prompt: Tell us about your journey this year. What were the highlights and memories you made along the way? What did you learn and experience? Were there any goals you set and achieved? What has it made you want to achieve for the new year?

1st of all: thanks to the people at 32 bit cafe for setting this up. I was thinking about making a year in review blog post, but couldn’t find the inspiration for it. When I saw this like 2 days ago I was like oh! :D just what i needed. so thanks!

I started 2024 in new york - my first time in NYC!! i was visiting my friend porcini (visit their website at this link) with liv (roommate & best friend) (visit liv's site here).

we became really obsessed with the mythos of the new york ball drop. did you know she has like 10k crystals and they all represent a theme like “hope, prosperity, wisdom", etc. some people stand in times square all day with diapers on, ready to pee and poop their pants just for a view of the ball. here’s a link to some ball facts. we didn’t go see the ball, we just became fascinated with it.

back in california: soon after the new year i started working as a cater waiter. before that, i was doing event videography, but was just sick of it. and honestly i had always wanted to be a cater waiter. people at my company thought i was ridiculous for saying that, but i was curious about the experience. the CEO saw me and told me i’d change my mind in a few months. honestly, she was wrong and i never got tired of it. i enjoyed the job itself up until the last moment. sure, there were some moments i hated, but that’s life. no job is perfect - working in general gets pretty exhausting sometimes. anyways i worked my last shift in december 2024 - almost lasted a full year! they basically ghosted me ‘cause i broke the rules (kept sneaking myself bites & teaching my coworkers how to sneak themselves bites). everyone did it, but i think my general IDGAF/lack of respect for authority demeanor really pissed some people off. ill never know what really happened, all i know is i’m not getting sent shifts and i was sent a reprimand email telling me i broke the rules. i don’t regret a thing.

so now i have to find myself a new way to pay my bills. not sure what’s next for me, but i look forward to the next adventure :D

i don’t mind having to find a new job, the working environment was crazy loud (why the fuck do we need stadium level speaker systems for corporate parties where no one dances?) (same reason they spend $500,000 on catering at a party where no one wants to eat the food. the illusion of excess) (500k is a small party btw - sometimes they spent MILLIONS on ONE PARTY) (our company was hired by a lot of SF tech companies. big ones. and the people that attended these parties? some real dickheads. that was part of the fun for me lolol.) (there were a lot of fun parts of the job for me. i’ll miss a lot of things. mostly my coworkers & getting to go into random buildings… seeing an empty hall come to life with all of our hard work. it would mostly go unappreciated, but i was happy when someone took a picture of a table i painstakingly and carefully set with 3 different types of glassware - 5 different types of silverware, all that crap).

anyways, the reason why it being loud bothered me was:

april 2024 i performed at a restaurant in san jose & speaker feedback went off in my ear and gave me tinnitus. this was my personal low of the year. everything stopped for me. i had to keep working, but i barely left my house other than for work. i was totally miserable. i couldn’t even listen to music. all i could hear was the ringing. i was basically in hell. i still have tinnitus, but i’ve gotten better at managing it. the ringing still drives me insane regularly, but now that i’ve stopped working a job that exposes me to crazy loud environments, i feel like i actually have a shot at giving my ears some rest and time to heal. maybe i should’ve quit earlier, but i just wasn’t in a financial place to do so. i’m still living paycheck to paycheck, but i had enough savings to pay for 1 month of rent. idk if the tinnitus has gotten better over this month, but my next job’s criteria is basically just : quiet work environment. i’ll be happy with whatever as long as it’s quiet.

this is the year i quit spotify. i quit in march i think??? i barely had enough money in my bank account to pay for the rent, spotify was pissing me off for like 10 different reasons, and when the march spotify payment rolled in, i got so mad i cancelled it immediately and bought myself a hifi walker h2 after doing extensive research on the internet. this mp3 player changed my life. it made me enjoy music again (until the tinnitus a month later, sadly enough) (that’s a whole thing though so i wanna keep on the mp3 player train of thought).

i had a youtube channel for my music & hobby videos that i started uploading to in 2023 - starting in august 2023. by june 2024, i had 45 subscribers. so like 20 videos, about a year of uploads. i was so happy to have 45 subscribers. i used to have an AMV channel when i was like 14 and i got a max of 177 subscribers on that account. i don’t think the number is that important, but just the thought of people wanting to stick around and watch my videos made me so happy.

