Back in July of 2005, I was asked to be a moderator on PlayList. PlayList is just what you think it would be, a place where local and famous musicians can request their MP3s to be collected in a monthly “play list” for subscribers on an iTunes community. It’s run by my friend Josh. After getting my first iPod in October 2004 and submitting numerous playlists, I was asked to be a mod. Fine. The rules of PlayList are that your version of a song can only be added ONCE to PlayList. You can add a live version, but you cannot add two of the same versions. Mostly I submitted my own and my husband’s music, sometimes my nephew’s music.

In January, a fairly famous person submitted several MP3s of his music for the January 2012 PlayList. One song had already been submitted and published in June 2007, but this somehow slipped past the other mods, who were obviously star struck and over stimulated at the thought of the cards and free front row tickets this artist had sent to the mods who listed their mailing addresses. I didn’t get shit, but that’s not why I did what I did.

I went back through the main archives and saw the song was listed twice, the only difference was a few seconds on the songs. I played them both and they were identical studio versions, so I cut the latest song from the January 2012 PlayList. This caused the artist to fall out of the top five artists on PlayList, and I sent a short email to him telling him why I had cut his song and that he needed to check the main archives before submitting another song. Of course this particular artist has to be the best and at the top of everything, even a small community of outcasts PlayLists. He threw a fit, called Josh, and played the gay card. In other words, he told Josh that I cut his song because he’s gay and that I told him this is why I cut the song. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Josh doesn’t log email conversations, so when said artist deleted my message to him, there was no proof I hadn’t said these things.

Here is where Josh and Co. should have known me better. They have known me for over twenty years, long before any of us had internet access. Josh made a post on the message board of our community, and asked what people thought. Of course because said artist had sent out tickets, cards, and gift baskets to most of the mods, they sided in with him: I was jealous and upset because he had not given me anything. Sure. Whatever. Why not? After all, why else would I have this poor guy under the microscope and delete his awesome song that had been okay with everyone else for three months?

Josh re-instated the song in January’s PlayList, removed my moderator status for the weekend, and told me to check with him before I do any other modding on the community. What.The.Fuck. The whole point in making me a mod was so that I could make decisions when the owner wasn’t there! Now I have to “get permission” before I could make any changes? Um, fuck no. I replied to Josh’s thread that he should have believed me, even if God himself got on that message board and told a lie about me; I was his friend, not the artist. The artist didn’t even reply or look at the message board post, which is weird since he’s made more posts in the communities than anyone else on the entire site, that I have witnessed so far.

So I resigned as a Mod.

I thanked Josh for letting me be a mod, because I did not have to pay to get an awesome music list every month, and I was replacing several of my songs that I lost when my mother sold my CD collection, but it wasn’t worth it to be belittled, lied about, and have everyone picking sides. I also told him if he wanted to boot me from his blog circle, I’d “understand”. You know, because one would have to kick me out of everything because of a conflict in one community. I’ve been through that countless times on Livejournal.

So far he hasn’t replied to me, and I don’t expect him to until after the weekend. Passover, Easter and some kind of fasting that he has to do. It’s a religious thing, so I won’t question it.

For anyone interested, here are the Easter photos so far this year.