Once upon a time… Bam discovered HIM in the late 90s and, through his CKY videos, quickly became a fan. Ville turned into his idol. But, well, Bam was already very known, and everything is easier when you are famous. Bam not only became a HIM, and specifically a Valo fan, bringing more fame to the band in the USA by promoting their music and image in his own reality show; he also became a friend of Ville, including Ville in Viva La Bam and even reached the point of directing music videos for the band. So far, so good.
Until you discover that Bam got similar tattoos to Ville. Hear me out, I'm not talking about a generic tattoo you see everywhere 一 Ville has the heartagram tattooed on his body, the symbol he himself created for the band and concept he also created. The iconic heartagram I carry around my neck everywhere I go.
It’s not weird to have tattoos in honour of the artists you like; but if they are exactly the same drawings and in the exact same body parts as they are in the artist you like, we are not speaking about a homage.
When I look at Bam, I see a guy that fits in the visual scene that goes from Mark Hoppus to Chino Moreno. That’s the personality and visual identity he built over the years of his existence, something natural and with his original essence. Ville, thus, isn’t like that. Valo has always been on the dark side and, with the influences he had while growing up, he created his own fucking niche: love metal. Love, metal and death. Oh, to die of love with some cool riffs in the background. Two totally different people, each one unique in their own ways.
By osmosis, or anything we would like to say, the more Bam knew and appreciated Ville, the more Bam forgot himself. “Remember who you are”, Mufasa said to Simba when he needed it most. Too bad Margera didn’t have someone at that time to remember who he was, and how proud he should have been for it. The closer he became to Ville, the more he wanted to be Ville.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
But there’s something you cannot copy from someone, no matter your efforts: their genome. I learned from the slides of a teacher, that the concept of genome can be described as the set of all biological information necessary to build and maintain a living being. Each person is a different individual.
In Gattaca, Vincent wants to be Jerome; in real life, Bam wanted to be Ville. But, in the dystopic movie by Andrew Niccol, the character of Ethan Hawke is literally genetically inferior — such a thing doesn’t exist in the real world!
Ville must have been smoking since he was in the womb. He has always preferred to drink than eat and, if I'm not wrong, he has already mentioned his appetite is not that great. Without effort, just living normally, Ville is skinny.
And Bam wanted to be like Ville in all aspects. To reach and keep the same body shape as Valo, Margera started to avoid food and, instead, to drink to suppress his hunger. When Bam ate, he was then going to the bathroom to purge, and that wasn't even a secret for his friends.
The eating disorder wasn’t the prologue of the fall; I see it as the final push. Every eating disorder leads to the path of self-destruction. You will never be happy, no matter how far you have come. You may reach your dream body, then discover it’s a hell to maintain.
The body you reach through an eating disorder will never be your natural body. And if you are reading this and by any chance you are struggling with an eating disorder, I hope you can accept yourself, because life is really too short to be spent fighting who you are. Seek help, you are not alone. The path is never linear and you do not need to bear it alone.
Bam did what people with ED are used to doing. Day by day, bearing life in survival mode. Eventually, and of course, he crashed, just like everyone who deals with an ED. The consequences of his acts were showing up and we, outsiders, only know the surface of it. He was hospitalized due to his alcohol problems and so… and everything else.
He discovered HIM in the late 1990s, that’s what I would call the starting point. We are in 2026, and it is clear that Bam is still struggling in life.
Meanwhile, Ville is just still there. He had his low moments, just like everybody else, but just because life is life, and not because he stopped his life to try to be something he wasn’t. Ville Valo is still Ville Valo, while, nowadays, Bam Margera is still picking up his own pieces. I don’t follow the life of other people, and if I were into that, I'm not the one to say how Bam is now. I just hope he's able to find peace within himself.
You do not need to look like anyone. If there’s something about your appearance or personality that you tried to change and the process of doing so harmed you, it was never meant to be changed.
It’s not easy to find yourself, to discover who you are. But for what it's worth, rejecting the labels will make the process smoother. You do not need to fit in nor be loyal to any niche. Do not suppress yourself for fear of judgment; people will judge anyway. I fully doubt Oscar ever said the sentence mentioned in my text, but sure he was Wilde enough to think like that.
There won’t be a next him.
