The first half of “boys, bugs and men” my new song out now. #newmusic #bugs

Follow Paris Paloma:

#parispaloma

[morning-glory-fields]

when i was in fifth grade, a kid in my class brought me a grasshopper and smashed it against the wall, and i cried. i never thought i would hear it expressed like this.

[Boops]

“He isn’t a bully, he just likes you” we’re raised to be the toys of men. Can’t wait for this song!! :))

[ldewit]

This song speaks to me... My 5 y/o daughter came home from school last week telling me a boy stepped on a slug she found at the playground. She made a little home with leaves for it and he just crushed it with one step. She cried and I understand now, through your song, what really happened here...

[jammie]

GIRL. You just struck something in me. I have this core memory of watching a snail crawl across the sidewalk when I was 8. I was running late to catch the bus. This little boy came up and said I should just squish it. I lied and told him I was a vegetarian, because for some reason I thought he'd leave me alone. Instead, his eyes lit up, and he stomped it with his shoe. I'll never forget the dark delight he took in that crunch.

[MedorraBlue]

My teachers told me to "just walk away" and later that I "had a victim complex". Meanwhile, they were hunting me down as a pack at recess on a daily basis to corner me and either beat me up, or touch me in places a girl should never be touched. One of them went on to break my nose. We were children. I was a *child*.

[xdani_thethinkingneko]

Reminds me of when I was a kid, and my uncle's girlfriend at the time had a son. There was a caterpillar we found, and he was jealous of the fact that I was paying it more attention than him when we were playing. He was almost 10 years old, and beat it to death with a bat.

My family acted like it wasn't a big deal. They said he was just a boy. Just a boy who viciously beat to death a helpless caterpillar.

Edit: I also remember one time when I was a little bit older at a beach, I was about 14 years old. Having to get involved and freaked out on some young boys, so I think may have even been a few years older than me at that point. They were putting crabs in balloons and beating them against the rocks.

Their parents wouldn't stop them, and got angry at me for screaming at them.

I was horrified to see such violence in front of me, I had to get involved.

I never thought about it from this perspective.

[killerscenekween]

remembering the time I saw a ladybug on the stairs at school and there were a lot of people coming through so I just crouched down and put my hands over it to protect it until I could safely carry it away. Multiple kids literally stepped on my hands to try to squish it under my hands, I didn’t give up though and i used all my strength to protect the little creature and was eventually able to bring it outside

[Naomeme]

I remember making a boy cry cause he was mean to bugs and I went "No, you're just weird." He was expecting me to be scared of him, but I just had auch a face of disgust and disdain, he just... burst into tears. Mostly cause as it happens at 5/6 yo, other kids jumped in, and he got called bug eater because a kid brought up his dad who hunts had told him you should only kill animals you plan to eat.

Sometimes, gaslight can be done in the name of good.

[mardeeshack]

Why is this a universal thing? So crazy seeing the similar experiences in the comments. Mine was the neighbor boy torturing slugs i had saved

[selenya]

My cousin did this to me, but with baby birds. And he was 15 and I was eight and he blamed me, said it was my fault because I pet them and the mother wouldn’t take them back (a lie). He was his own destruction, eventually.

[oliviamoers]

As a very empathetic child, this would destroy me. I was the kinda kid who would walk the long way home from school in the rain just to pick up all the snails on the footpath so they didn’t get crushed.
I vividly remember watching a group of young boys smash a nest full of Plover eggs with tennis rackets at a caravan park one day and crying my eyes out to my mum n dad because I couldn’t understand why they would ever do anything like that.
I remember, even as a teen, having boys at school tormenting Praying Mantis’ in the hallway before I would pick it up n put it in a garden, because I KNEW they would kill or injure it otherwise.
Boys just seemed to be so cruel. I’m tearing up at this song

[rachelpolley]

I was a wildland firefighter for one summer. One day I went out into this field and was watching the bees, just because I love bees. Three of the guys came over and started playing “monkey in the middle” with bee spray. I tried to stop them but they sprayed and killed the bees for no reason other than just making me sad. I was 20 and I still cried for the bees

[Sendarya]

My child, now in her late teens, will still stop and spend 5 minutes moving insects off of walking paths. She has been relentlessly bullied at school almost her entire life, when she is noting buy joy and caring. How are we meant to face a world so filled with cruelty?
This song left me in tears.

[cassielee]

This makes me think of the time when I was eleven years old and a group of boys put a love letter in my locker telling me to meet him on the playground during recess and I was met with a group of boys who stood and laughed at me instead. For a long time “I love you” felt like a lie to me when I heard it from any man other than my father. Because those boys had to feel like they had power.

[alexmurphy-brown]

you are single handedly verbalising about 80% of femisism

[smattox]

Oh so that's an universal experience?

[just_a_silly_little_guy]

My friends and I found a bird on the ground that had impaled itself against one of the fences that surrounded the school yard. Careful not to touch it, we covered it with leaves, twigs, and dirt for a grave.
A boy in our class heard of the bird and after seeing where we buried it, he dug it out and began to chase us, bird in hands while we shrieked and ran
He threw it up in the air and in our direction, shouting "fly, birdy! fly!" as we ran further, not wanting to be hit with the carcass.
It's more a silly story I tell now, how the boy who sat next to me licked a dead bird and threw it at me in elementary school, but I was terribly upset that day that he had dug up the grave we had made.

[elisavince]

I remember when i was little and a boy from my class crushed the spider I'd been watching just to upset me but i didnt cry, i was a very anrgy kid even at such a young age and my first instinct was to shove him on the floor and kick him as hard as i could before asking how he liked it. After that they all stayed away from me, it made making friends hard but atleast noone did things to deliberately upset me, ive calmed down alot and therapy helped me be less angry but i still dont regret kicking that boy, the spider did nothing wrong

[inerciasart]

This song immediately unlocked a memory of when I was like 4 and the boys of my class in kindergarden liked to play to torture ants. Not kill them, _torture them._ I was a little kid so the only way I could verbalise how upsetting that was for me was asking them if they'd like it if a giant appeared and did that to them for fun. They laughed at me because giants dont exist and then grew up to be bullies :) after listening to this song, I cant say I'm surprised by that outcome

[CharleyA]

There’s something about your songwriting and your delivery that never fails to move me. It’s like you put words and music to feelings I’ve never been able to understand before. Thank you ❤