Why I’m Still Proudly a Fan of the Internet’s Worst Person

Or at least he’s one of the worst. I’m talking about The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy. If you happen to already know who he is, you probably think he’s a greasy little rat and you may not even know exactly how right you are. He was the real-life inspiration for the character of The Rat in “Flushed Away” and fans affectionately call him “Ratty Healy.”

He’s such a narcissist that he’s copied fan-made videos from TikTok of himself performing and reposted them to The 1975’s official Instagram account. I’m pretty sure a few people who know me have thought that of course they would be my favorite band because I can be equally attention-starved myself (though I’m working hard on it.) He’s often incredibly pretentious and insufferable, yet you also might hate yourself for still sometimes being curious to read what he says about art or check out something he created.

Or maybe I’m the only one who is sometimes fascinated by particular artists, no matter if there’s also something about them that I know is especially repugnant. It’s like whatever’s broken inside of them enables them to produce compelling art. I have a seemingly exceptional ability to separate the artist from their work. The saying that there’s a thin line between genius and madness seems to be true and they often repeatedly cross it. Other prominent examples of troubled, problematic artists who sometimes produce exceptional art include everyone from Van Gogh to Kanye West. I have more half-formed ideas about this but I want to synthesize them enough to write about them without sounding completely insane. I may sound that way already. (Will I get to the point about what this has to do with Matty Healy before readers click away? My brain is at its absolute most neurodivergent when it comes to music. But I swear this wraps up with something worth reading for 10 minutes.)

You may have also heard that millions of Swifties around the globe reacted with a speed so fast it moved the universe when they heard that she was linked to him. They dug up a TON of disgusting, recent tapes of racist things he’s said within about 24 hours. Swifties as a group know the ins and outs of the Internet even better than Healy does. They quickly “broke up” and she got into another new relationship to try to save her career. Or maybe I’m just cynical.

Last fall, he released an album critically regarded as one of their best in a career spanning more than 10 years. They toured in support of it and the concert was an amazing, enjoyable experience. I saw it with my son and had a really great time. Matty made us feel like we were all sharing a collective experience and it felt like a pep rally for smart people who really get what’s happening in our increasingly dystopian nightmare. Then to quote something Matty said on a live album, he got into a spirit of “fuck art, let’s dance.” We celebrated living through some extremely weird times that may be the beginning of humanity’s end and had fun singing and dancing because sometimes that’s all you can do and you occasionally need a break from life’s heaviness.

I skipped the second time they came through DFW for the same tour, even though I had free tickets to the show from Spotify for being such an embarrassingly huge super-fan. It was too soon after “Taylorgate” and a diehard Swiftie who lived with me this summer said there was no way I could consider myself an ally to anyone in any way if I still supported him. I intentionally avoided listening to them for months and felt too embarrassed to identify myself as a fan at all.

So Matty Healy is famously chronically online and here’s why you should care about who he is if you didn’t know before. He regularly interacts with his fans online. Like me, he’s been a longtime heavy user of the Internet. He started regularly posting a lot of pictures on Instagram to flood the algorithm because he knows how it works (which I only now check every few days because social media is increasingly boring) and they started to catch my attention. Now, he’s turned what will probably be their final tour into a widespread pro-therapy and apology tour. He is acknowledging that he really said and did all of the awful things you’ve heard and worse, though some people are still questioning his sincerity as often as he’s questioning capitalism and his current participation in it from the stage.

He’s saying things that make so much sense, like calling out the hypocrisy of liberals even though he usually identifies as one, but that viewpoint seems so dead-on that he’s venturing close to Russell Brand territory by stating such obvious truths so clearly. Even though they’re both expressing such politically inappropriate views that are still recognizably correct, we don’t trust them not to be trolling us. What reality are we in again?

But he’s also pleading with the thousands of people who go to his shows to go to therapy soon if they have any issues. He tries to quasi-apologize for things he’s said or done, almost immediately gets harshly put in his place, and comes back and tries again in almost real-time because he’s following how people are reacting. I’ve gotta respect that because I respect the power of the human spirit more than anything else. If you continually get knocked down but continually also keep getting up, no matter how difficult it gets or how much it hurts you, you are my ultimate hero. I’m trying hard to become more like you.

He also understands the preciousness of life and love, which he covers so beautifully in the band’s work, especially in recent albums. He knows time is short better than anyone: he’s bringing his dad along for a special guest appearance at several shows to sing one of their songs from the last album. They give each other hugs when Papa Healy walks out on stage, even though The 1975 (for which Matty writes most of the songs) has had some pretty hostile song lyrics about the Healy parents throughout the band’s career.

Remember, Matty Healy is a weird British version of a nepo baby, so imagine what kind of people he grew up with and what he’s having to heal from. It’s pretty easy for me to see how he became such a narcissist. But crowds love seeing Tim Healy come on stage to perform because he’s got a great voice and he was reportedly kind of a punk hero when he was a younger man. He may not have always been a great father, but he’s still pretty interesting and talented in his own right. It’s so heartwarming to see the love between them. Isn’t love something that just makes us all feel happy to see? If you don’t love to see genuine love between people, wouldn’t you like to become that kind of person?

I think that most likely, Taylor Swift and Matty Healy might have only been friends in the first place, but it doesn’t even matter. See, she’s also out there talking about therapy and healing in her songs and on her tours. It’s not a coincidence that one way or another, all these people are talking about the need to heal at the same time. It can’t be; I don’t believe in coincidences.

