Author of the bestselling "Elementia Chronicles" Trilogy
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Editing Fellow at AFI, Class of 2025
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YouTube Music Discussion Videos
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PFP by
@3MlNUTES
The fact that
@Caddicarus
has it in his official agency contract that every one of his sponsorship deals must be read by Spons the talking kite is legitimately one of the most fantastic pieces of information I've learned all year.
That's not what the ending of Ratatouille meant.
Ego was saying that even the most critically panned art is still capable of not just having genuine value, but enough value & meaning that it can change a person's life, and that you can't be a great critic until you accept that.
i dont know if i still agree with the conclusion of ratatouille, where anton ego, a fictional critic invented by an artist, concedes that the worst art is still more meaningful than any criticism of it.
"High quality kids movies should be appreciated and considered as real cinema" and "it wouldn't kill you to watch something not meant for 8-year-olds for once" are both very legitimate points to make.
Nicki Minaj lost ‘Best New Artist’ to Bon Iver.
Allegations were made that Minaj refused to change her "exorcist" performance set, leading the Academy to allegedly blackball her.
A story where a girl dates a rowdy badass to piss off her parental figure only to lose all interest the second she realizes he has a few soft boi traits is one of the most accurate depictions of teenagers in television history and I'm like 70% sure it was done by accident.
Ariana's first single since the lockdown can barely beat out Jack Harlow, and Lil Nas X is barely gonna make the Top 100 at all... what a time to be alive
I saw someone say "I'm obviously not gonna watch the Lindsay Ellis canceled video cause I have sex."
Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but the one thing that implies you have less sex than watching that video, is going on Twitter and announcing you're not gonna watch that video.
Trust me, that monologue wasn't just an artist waxing poetic about the way he wished critics would work... that was a speech written by someone who understands criticism as an art form itself on a deep and fundamental level.
@grooviestsalami
That was literally more than a decade ago, dude.
Also, even if it wasn't, I'd argue there's a distinct difference between a curious look at something weird no one in his audience had ever heard of versus one of the most popular and influential musicians in the world.
Dude, that has literally been Pixar's MO since the company's inception... the reason Woody has a plaid shirt and Buzz has a reflective plastic visor is because they were specifically trying to make main characters with traits that couldn't be done with hand-drawn animation.
@DiscussingFilm
Doesn't look bad at all but a lot of these Modern Pixar movies now come off more like the idea was created based on what new advanced animation and technology they can show off
I can't even comprehend that shit has gotten so fucking nuclear so fucking quickly that pretty much everyone agrees that J Cole wimping out and hiding under a rock was objectively the correct decision and we all sympathize with him completely.
I'd be totally down if more artists started vocally disowning their stans.
I mean lets be real... the majority of stanning isn't done out of genuine love and respect for the artist, it's just an unhealthy parasocial obsession fueled by self-gratification and groupthink.
Taylor Swift gave an intro speech to Dear John, the first surprise song of Minneapolis Night 2!
“I am not putting this album out so you can go on the internet and defend me against someone you think I wrote a song about 14 million years ago."
#SpeakNowTaylorsVersion
"It's porn!"
"It's immigrants!"
"It's the LGBT!"
"It's just that all males are inherently evil!"
No, actually it's Andrew Tate and shitbags like him who profit off of brainwashing young boys into thinking women are breeding machines born to be subjugated.
Children are committing 18 rapes a DAY and 15,000 rapes and sex attacks every year, shocking report finds as police warn sexual violence has been 'normalised' by online pornography
We're at a turning point where AI is becoming a genuine threat to art and the people who make it.
Anyone who calls themself a critic has got to recognize just what a below-the-belt, soul-piercingly harsh insult it is to compare any legitimate art, even cheap art, to AI in 2023.
"John Oliver doesn't shit talk capitalism enough!!!"
I'm sorry an HBO nighttime talk show host who frequently makes jokes about hampsters in speedos and how he wants Adam Driver to step on him isn't Che Guevara enough for you.
Tom MacDonald’s “You Missed” is predicted to debut at
#1
on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 with a
#1
debut on Digital Song Sales (around 19K downloads).
"The Internet allows kids to access literally anything, and therefore all media must be treated as though a child will see it and censored/watered down accordingly" is one of the wrongest possible conclusions of the Internet age and I'm unsettled that it seems to be spreading.
#MythsAboutGenderRoles
You know what? I'm not gonna list any examples. There's nothing wrong with adhering to traditional gender roles, and there's nothing wrong with breaking them. Just do what makes you happy, be the best person you can be, and be proud of who you are.
@Schaffrillas
I believe "hitting the wall" translates to something along the lines of "a woman reaching the age at which she no longer looks enough like a teenager that this person wants to have sex with her."
I hate that this is a thought that is common enough that there's shorthand for it.
Okay we need "Not Like Us" to be a generation-defining smash that sticks around forever, cause I'll be goddamned if the
#1
biggest song of the year of the Kendrick-Drake beef is goddamn Lovin On Me by Jack Harlow.
