White Mitski fan here, and one of the things I love most about her music is that it differs from my lived experience, even if there's an emotional resonance for me in other ways. To try to force Mitski's work into your own perspective to make it "relatable" just...totally defeats the purpose.
Excellent collection of information in this, fascinating in fact the things that people wind themselves up about while the world collapses around them -- the trivialities are winning, perhaps out of a sense of exhaustion for fake arguments about real problems rather than real arguments about fake problems :)
It almost feels like a paradox that we see so much content on the internet from all walks of life and then somehow we turn around and find a way to make it about us specifically.
> The bean soup debacle… proved that algorithmic social media has transformed the way people consume content. Since the algorithms control what we see, whenever there’s a post people disagree with or dislike, their first response is to say the post shouldn’t exist at all.
Not “consume content,” but “converse.”
Linear web-forum discussions, where threads naturally bumped or died owing participation levels, required a great investment of time to “catch-up” with, by reading from the OP onward.
Slashdot.org was the first multi-threaded forum to feature a karma system, but it caps-out at 5 points/”likes”/“upvotes” (!) which are, furthermore, graded by type (Funny, Informative, etc.) and include decrimental votes (Troll). Mods are elected by lottery and have only temporary powers.
Every form of artificial flow-of-conversation governance since is a shit-show.
this is my second post i’ve read from you and what i love about you’re writing is how you’re able to succinctly unravel a lot of the things many of us feel discomfort with but aren’t able to articulate because of how pervasive this sense of … “all about me-ness” the internet has become (for lack of a better way to put it!), just like total disengagement with the ability to listen to and emphasize with experiences/perspectives outside of their own. and i think brining up Taylor and Mitski is brilliant too — just because as you point out, a lot of Taylor’s art is interpreted so literally about her relationships and her life (which she encourages) and the attitude towards songwriting has now kind of become consuming someone’s life and experiences rather than stepping back to appreciate someone else’s emotional world and the way that can move you without you actually needing to own it … which is soooooo bleak for art and music, especially when part of what makes great songwriting is the ability to explore an experience/emotion/certain mood to its fullest depth without it so literally having to be spelled out (which is why mitski is such a songwriting genius!) but lol thank you this was very vindicating to read and i will be thinking about this for a while
thank you so much for commenting this! however we don't truly know what happened between swift and healy, so I don't think the writer should have jumped to the conclusion "she got mad at him for breaking up with her after 1 month of being together" - i really wish people would stop using TMZ/page six/deuxmoi as a 'reliable' primary source.
GenZ has to put themselves as the center of attention on social media because that is the only way they can get any affection that resembles a mother. GenX has become so disenfranchised they couldn't be bothered to raise a child and left them to be raised by corporations.
When the fans say: "I should be able to do what I want since I paid for it" they engage in capitalist discourse which is a learned behavior from the capitalists that raised those children in the first place. And the celebrities are the ones who encourage that behavior because that is their purpose.
If that's the behavior that is encouraged by the peers of GenZ then it shouldn't be a surpise that they act as hostile consumers
what? making everything about yourself? she listened to a song and it spoke to her? the of tiktok is literally captioned “relating to a song =\= erasing the og meaning”. The most beautiful thing about art is that everyone can interpret it differently, the way that the artist wanted it to be seen matters, sure, but it’s not the only thing? and ofc i would say the same about good luck babe
the song can speak to you without erasing the original meaning, and the point of the piece is that sometimes things simply aren't about you. good luck babe is an amazing pop song, but it's not about every single situation ever.
in college level english 101 you discuss the death of the author: sure, the work should stand on its own. but all work is heavily influenced by the cultural context of the author. you would not be able to write your best American girl, nor would I. that is the point. your interpretation is "valid" but it can also be wrong (which I also said above).
by “wrong” do you mean different to your interpretation or to the author’s, there is no right or wrong way to interpret art, plus unless you are mitski (in which case, good job) you can’t know the exact thought process behind your best american girl, and trying to make your interpretation as close to that as possible is a fruitless endeavour
i’m not in college english 101 but i do appreciate art and music, and i often relate to pieces not made in reference to my exact situation (relating a piece about an interracial relationship to your own interracial relationship is to be expected regardless of the differences)
Very late but I do get poly people's desire to be treated as normal. It's not normal, it's a bit weird, I think it's usually a bad idea, and I judge to some extent, but I don't think they need to just accept being unable to participate in society, even if they do need to accept that some people will always judge them. I'm trans and I want to be able to interact with the broader world normally; some would argue that's a desire to have my cake and eat it too, but in my experience those things can be pretty compatible unless someone has a specific problem with you. I don't think the solution is to give up on living a normal life if you're unusual in some way.
I went looking for this post yesterday to reread it and in doing so realized that a lot of your points can be successfully layered over the insane fandom of Caitlin Clark in the wnba this season. I keep seeing her more rabid supporters use language like “she is the leagues biggest financial asset” to shut down or bully anyone who wants to talk about anyone other than her! With the implied threat being that: I am a Caitlin Clark fan, *I* am the one now bringing value to the league as a supporter of her and her specifically, and if you don’t cater to ME in all this coverage well then, I’ll take my ball and go home. Taunting! Like a fourth grader! You can guess that many of these new fans are white men. It’s bizarre. I’m not saying I’m a long time fan (just about three years now) but the tenor from last year to this year is wildly different and the thing is—the league was blowing up without CC!
White Mitski fan here, and one of the things I love most about her music is that it differs from my lived experience, even if there's an emotional resonance for me in other ways. To try to force Mitski's work into your own perspective to make it "relatable" just...totally defeats the purpose.
Everything about this was so so good. I do think Substack is a bit retro-internet and feeds the nostalgia!
