pete Wentz’s involvement in it (especially given his history of sexism and inappropriate behavior with women) ugly and jealous is not constructive feminist discourse. Especially in the context of Fall Out Boy engaging in revisionist history with the help of people who also hold problematic viewpoints about women.

[twwoheadedboy]

gen z can try to cancel wentzross but REAL ones will always remember this soft launch

[twwoheadedboy]

Im not into bandom so I’m sorry I’m very out of the loop but somehow your poem(?) thing about Pete Wentz and Ryan Ross crossed my dash and Now I’m very intrigued to know if it’s real and how I can learn more about that because hey wow that’s really something huh

EDIT: HELLO EVERYONE!!!! I have written a 24 page dissertation about this that is much more in depth than this post!! Everyone go read this instead!!!

(post) yeah that was all real! you came to the right place :-) my hobby since i was 14 or so has been researching the deep lore of emo bands. i would like to say that there is a fake fueled by ramen PR version but this is the actual thing

So in the early 2000s American rock band Fall Out Boy is formed and Ryan Ross, who would later become the founding member and primary songwriter of Panic! at the Disco, is a huge fan. Pete Wentz is the bass player, lyricist, and primary business force behind Fall Out Boy. He also has bipolar disorder and a lot of mental health issues, as well as routinely describing himself as “half gay” or “gay above the waist” or "gay above the belt" in interviews.

He also founded the Fueled By Ramen imprint Decaydance with some friends, which is DCD2 nowadays. Decaydance functioned as a hip-hop collective (Pete Wentz is biracial, specifically half black), with the goal of being a cult lifestyle for teens, with acts like Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes, The Academy Is…, etc. appearing on each others’ songs and in their videos, and was very successful. "Good Girls Go Bad," "Snakes on a Plane," "Cupid’s Chokehold," "I Write Sins...," "Stereo Hearts," "Nine in the Afternoon," etc all came out of this.

Back to 2002-2003 or so. Ryan was an extremely active member of the LiveJournal forum falloutboylove, posting literally hundreds of comments under the handle i_amclandestine. “Clandestine Industries” was the name of Pete Wentz’s clothing line. All of these comments generally pointed towards an intense fanboy obsession, with Ryan posting about emulating Pete’s style, his creative genius, buying a lot of merch, going to a lot of shows, chatting with Pete on AIM, and even posting that the members of Fall Out Boy were so good looking he’d fuck them. There was a lot of bemoaning shallow teen girls that were getting into the band as Fall Out Boy increasingly distanced themselves from their hardcore roots (specifically grindcore, anarchist, vegan, straightedge, black nationalist bands) and became more mainstream.

Around the age of 17-18, Ryan started a band called Pet Salamander with childhood best friend Spencer Smith, who would later become the drummer of Panic! at the Disco. As Ryan’s comments indicate, he told Pete about this and Pete remembered him. Also to note is that Ryan’s father was an abusive alcoholic. Ryan would stay with friends for weeks at a time to avoid his father. Ryan's father died in 2006. It’s also important to mention that when Brendon Urie came out as pansexual in 2019, he said that he and Ryan frequented gay bars together as teens, supposedly because they were easier to drink underage in.

In 2004, Ryan, now a 19 year old college student, forms Panic! at the Disco with the addition of singer Brendon Urie and bassist Brent Wilson. Ryan begins to intensely promote his band in various livejournals, including falloutboylove. Girls on the forum start thinking its Patrick Stump, singer of Fall Out Boy, due to their oft-cited vocal similarities.

Hours later, Pete posts in falloutboylove asking for the guy behind the band to hit him up. They then have a kind of sexually tense AIM conversation (leaked by their bassist after he was kicked out), with Pete asking how good they look and Ryan responding “dead sexy. No Pete Wentz, but still.” Pete agrees to come see Panic! perform in California and then comes to their hometown of Las Vegas to watch them practice. Enamored, Pete gives them a record deal. He would later say that Ryan Ross was “the most expensive thing he ever bought” in an interview.