There's no better way to sum up where pop music is in 2023 than the fact that the
@ShadowTodd
review of the biggest hit of the year has less views than his episode on "Turn Up The Radio" by Autograph.
Public service announcement:
Telling a person "you're a very good artist" is an amazing compliment.
Telling that person "you're a much better artist than this other artist who does similar work" is extremely disrespectful to everyone involved.
@grooviestsalami
Well, one of them was reviewed in 2011 when Fantano probably had like 20k subscribers, and one of them came out... this week.
You understand why it's easy to read this as a bad-faith false equivilancy, right?
"I'm burned out on this, I wish it would stop."
Y'all...
The most successful rapper of the century and the most critically acclaimed rapper of the century are trading daily diss tracks trying to destroy each other.
We will never see anything like this again in our lifetimes.
The fact that people are saying that Pink was prophetic and ahead of her time for saying this tells me that a lot of people on here are too young to remember what happened on September 13th, 2009.
Not gonna lie, it might just be completely unknown meme rapper Lil Nas X teaming up with Hannah Montana's dad and proceeding to block literally all the biggest songs form all the biggest artists in the industry from hitting
#1
on the charts for four and a half months straight.
@ShadowTodd
The prequels were the passion project of one man with a vision and virtually no outside interference. It's their biggest weakness, but also their biggest strength. The sequels are a corporatized mess with no overarching vision. That's the difference.
Okay, I think it's been long enough and Drake has lost enough goodwill that I can say this without being killed:
How the FUCK did we let such a nothing-burger of a song as God's Plan become the
#1
song of the year back in 2018???
Oh hell nah, you ain't memory-holing this, put The Heart Part 6 on this list.
I don't care if it wasn't released to Spotify, Drake dropped a song in 2024 where he wrote fan-fiction about Kendrick getting molested and mocked him for it, we ain't just sweeping that aside.
Drake has now dropped 18 new songs in 2024 🔥😳
▫️ Circadian Rhythm
▫️ Supersoak (SOD)
▫️ No Face w/ Playboi Carti
▫️ Buffalo Freestyle w/ Benny The Butcher
▫️ Its Up w/ Young Thug & 21 Savage
▫️ Blue Green Red
▫️ Housekeeping Knows w/ Latto
▫️ Sideways
▫️ Healing
▫️ HOT UPTOWN
Is it fair to say that "Mother" by Meghan Trainor is the first time since "Earth" by Lil Dicky where the entire Internet decided within a few hours of it dropping that it was one of the worst songs of all time?
"You shouldn't name your book 'I'm Glad My Mom Died' no matter what, regardless of what she was like, that's just a mean, nasty, callous thing to do!"
The mom in question:
I'd like to congratulate AI art for doing something I thought was impossible on a theoretical level: Make a video of a bunch of puppies playing in the snow that isn't even remotely cute.
@Fuckminster
You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone.
In terms of chart success, it was the single most popular song of the entire 1970s... keep that in mind when you listen to it.
I'm sorry, but exploring her life, purpose and freedom was LITERALLY THE ENTIRE THEME of the original Little Mermaid. It was NEVER all about just boning some guy... never in the original film did Ariel look happier than when she was brushing her hair with a fork.
Halle Bailey says her version of Ariel is “more nuanced” than the original ‘The Little Mermaid’:
“we’ve definitely changed that perspective of just her wanting to leave the ocean for a boy. It’s way bigger than that. It’s about herself, her purpose, her freedom, her life and
Okay, what the fuck kind of crack are Morgan Wallen fans on that he's got a good chance of keeping Olivia Rodrigo's new leadoff single off the top on his FOURTEENTH WEEK AT NUMBER ONE?????
The race for
#1
on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 has tightened, as
@MorganWallen
’s “Last Night” has closed the gap on
@oliviarodrigo
’s “Vampire”, with both songs currently projected to be separated by less than five points.
Between this and snow days now being spent in school on zoom calls, I think society is trying to meticulously murder everything even slightly endearing and fun about growing up in school.
At this point I'm starting to think Kendrick might drop a track with Pusha T or Taylor Swift featured on it just to drive that rusty railroad spike as far up Drake's ass as possible.
I'll never stop chart watching. Pop music is way too unpredictable and insane for me to ever tear my eyes away from these stupid numbers. What the fuck do you mean Hozier is about to have a
#1
hit in 2024?
No actually I'm gonna need more singers to throw shit at their fans until concert-goers learn how to fucking behave themselves in a post-lockdown world
@theneedledrop
TikTok is ultimately a very good thing for the world of pop music since it's essentially the only way for singles to get vaulted into the mass consciousness anymore
Hate to be that guy, but if the finalists aren't Espresso, Not Like Us and A Bar Song, something has gone very wrong in the calculations.
I don't car that Shaboozey doesn't even have a real music video, the VMAs should still know better.