Excellent collection of information in this, fascinating in fact the things that people wind themselves up about while the world collapses around them -- the trivialities are winning, perhaps out of a sense of exhaustion for fake arguments about real problems rather than real arguments about fake problems :)
I’m looking for a common denominator among these brilliant impressions. Could it be: people suck.
Agree! But it’s a chicken and egg situation: do people suck more because of the phones or are the phones just showing us more people who suck?
It almost feels like a paradox that we see so much content on the internet from all walks of life and then somehow we turn around and find a way to make it about us specifically.
the paragraph around cishet people being poly now and demanding to be taken seriously is a banger
Okay sometimes I'm like - are younger people sometimes so inconsiderate or am I just getting grouchy??? Very validating so thank you.
> The bean soup debacle… proved that algorithmic social media has transformed the way people consume content. Since the algorithms control what we see, whenever there’s a post people disagree with or dislike, their first response is to say the post shouldn’t exist at all.
Not “consume content,” but “converse.”
Linear web-forum discussions, where threads naturally bumped or died owing participation levels, required a great investment of time to “catch-up” with, by reading from the OP onward.
Slashdot.org was the first multi-threaded forum to feature a karma system, but it caps-out at 5 points/”likes”/“upvotes” (!) which are, furthermore, graded by type (Funny, Informative, etc.) and include decrimental votes (Troll). Mods are elected by lottery and have only temporary powers.
Every form of artificial flow-of-conversation governance since is a shit-show.
this is my second post i’ve read from you and what i love about you’re writing is how you’re able to succinctly unravel a lot of the things many of us feel discomfort with but aren’t able to articulate because of how pervasive this sense of … “all about me-ness” the internet has become (for lack of a better way to put it!), just like total disengagement with the ability to listen to and emphasize with experiences/perspectives outside of their own. and i think brining up Taylor and Mitski is brilliant too — just because as you point out, a lot of Taylor’s art is interpreted so literally about her relationships and her life (which she encourages) and the attitude towards songwriting has now kind of become consuming someone’s life and experiences rather than stepping back to appreciate someone else’s emotional world and the way that can move you without you actually needing to own it … which is soooooo bleak for art and music, especially when part of what makes great songwriting is the ability to explore an experience/emotion/certain mood to its fullest depth without it so literally having to be spelled out (which is why mitski is such a songwriting genius!) but lol thank you this was very vindicating to read and i will be thinking about this for a while
thank you so much for commenting this! however we don't truly know what happened between swift and healy, so I don't think the writer should have jumped to the conclusion "she got mad at him for breaking up with her after 1 month of being together" - i really wish people would stop using TMZ/page six/deuxmoi as a 'reliable' primary source.
GenZ has to put themselves as the center of attention on social media because that is the only way they can get any affection that resembles a mother. GenX has become so disenfranchised they couldn't be bothered to raise a child and left them to be raised by corporations.
When the fans say: "I should be able to do what I want since I paid for it" they engage in capitalist discourse which is a learned behavior from the capitalists that raised those children in the first place. And the celebrities are the ones who encourage that behavior because that is their purpose.
If that's the behavior that is encouraged by the peers of GenZ then it shouldn't be a surpise that they act as hostile consumers
what? making everything about yourself? she listened to a song and it spoke to her? the of tiktok is literally captioned “relating to a song =\= erasing the og meaning”. The most beautiful thing about art is that everyone can interpret it differently, the way that the artist wanted it to be seen matters, sure, but it’s not the only thing? and ofc i would say the same about good luck babe
the song can speak to you without erasing the original meaning, and the point of the piece is that sometimes things simply aren't about you. good luck babe is an amazing pop song, but it's not about every single situation ever.
in college level english 101 you discuss the death of the author: sure, the work should stand on its own. but all work is heavily influenced by the cultural context of the author. you would not be able to write your best American girl, nor would I. that is the point. your interpretation is "valid" but it can also be wrong (which I also said above).
by “wrong” do you mean different to your interpretation or to the author’s, there is no right or wrong way to interpret art, plus unless you are mitski (in which case, good job) you can’t know the exact thought process behind your best american girl, and trying to make your interpretation as close to that as possible is a fruitless endeavour
i’m not in college english 101 but i do appreciate art and music, and i often relate to pieces not made in reference to my exact situation (relating a piece about an interracial relationship to your own interracial relationship is to be expected regardless of the differences)
the strawberry blond tiktoks haunt me to this day
Gratitude is the most powerful force in the universe.
——The Power (written by Rhonda Byrne）
Very late but I do get poly people's desire to be treated as normal. It's not normal, it's a bit weird, I think it's usually a bad idea, and I judge to some extent, but I don't think they need to just accept being unable to participate in society, even if they do need to accept that some people will always judge them. I'm trans and I want to be able to interact with the broader world normally; some would argue that's a desire to have my cake and eat it too, but in my experience those things can be pretty compatible unless someone has a specific problem with you. I don't think the solution is to give up on living a normal life if you're unusual in some way.
I went looking for this post yesterday to reread it and in doing so realized that a lot of your points can be successfully layered over the insane fandom of Caitlin Clark in the wnba this season. I keep seeing her more rabid supporters use language like “she is the leagues biggest financial asset” to shut down or bully anyone who wants to talk about anyone other than her! With the implied threat being that: I am a Caitlin Clark fan, *I* am the one now bringing value to the league as a supporter of her and her specifically, and if you don’t cater to ME in all this coverage well then, I’ll take my ball and go home. Taunting! Like a fourth grader! You can guess that many of these new fans are white men. It’s bizarre. I’m not saying I’m a long time fan (just about three years now) but the tenor from last year to this year is wildly different and the thing is—the league was blowing up without CC!
Entertaining and well put, thanks for this good read :)