Immediately, Panic! at the Disco begin working on their album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. This album is based around and directly quotes from the stream of consciousness novel Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk is gay, and the book centers around LGBT+ characters including gay men, drag queens, and trans women, and deals with heavy themes like AIDs and sexual abuse. It was initially rejected by publishers for being too disturbing.

Fever, though hated by critics, is immediately very successful. Panic! tour on the album with a highly theatrical production including elaborate costumes and makeup, dancers, and a Vaudeville circus troupe including contortionists and stuff. They also had a huge light up windmill, as the album was also inspired by the musical Moulin Rouge. They are instantly famous, with I Write Sins Not Tragedies peaking at #2 on the top 40.

Ryan and Pete remain extremely good friends, with Pete getting Ryan a Chanel brooch for his birthday, and J-14 magazine alluding to rumors they were dating.

After this, the band work on their next studio album Pretty Odd before beginning to rapidly dissolve into a nasty breakup, which is an entire essay in of itself.

Meanwhile Fall Out Boy have been doing their own thing. In 2006 or so, Pete beings dating and then in 2008 marries (and would later be divorced by) heiress/pop artist/Y2K princess Ashlee Simpson, who was significantly more famous and came from a very religious Southern Baptist upbringing, and starts downplaying his sexuality in interviews. He and Ryan still have sleepovers though, and Pete says to blame Ryan for his rekindled interest in eyeliner (journal entry of Pete's from 2006: "sleepover princes vs. goodnight girls".... robbing lips, kissing banks under the moon. blame Ryan Ross for me wearing eyeliner again.")

In 2009, Panic! at the Disco have their aforementioned breakup, with Ryan and Brendon ending on very bad terms. Around 2010, Ryan began a more indie solo project, The Young Veins, which was not successful. Ryan said he wanted to leave Panic! and do TYV instead in order to get away from the industry side and said "you can't really trust people in this business."

It is generally accepted that after this Ryan had a coke addiction and fell in with not awesome people, like Shane Morris. He promised albums and then claimed to have “lost” them and there were various photos or videos that pointed towards drugs. His music career stagnated for probably around 6 years.

Around 2013, it came out that a girl known as The Panic Stalker was texting Ryan pretending to be Brendon for nine months and hinting at a reunion. This is a whole separate thing. Ryan had kind of a meltdown and posted some photos of him flipping off the camera and what appeared to be blood smears on Instagram.

The intensity of Panic’s fame, how fast it happened, the bad breakup, and how young they were means most of them ended up with substance abuse problems. Spencer Smith would leave Panic! in 2013 due to a pill addiction (though he now works for DCD2 and is doing better). Brent Wilson, who was kicked out of the band in 2005, was arrested in 2021 for drug and firearms charges. Brendon has never “had a problem,” but is a big partier.

After the stalker incident, it looks like his friends sort of stepped in and got him help. Actress Brie Larson is also a good friend of Ryan’s and seems to be a positive influence. Ryan is also now managed by Gabe Saporta of aforementioned Cobra Starship, who has his own management company, and seems to be doing a lot better, even touring again.

[twwoheadedboy]

what if you were a troubled androgynous rock star and i was your teenage groupie with an abusive alcoholic father and i spent my time driving around alone listening to your record and sneaking into gay bars with my best friend and posting on message boards about how i want to fuck you and how jealous i was of the teenage girls that dont understand you and your poetry like i do. and i went to your shows and waited outside to talk to you and you remembered my name and my dreams and wed chat on AIM late at night until you went supersonic and forgot about me. 

that is, until the girls on your message boards heard of my band and you drove across the nevada desert to meet me again and gave me a record deal on your label named after death and decadence complete with a vaudeville circus and helped me make my record based around a queer novel about the sanctity of marriage and prostitution that was initially too disturbing to be published. and we went supersonic too. 