Kendrick's next song gonna be called "Five Nights At Freddy's" as he tries to work out his ultimate theory of how many secret kids are involved in Drake's lore
It is a legit point worth noting that the left made a point that Barron Trump was ostensibly off-limits for all of the last eight years, and now the right is cruelly bullying Tim Walz's son from literally the first moment they see him.
Y'all realize saying shit like "Drake never made a good or memorable song ever" is a quick way to get people to stop taking this seriously, right?
Drake's made good music, a lot of it. He's also a creepy loser who's not worth keeping around anymore. Both things can be true.
Kendrick Lamar is a better performer than Drake. It's not even close.
Drake doesn't have a single notable, iconic or memorable performance in his entire 15 year career. Kendrick at this point has several and the Superbowl might be his magnum opus.
Katy Perry destroyed her career and Taylor Swift almost destroyed hers over a beef.
The white guys of pop music never beef because that would require them to grow a personality.
I'm so glad that Sabrina Carpenter broke through the same year Katy Perry tried to come back.
Sabrina has completely obliterated any route to a comeback Katy might have by making the same kind of cotton candy music while being a more charming person who's much better at singing.
For the transitions in this year's Worst List, I'll probably just pick ten diss tracks from this year aimed at Drake and play the best line from each of them.
It's very funny that after Justin Timberlake and Maroon 5 back to back, the NFL were very consciously like "okay we need to get white people off of this thing for a WHILE"
Most recent Super Bowl halftime headliners:
2025: Kendrick Lamar
2024: Usher
2023: Rihanna
2022: Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. & Kendrick
2021: The Weeknd
2020: Shakira & JLo
2019: Maroon 5
2018: Justin Timberlake
2017: Lady Gaga
2016: Coldplay
2015: Katy Perry
2014: Bruno
Alright it's official: Euphoria was the fun one Kendrick made for the people, everything else is a surgical operation he's making for no other reason besides disintegrating a man that he loathes.
Chappel Roan is this weird case where she seems to bring out the worst in both her fans and her detractors, and it thus far seems to be 100% not her fault
how did chappell attract so many TERF fans hell-bent on infantilising her & painting drag out to be misogynistic when literally all she does is support and love on queens omg
The day that people stop getting outraged at posts like this because we all realize that both being critical/analytical AND turning your brain off/enjoying the ride are both perfectly valid ways to engage with art:
Mr. Beast's whole shtick is never making statements about ANYTHING political so he will isolate as few people as possible.
He correctly understands that the existence of trans people is NOT a political quandry, and defending them is simply the right thing to do.
something beautiful about a guy who talked about having abandoned his personality because of the risk of alienating potential viewers having enough moral backbone to defend his trans friend
One of these days we're gonna have to sit down and have a serious talk about what we did to Janet Jackson.
One of the most successful and important entertainers in all of American culture, an all-time black icon... all wiped from the collective consciousness overnight.
Let me put it in terms we'll all understand: In nearly 70 years, only a handful of musical artists have gotten
#1
hit songs. Omi, the guy who made that Cheerleader song from 2015, is one of them. Bruce Springsteen is not.
Something about it feels even more insane than it did when America elected a black guy or when it elected a reality show host. Only 46 people have gotten to be president in 250 years and Joe Biden was one of them
Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' broke the record for most streams in a week for ANY song in the U.S. this decade with 96m streams in its first 7 days 🔥🏆
It dethroned Cardi B's 'WAP' & Taylor Swift's 'Fortnight' which previously held the top 2 spots.
Old Town Road (a beloved meme song by a black man that Billboard said wasn't real country music) getting it's record for weeks at
#1
beat by Last Night (a country song most people don't care about by that one white guy who screamed the n word) would be some darkest timeline shit.
.
@MorganWallen
’s “Last Night” is currently aiming for a fifteenth week at
#1
on next week’s Billboard Hot 100. Doing so will tie it with
@Harry_Styles
’ “As It Was” for the longest running
#1
hit of the decade.
Honestly one of the most mismanaged talents in pop music history, literally NO ONE who worked with this woman knew how to use her properly.
No world where Close To Me and Need Your Love are two of Ellie Goulding's biggest hits is a just one.
@grooviestsalami
There are rare situations in which it might be justifiable to kill another person, like in self-defense or whatever. There is literally no situation, literally NONE whatsoever, where it's justifiable to rape another person.
Dua Lipa got played nonstop on the radio for 5 years straight until everyone got sick of her, and then she dropped her album directly between a record-shattering Taylor Swift project and one of the most legendary events in the history of hip hop.
This was entirely unsurprising.
There is no explanation for Dua Lipa having one of the biggest era’s in pop music history to flopping tragically. It’s definitely not the music since it’s miles better, something is suspicious
Jones pitched Kanye the easiest softball in the world, and Kanye ignored him, hit him over the head with the bat, then stole his wallet and said that the jews did it.
@PokoChokos
Don't shit-talk your older videos outside of an occasional gag here and there.
I don't care how bad you think they are, constantly saying they're cringey and embarassing is kind of a middle finger to your oldest subscribers who found you because of those old videos.