anyways - i started planning a youtube video called “how i quit spotify with an mp3 player”. you can watch the video here if you’re interested.

before i get into the video (which basically changed the entire trajectory of my life in a way i knew would happen someday, but never knew how), in march 2024 my mom sent me this application to study in hungary. if anyone over the age of 18 is curious about studying the hungarian language: here’s a link to the scholarship.

i’m hungarian & can speak the language fluently because both of my parents are hungarian immigrants and they gave me the wonderful gift of a second language. i’ve visited the country around 6 times over my life, and i was so excited by the prospect of getting to study the language even further as an adult.

around the same time, liv and i realized we had to move. we lived at that house for 3 years. it was the first place in my entire life that felt like an actual home. we didn’t own it, but it was ours. our landlord lived above us and she had 3 designer dogs she neglected. she basically let them outside to pee and poop (without cleaning for weeks) and turned the backyard into a sanitary nightmare. they were also so lonely that whenever we tried to go outside, not only were you bombarded by flies that viewed you as a threat to their endless shit buffet, but the dogs immediately demanded to be let out into the backyard - thinking we were heaven sent playmates that they could freely jump on and bark at.

this at a cost of $3000 per month (which she insisted was an incredible deal) - we could stomach up until the point she notified us of the rent cap being lifted where lived. (under covid there was a ban on raising the rent up until july 2024). so we knew… we had to be out by july. and then i got accepted into the hungary program which started july 10.

my mom had been begging us to find a new place ever since she first visited. the pee and poop thing has been a problem ever since we first moved in (in june of 2021) - we were just incredibly complacent and were just happy to have a place to live.

but both liv and i were holding out for something significantly better. we weren’t looking to move into some random apartment complex. everything is so expensive in our area, any 2 bedroom is minimum $2500. and we didn’t want more roommates. sure, our whole paycheck goes into our home - but fuck it!!! having a place we can call home is important.

by fates design - we found the perfect place. move in: july. this place gets actual sunshine (we got no sun in our last place), and NO DOG SHIT!!!!!!! junie (our cat) loves it :3

so we move and a week later i have to be off to hungary.

but before i go to hungary, i have this youtube video i’ve been planning for MONTHS. writing what i want to talk about, collecting useful links, etc etc. i knew i had to finish it before leaving. i tried filming a draft before we moved - a total bust. i could feel it. before that point, i’d just upload whatever. but i felt that this topic was important to me. i had to communicate the information in a way that wasn’t me just running my mouth, but actually trying to help people who felt stuck and angry at streaming services and wanted a way out. and most importantly: i wanted to give people energy to make a big change in their lives.

i put on my makeup. i put on my outfit. i pulled up all my notes. and out came my mp3 player video.

i spent so long editing this video. the recording process was a total mess. i get now why people write scripts for their videos (even though that just isn’t my style XD). i had to leave enough in to be personable and fun, but not too much that it felt like a chore to sit through. this wasn’t a simple how-to video to me. it was a step towards the fall of all streaming.

i edited up until 4 am before my flight. i forget when exactly i packed for my flight - that whole thing was a blur. but i knew i had to finish it before leaving for hungary.

there were so many things i forgot to touch on, so i edited in a bunch of text. as i was editing i was like i need a song to throw in the background of this. i knew i would never monetize my channel so i chose your man by down with webster. “if you want me girl / i will be your man / if you want me girl / i will be here forever”. i’ve loved this song for over 10 years now but had a recording of it that i found anew when i got my mp3 player. it was on my desktop or something - literally one of the first songs i saw. and i didn’t just choose it randomly. i was very purposeful. i was trying to tell the world… if you want me… i WILL BE HERE FOREVER. i’ll be here forever whether or not people want me - by forever i mean until the end of my life of course - and by “here” i mean: making art and sharing it with the world.

in the months before i left for hungary, i remember i showed liv a list of youtube videos i planned to make before leaving. it was like 8 videos. liv looked at the list. then looked at me. they said “why don’t you just make ONE video?”. cracked me up. yeah. i’ll make one. they told me to focus on the mp3 player video - at that time i was literally constantly talking to them about my mp3 player and how much spotify sucks.

so at 4am, i exported my video, uploaded it to my youtube, unsure of when to post it - and went to sleep for my last rest before taking off to spend a month and a half in hungary.

