Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)
I have seen that, and in terms of the cringy stuff he does, itās definitely up there.
Here are my primarily unfiltered feelings about his music and persona:
I think at his worst, heās cringe, overly-self-indulgent, and pretentious. He needs a stylist because his hair sucks, his clothes are stupid, and he wears this fucking bear hat all the time that I hate. I hate hate hate people when people wear hats and it doesnāt seem to serve a purpose beyond looking quirky. Take the fucking hat off, Jacob! Heās the type that uses obscure words that you suspect he doesnāt know the meaning of.
He also tends to be inappropriately maximalistāIād point to his cover of Here Comes the Sun, Blackbird, Moon River (for which he won a Grammy!), and actually pretty much all of DJesse, a series of four (four!) albums. I donāt really like the timbre of his voice; itās weird. I suspect he has like a perfect vocal technique or something, but as a result, it sounds completely removed from anything natural.
Unlike every other failed rich kid, he is legitimately talented, which youāve acknowledged. I like some of his songs but wouldnāt recommend them to anyone. His music feels like a technical demo in that many interesting, complex, and impressive things happen, which I like! But at my lowest points, I feel stupid when I listen to his stuff, even though he is musically speaking in a made-up language, and itās not my fault I donāt understand it.
At his best, he seems genuinely open-hearted, with room to accept anything that comes his way. I do find some of his stuff inspiring! I like that a person like him exists and that many people look to him for inspiration and influence.
Specific to this point: I saw him live in concert for his Djesse Vol 1. tour and managed to meet him after the show. He seemed chill and it was a good chat. I took a picture with him, which I later put on my dating profile. Not seeing much success, I showed the profile to my friend to solicit feedback, and she said: āYou should take that picture off because your friend is more attractive than you.ā I told her who he was but deleted the picture anyway.
Heās not a monster (or not as much of one) like the rest of the people we look at over here. Heās sheltered, and either thereās someone in his camp pushing this kind of stuff, or thereās no one to tell him that this tech is awful. Again, bad feelings!
Yes whatever I think of his aesthetic priorities and the way his image is cultivated he does seem genuinely passionate about music and I do respect that. Iām sure Iād actually forgive him a lot more if only he didnāt sound so ludicrously posh.
I think he can compose some really neat vocal harmonies but yes as you said his singing voice is grating and uh, honestly sometimes itās like vocal blackface
I totally get that! At least 10% of my motivation of following him is to see when heāll drop his mask and be a huge appropriator, but so far that hasnāt seemed to have happened, except for this whole AI thing.
Veering completely off topic, if weāre talking privileged young men with enormous musical ability coming out of nowhere and networking themselves into releasing crazy music, Iām rather into Hermann Szobel myself.
Itās a pretty fascinating bit of history too if youāre into this sort of thing.