It’s also why I have practically blown up my entire life in the past two days. I will no longer talk to my parents because I told them they abused and neglected me as a child, it resulted in my being sexually abused at a pre-verbal age (according to my graphic flashbacks) and had such a terrible impact on how I’ve raised my own children that I may not be able to repair it, no matter how much I want to. I’ve looked into healing from childhood sexual abuse and the younger you were when it happened, the more broken you are.

My dad said he didn’t care, didn’t apologize, and told me they don’t want to hear about my shitty childhood anymore. I was told to deal with it myself and leave them alone. His words were very clear and I can’t put any hopeful, delusional spin on it. I don’t think my parents are evil, I feel more empathy for them than I probably should and I honestly doubt they meant to hurt me. But communicating with them is still too harmful for me, even though I desperately wish it wasn’t so. But at least now I know how they really feel and I’m grateful they finally told me the truth. I can’t save them — God knows how hard I tried — but I can still try to save myself.

I also need to quit my job immediately (which my bosses know) because my manager is extremely verbally abusive. I don’t know if my manager or HR knows I’m writing here, but I assume they do or could. I won’t say more about what’s happening at my job for possible legal reasons, but I think I’m okay saying that much publicly. I don’t deserve to be treated this way by anyone; nobody does. Even the famously anti-worker-protection state of Texas recognizes that…for now. I’m even grateful to my abusive boss for showing me where I was weak. (Or to quote a song I love by Halsey, another favorite artist of mine, in “The Lighthouse”: I’m glad I met the devil ‘cause he showed me I was weak and a little piece of him is in a little piece of me.)

I’m extremely lucky to have such an immediate possible alternative. A lot of my coworkers can’t get out yet. I’m trying to help them in various ways as much as I can, which depends on what they seem to individually need. I feel like I have tried to do a lot of good at my job, even if I’m failing at the job itself.

I have a much better job option that I can start almost immediately if I get it and I could know within a matter of days if it will happen. I was told by a recruiter today that if I already did the two required video essays (which I completed last night) I will be getting a start date soon, but I don’t want to count on anything until I know for sure. External recruiters are well-known for overselling opportunities and being dishonest. If I get it, I’ll be training AI, and the amount of writing experience and education I have and my specifically very high level of verbal ability are all highly valued. I finally broke free of my parents’ influences on my mindset and ambition.

It requires a bachelor’s degree and many years of varied writing and editing experience, just like I have. They clearly want me to work there, which feels great. It pays $12,000 a year more than what I make now and has much better hours for me. It’s not as much as I could make but you’ve got to admit the timing is pretty miraculous. Consider the fact that I have been contacted by two different recruiters at two different companies about the exact same project now, one of whom represents the official company directly, and tell me there aren’t signs from the universe if you look for them.

Even if I don’t get this job and I have to continue working under my Performance Improvement Plan for “being too stupid to catch on” to my job responsibilities by 90 days and every day at work continues to be much worse than the one prior, I know I’ll survive it. I will still give my job all of my genuine effort because I want to be proud of the quality of my work, but if I get fired and don’t have another job lined up by then, I’ll survive because that’s what I do. I will not give up, no matter what.

I’m determined but I don’t honestly believe it will ever get much worse than a few days of feeling scared and uncomfortable. I have multiple backup plans. I’ve survived losing my husband and much greater pain than even that since he died; this is absolutely nothing in comparison.

I am not afraid of physical or emotional pain, which separates me from the hypocrites who deflect the hatred they feel for themselves onto others to avoid ever taking accountability for a single goddamn thing. Whether in bodybuilding, improving your health, or therapy, pain is always how you grow. Bring it on. I’m not even asking for mercy anymore.

I am using my comparatively tiny platform and apparent gift for using words to plead with you: you can heal. Start now, wherever you are. You have a choice. No matter what you’ve done, it’s never too late to do anything you can to begin to heal. You can read books, listen to podcasts, or look anywhere online, and they’re almost all free. You just have to want them. Just try to get a tiny bit curious about different perspectives instead of being afraid of them, if that’s all you can manage right now.

You might have to admit some excruciating things about yourself and realize that some broken relationships are broken because of things you did, and might not ever be fixed. That hurts a lot; I know that better than anyone. It’s absolutely gut-wrenching. You’ll survive it, I promise you will.

But if you decide to face that pain, you’ll also find deep self-acceptance and self-compassion a little bit further down the path, if your experience is like what mine has been so far. You’ll find glimpses of true peace within yourself and those glimpses will gradually happen more often. There are so many truly wonderful things that can happen if you just rip that bandage off. It even works if you can only lift it slowly.

You might even crack your mind wide open and you’ll begin to realize that we truly are all one.

Just get help already. Please, for the love of God.

Humanity doesn’t have much time left.

I also have a high degree of sentinel intelligence; I notice many tiny patterns that most people don’t. Smoking weed has intensified the number of things I notice, including little signals around the house of positive things my kids are doing to help me, which leads to more positive interactions between us. Many people who have been abused have this unique ability to know what’s coming because they’ve been honing their skills to stay alert for danger their entire lives. Intuition is just paying attention to logical expected outcomes, after all.

Stock up now on canned goods, water, and ammo. And face your fears of pain before they kill you. We won’t survive what’s coming alone and you have to love your community enough to fight for it — and they have to care enough about you, too. That won’t happen if you still keep avoiding holding yourself accountable. Your healing definitely matters a great deal, for your survival and for all of us, too. It’s finally time to do something about it before it’s too late.