to fly to hungary i first had to fly to munich and then to budapest. well when my plane landed in munich, a storm started. it happened to be right as the airport closed too - so there was no chance of getting out. so i slept in the airport. i watched the rain fall outside with the lights of the airport being bounced around by the water outside. it was a beautiful sight. but also my tinnitus was blaring at me and i felt so lost and sad and empty. i was grateful to be going on this adventure, but i was still in so much pain from losing my silence. i was tossing and turning on the airport bench, unable to get to sleep.

so i went onto youtube at like 2am munich time, uploaded my mp3 player video, ate some peanuts they gave us for free as an apology for all the cancelled flights, and went to sleep.

i posted it because i thought it’d make me feel a little better in that moment to help someone in some way, and maybe they’d share their thoughts with me in a comment. maybe i’d even reach 50 subscribers. (i was averaging like 1 new subscriber per video at the time, so wanting 5 felt a bit greedy, but what can we do about desire).

i forgot at what point i checked in on the video, but i remember watching the numbers just go up. i reached 100 subscribers that day. also i think my first comment on that video was something like “great vid but why is the audio only in the left ear” and i KICKED MYSELF. i couldn’t do anything - didn’t have any of my editing stuff with me, and i had just committed a grave audio error. i mentioned i used to work as a video freelancer - i’m a real IT guy, i love tech - and i really understand the importance of good audio. the reason i didn’t catch this error is ‘cause i was editing with speakers, not headphones. i didn’t even think that would happen, but it was an OBS thing. i hadn’t recorded a video with OBS before - i usually recorded on photobooth or my phone. so it was never an issue.

i also might have edited with headphones had i not had tinnitus. i used to use headphones way more before tinnitus - and i was scared to use them after i had gotten it (it’s basically like a shotgun into your eardrums). anyways, this is all to say: i think youtube’s algorithm picked up my video because of all the comments about the left ear audio. in the beginning, most of the comments were about the left audio. or it just picked it up because it was a good video - i don’t know. it’s ironic being thankful to youtube for this in my video about hating streaming (i do hate youtube as well - but i’m not at the level where i can conceive of hosting my videos on marcika.club YET although this is one of my goals).

anyways - the subscribers just kept rolling in. so did the comments. really really really nice comments.

this whole time, i’m in hungary, attending school with strangers from around the world - our only attachment to each other is our desire to sharpen our hungarian speaking skills. some people were beginners, some people were advanced. my mp3 player video coinciding with my hungary trip was the highlight of my year. it was a beautiful time. it felt overwhelming - juggling my growing online presence with my irl quest to understand my hungarian identity, but i think they are related.

being hungarian was always special to me. it made me feel special. i never understood the way american families functioned. i also had a tumultuous home life so that made things difficult and irregular as well, but you know. everyone’s got things that make their lives special.

while learning about the hungarian language, i learned about my desire to be a hungarian musician. i had already started writing music in hungarian, and i had a passion for translation for awhile now, but it was like the spark turned into a full-fledged flame.

my one goal for my trip was to perform in hungary. i’ve kind of turned into an avant garde pop-rock act - and that’s in thanks to being hungarian. the places we are from wire our brains differently. because of the way hungarian (the language) is structured, i think a certain way. my problem solving skills, my creativity, everything is affected by having englush and hungarian as my mother tongues. i guess english is my true mother tongue but i knew hungarian before i knew english?? idk how all that works. i’m a native speaker of both.

anyways, some hungarians seem to think they are special in the best way and are better than everyone else in the world. i’m not one of them. i think everyone from everywhere has a different way of thinking, and each language comes from a long lineage of people speaking it and changing it and rewiring their brains over and over again to create a complex web of knowledge. even the way time is referenced to can change how you experience time. i’m not going to get into all that.

but basically through this trip i understood what being hungarian means to me. i also realized how much more i have to learn and experience.

back to my show in hungary. i decided i’d perform on july 26th - my birthday. i was getting over being sick and had felt like shit the whole week leading up to it. i was healing up at my cousin’s house and i told him i wanted to buy a guitar and keep it there at his house. i was planning on buying it with my own money, but he ended up finding one for me and buying it. i was looking on fb marketplace, and he found one for really cheap (12000 forint / ~30 dollars) at this random guys house near his neighborhood. it came with a case and a strap and all of that. really great find. the guitar itself sounded incredible, i really miss playing on it. it also had (in english) “do not sell” scratched into the wood. and yet it was somehow sold to me. what a life this guitar must have had!!!