and you said i was the most expensive thing you ever bought but still got me a chanel brooch for my birthday. and as the years passed we had sleepovers when your southern baptist wife wasnt home and i convinced you to start wearing eyeliner again like when you were young and then my father drank himself to death and i couldnt handle fame anymore and ended up with a cocaine addiction instead of a career by 27 

EDIT: everyone go read my 24 page research dissertation explaining this post 

[twwoheadedboy]

Would you be able to direct me to any sort of document(s) or video(s) or anything regarding Pete Wentz and what he has done, without me just scrolling through your whole Tumblr? I also wonder, do you like Pete & FOB despite your criticisms or do you post about them more as a warning? Apologies I am not familiar with your page but hope to learn more & stop being so ignorant

I love the way "Pete Wentz and what he has done" is phrased. I'm not really sure what you're looking for, but icecreamhdaches has a lot of the longform journalism about them (RS, Blender, etc) transcribed.

Fall Out Boy were my favorite band forever but in 2023 I posted an essay about Pete's book and about 2 months later the cover art of the book and almost all available copies of the book disappeared from Amazon. There used to be 30+ copies available at any time for like $2.50 but for awhile there weren't any and the price was like $500 a copy. Around the same time this happened, there were other things that happened that I normally would have thought nothing of, but I found them very suspicious in combination with the book disappearing. These included a Vimeo account I used in high school being taken down because it had a copy of Goodnight Moon, a number of sources linked in my essays being removed, and someone with a Chicago IP address spending 2 days going through 1,247 pages of my blog to see if I had ever posted about Pete's mother, ex wife, or ex girlfriend. Other things happened I'm not comfortable posting.

This really upset me. I clearly went out of my way to be as respectful as possible to everyone in the essay and the essay was overwhelmingly very positive. I felt like I was being policed and by his PR team or whatever because Pete Wentz and his ilk and/or goons cannot handle a female fan saying anything with more substance than "I got double Ds and look pretty on my knees," which was their opening act on the tour happening simultaneously to all of this. Which Pete Wentz is endlessly congratulating himself for being a huge and gracious feminist and supporter of women's free speech for allowing.

I tried to keep my feelings about it secret but as it progressed I started to joke/vent about it. The resulting bullying and harassment from other Fall Out Boy fans was insane and very cruel. I understand I am miserable and combative about this which didn't help, but I was getting several messages a week for months on end, even if I didn't post anything about it, trying to convince me I was delusional, had undiagnosed schizophrenia, accusing me of lying about my job or other aspects of my life, telling me I was worthless, a pathological liar, attempting to doxx me, etc. It was really upsetting that I had been like part of FOB Tumblr for so long and because I didn't want to keep something outside of my control secret to preserve the optics of a mean middle aged man who hurt my feelings, I just got like kicked out of the community and wasn't able to use Tumblr as I had previously.

This happened two years ago but my feelings about it have recently come up again because I now have like actual evidence someone from Clandestine Industries was on my blog recently, which prove I am not crazy. I am also constantly paranoid and worried that if I say something about Fall Out Boy on YouTube with any more substance than ""I got double Ds and look pretty on my knees," such as recording the (overwhelmingly positive and respectful) Gray essay as has been highly requested, my account will suddenly be taken down for copyright. Because Pete Wentz is a bully and a coward.

I understand I am a noxious presence that nobody wants to be around because of how angry I am about this but if this happened to anyone else they would also be kind of traumatized and it would also be the only thing they talked about for the rest of their lives. So.

[twwoheadedboy]

update: more info

[twwoheadedboy]

ever think about how pete wentz signed ryan ross and described ryan as the most expensive thing he ever bought and then their first tour was moulin rouge themed and the plot of moulin rouge is that a wealthy duke funds a theatrical show in order to purchase exclusive access to a courtesan . also this tweet