Janet Devlin’s Exclusive Interview With Blurred Culture
Blurred Culture interviewed singer-songwriter Janet Devlin about bullying and her new single “Outernet Song“. The interview goes into depth on the major themes of the song, bullying and the internet. Janet discusses her personal experiences with bullying both before and after entering the music industry. Read about her experiences and her own advice for anyone who might be experiencing bullying HERE and below:
What happened to you with on-line bullying?
This started before television (X-Factor UK) funnily enough, I remember there was a website called “bee-bow” and I think someone made a hate page about me from school. You could make band pages, so they made a group page about me.
That’s a lot of effort –
Yeah, to go to just to be mean. Thankfully you can report it so I just reported and it got pulled down with in a few days. But it started off really early, most of the bullying that I got in school was face to face. So that was was the initial start of cyber bullying, and it just progressed with television, when I went on TV. You can […] prepare yourself only so much. There is a level that you can kinda go, “I’m gonna put myself out there, and I’m gonna get hate”, but there was so much hate that it was … I was 16 but the bullying in school kind of prepared me in the weirdest way. I kinda was just getting hate, so I was like, “Ah, this is fine.” but it was more, like, even celebrities and stuff were saying mean stuff. It was bizarre. [It] still happens, but because I’ve been doing this now for five years, I’ve got like rhino skin. I’m like the Bat Mobile. Nothing kinda gets through anymore, but it’s always the same stuff, like stupid things like, my hair color. Ridiculous. My appearance, like my weight fluctuates quite a lot, so it’s either, “She’s too fat.” or “She’s too thin.” and I’m like, “When will you people be happy?” and obviously my voice, cause it is a bit quirkier. Sometimes it can be mermaid-y so some people hate it, some people don’t. But if someone does not like my voice, they just let me know. […] I’m like, “I don’t have a choice here. This is kind of the thing I was born with. So if you don’t like it, I don’t mind cause there are a few people that do.” I think the worst one, for the online bullying, was in the UK we have a day where you write love on your wrist to talk about suicide awareness and someone told me to take a knife, cut it out of my skin, and hop in a bathtub. I was like, “I’m not offended, I’m offended for this charity that you’ve just totally hated upon, not me.” Some pretty mad stuff.
Janet Devlin. Photo by Cortney Armitage (@CortneyArmitage) for www.BlurredCulture.com
What’s your best advice to somebody who is going through online bullying?
Really just understand that when people pick on you, there is something that they are covering up for. People that bully tend to either have been bullied or there is something not going right in their life. Like it tends to be, especially at school time, I mean, maybe they don’t have that great a home life, so they will pick flaws in you to make themselves feel better. So I think you have to take the bigger position and go, “Oh, you’re obviously really unhappy,” and you kinda have to feel really sorry for them, which is a really hard thing to do so you kinda have to separate yourself and just be like, “There is something wrong with this person, not me.” There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s them. And the second you realize that [say], “I’ll be my own person!” because the kids that bullied me in school, as soon as I went on television and as soon as I had a level of “fame”, they all wanted to be my best friend, so I think when you are different, when you are being bullied for being different, it’s actually a good thing. As long as you realize that, you’re going to be a way more interesting adult then they’ll ever be (laugh) I think it’s just envy, so as soon as you accept yourself, it should all go over your back.
A live acoustic version of ‘Outernet Song’ was just released on our YouTube channel. Check it out below:
The new song, “Outernet Song” was that written about a particular incident?
The song it’s self I started writing when I was 19 years old, so that’s why sometimes it sounds a bit like a teen rant. Because I was a teenager when I wrote it. I was back home in Ireland and I was there for the longest time I’ve ever been home for since I started this job. I was home for almost three weeks and I was watching TV and it was morning TV and it was, “Just for your figure! How to put on natural makeup. Make it look like you’re not wearing any make up.” And all of these things, and I was just like “Ok, I’m leaving this living room.” (Laughs) so I went up to the dining room and I just started looped these four chords, you can tell I’ve written it if it just has four chords, so I was just looping them around and then the first verse was born. I came over to England, played it to a few people and there like,”Wow, that’s really… I really like that! That’s really cool!” So I got a wee bit of,” Ah! I’ll just continue that and add things to this thing.” So I laid it down and took it with me, and just added as I went along. So certain things, cause it’s sometimes,”Where did that come from?” like cause that was my life then.
Janet Devlin. Photo by Cortney Armitage (@CortneyArmitage) for www.BlurredCulture.com
‘Outernet Song’ is available for digital purchase on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Bandcamp. It is also available for physical purchase in Janet’s online shop, where you can also purchase exclusive ‘Outernet Song’ merchandise. Stream the single on Spotify.
To learn more about singer-songwriter Janet Devlin and her new music, check out her official website and her Facebook page.
For more from Blurred Culture visit their homepage here.