i tried finding a venue that would take me. i met people, made connections, asked around, but most places were looking for someone with a chill vibe that could attract customers. and before i knew it - my birthday rolled around. i had no time left to find a place. so i decided to make a poster with the park near our hotel as the place. i was just going to perform for the trees. even if no one showed up, i knew the trees would enjoy me playing for them.

so i got all dressed up, put eyeliner all over my body, and got ready to invite people to my show. around 15 people from my program ended up coming. i wish i got a picture with everyone. i have pics of me, but none of the crowd. i really regret that. it was my first performance as marcika with an acoustic guitar. my goal for this show was to show the world how to rock out without blasting out people’s eardrums. after my tinnitus, my musical goals changed. i no longer want to do stadium shows. too fucking loud. turns out, it’s really easy for me to “melt faces without an amp” (this is quote from a piece of tape i got from a theo katzman concert - i also got to see him live this year!!! the only live show i went to see after i got tinnitus. it was worth the extra ringing).

there was a girl i really wanted to impress. we chatted a couple of times, she’s russian. russian and hungarian is a crazy combo when it comes to unattainability. crazy hard to impress. but she came up to me and gave me such sincere compliments. i was also told by someone that they’ve never seen anything like me before. basically, i was reborn as who marcika was always meant to be at that show.

i haven’t performed since then, but i’m really looking forward to my next show. i’ll probably do it acoustic again. my electric is down rn anyways and i wanna perform at the beach… and im scared to bring any electronics near sea water.

i also went to see a drag show in hungary for the first time. i wanted to meet gay and trans hungarians, because the political situation for LGBTQ people is intense and scary. people in general think they are freaks enmasse. including my family that lives there. the drag show was amazing. i loved hearing their hungarian songs and puns - someone made a medly of songs with “fever” in them (gay in hungarian is “meleg” - translation - hot. idk if “lazas” is anything but i wonder if it means “really gay” - laz is fever - lazas is feverish) im not putting the accent on the a. i’ve been writing this for 3 hours.

i think i’m coming to the end of this entry. basically, this year was special to me. i basically didn’t have random fans before my mp3 player video. well there was this one guy who used to comment on my youtube videos - haven’t seen him around since my mp3 player video. i know he’s a theo katzman fan.

and i don’t want to go the typical route of fame - i have already talked about this a lot - but i do want to find what “fame” means to me. that’s my goal for 2025. to understand what i want out of fame and what i can give to the world. i love teaching people what i know. it’s what i love about the indie web, and what i love about 32bit cafe. people who just want to share knowledge and information and connect with other people. and more than anything, i love sharing what is in my heart and soul with my music.

music has saved me throughout my entire life, and it will continue to save me until the day that i die. i feel grateful that my dedication to listening to music in a way that honors my connection to the file is what made me understand what it means to have “fans”. i’m still trying to uncover the mystery of this feeling, and learn what to do next.

honestly, i’m just gonna keep following my heart. i hope i can give more and more people strength to kick their old habits and break themselves free from a life that prioritizes convenience and consumption.

in 2025, i’d like to update my website more regularly, compile more resources for people, and give more energy to learning how to produce. if i can produce just 1 fucking song to completion i will feel satisfied. (i have my whole why not album, but i produced that whole album in 1 day and it was one of those things that was like… this just needs to be done. i’m talking about the production equivalent to my mp3 player video). i have a song that is fully written that’s ready to be given the marcika producer treatment. i just want a producer tag XD i love underscore’s “good luck”. idk what my tag would be… really hard to choose…

also. this is the year that i make my secret page and upload my secret video. there is so much lore. it’s a whole thing. planning secret started in 2021 and i keep finding excuses not to do it.

anyways my year this year was basically: tinnitus, mp3 player, hungary. all at the same level. this is my golden year or whatever (turned 26 on july 26 ) so i wanna make the most of it >:D

thank you to anyone who read this far - i didn’t expect to write so much. i also feel like i had so much more to say. i had so many thoughts this year. i feel like i didn’t write enough about hungary, but my whole experience was hard to put into words. i’m just grateful for a lot of things, and am generally happy i’m alive. coming up on 2 years of marcika.club existing!! jan 23 is its birthday.