So I don't read music reviews. That probably sounds funny based on how often I share the rave reviews my album "Poundtown" received but that's a case of rational self interest.
The last review I even read that wasn't for my own work was a local place called the "Metro Times" I stopped reading when they got all weird about some local musicians politics writing more about that than his music & release party coming up. If there's some trends you're going to notice in my articles it's that journalists are really useless social terrorists that invest their time in virtue signalling and going after economic competitors with hit pieces for page views than writing things people want to read. That's why they are becoming irrelevant and youtubers are taking all their money making them even more salty.
They think going to video is going to help when not really, in fact it's more likely we take their money both in print and on video.
They think by forcibly telling people what to do that these people will start magically doing what they say. They're as delusional as the puritanical religious right of the 80s and 90s.
That's the exact case with Fader today and their hit piece on Anthony Fantano, of "The needle drop" calling his now dead meme channel "a bid to win the alt-right".
So let's debunk this shall we? Full disclosure I've never even watched this guys music channel so I don't have a horse in this race.
We can start with the byline:
He deleted the entire channel when we asked for comment about why it was so bad.
He actually, according to him, deleted the videos because of youtube demonetising creators entire channels because they find some content "not advertiser friendly". That's understandable. His youtube channel, his main one is his livelihood. It's understandable to remove it because nowadays we have non-comedy fuckheads that will take any joke even on a comedy page at face value of the person's beliefs. (There's still people who believe I think Asian ladies have sideways vaginas. I've seen their porn I know their shits pixellated)
he most famous music critic on Earth has never written a Pitchfork review. He’s never appeared in Rolling Stone or dropped a blurb in The New York Times. He's a bald vegan from Connecticut named Anthony Fantano whose thoughts on everyone from Kanye West to Parquet Courts have so far attracted a combined 260,000,000 views on his YouTube channel, The Needle Drop. Beloved by his fans for his outspoken opinions and early support for acts like Death Grips, he’s a bona fide vlogging pioneer. In 2017, many music publications are pivoting to video — Fantano has been there for years. But as it turns out, music is not this 21st century mogul's only interest.
Up until this afternoon, October 3, Fantano had another booming YouTube channel — practically unknown outside of his fanbase, but immensely popular within it — called thatistheplan. (It had nearly 400,000 subscribers compared to 1,100,000 on The Needle Drop.) He started the channel in 2007, initially posting earnest covers of songs by Man Man and the Mountain Goats. At first, it was little more than an offshoot of The Needle Drop, but increasingly, thatistheplan took on a bizarre life of its own — sometimes with a stark contrast in tone. Until today, Fantano updated it regularly, posting dense videos full of references to memes and other YouTube channels you probably haven’t heard of. His vocabulary took on a screechy, 4Chan-friendly slant — video titles from the past year include “pepe the frog triggers hillary clinton,” “I CHANGED MY GENDER CUZ DONALD TRUMP,” and “MEGA-CUCK SAYS POKEMON GO IS LIKE DOGFIGHTING.” He raged against SJWs and feminists, and, in video after video, treated black musicians as a punchline.
Yes, like other prominent YouTubers, Anthony Fantano has become an edgelord.
Fantano’s secret second account over 400,000 subscribers. His videos also targets ‘SJWs’ and feminists, and repeatedly belittle the work of black musicians.
The Alt Right doesn't own memes, or making fun of feminists and SJWs. Do you really want to give them that? You want to give them comedy, while being the owners and heirs of what? Young Sheldon? We all make fun of feminists and SJW's they are ridiculous people you don't even really have to try to make fun of, you just repost the stupid shit they say. They are low hanging fruit. Don't attribute basic sanity to the alt right. With that logic Seth McFarland, Matt Stone & Trey Parker, Katt Williams, Chris Rock, Eli Roth are all "alt right". Go anywhere that's not a liberal arts campus or online hugspace and people make fun of them. Their friends make fun of them low key. At the parties they don't get invited to.
The alt right also don't own making fun of rappers or is Crank Lucas alt right now?
He’s referenced constantly on the 4chan music board /mu/, and has been known to frequent it himself. The 4Chan-affiliated wiki site Encyclopedia Dramatica crowned him “the king of /mu/,” and in 2014, he appeared on the forum for an AMA. /mu/ is a complex environment — many people on it are serious music fans who care about the scores he awards records on The Needle Drop; they are also steeped in the shock-jock culture of 4Chan. Over time, Fantano had begun explicitly catering to the latter crowd’s sensibilities. His two channels allowed him to serve that audience from multiple angles, maximizing engagement, clicks, and profit.
So a big music board on the internet talks about him. 4chan the largest music board on the internet. Hell a lot of people I know in multiple industries has had 15 minutes or longer on 4chan or are known from the site. Myself, included. I've actually gotten sick of going on 4chan and pretty much seeing my contacts list. As a test right now it took less than 10 minutes to see someone I know. In a thread about the West Indian day parade in Brooklyn. Prime alt right topic I know! None of these people I know are alt right and I'd say /mu/ is the most left leaning board on the site.
Of course we're still pretending 4chan is the internet's Boogeyman and not a weird site that somehow has put performers or color, trans performers, and more into the spotlight. Can 4chan be racist definitely! Is everything there racist no. You'd be surprised at who are 4chan posters...
From what I can see of his videos they are cringy humor, he's no comedian but it's not racist.
Today, nearly every online outlet focusing on music has some kind of socially conscious slant. That’s where most artists stand, and most readers too. While The Needle Drop covers a similar beat as sites like The FADER and Pitchfork, it exists in a totally different context — the surprisingly conservative world of YouTube. Last month The New York Times reported on the rise of “the YouTube right,” a community of “monologuists, essayists, performers and vloggers” who, among many other ideals, “deplore ‘social justice warriors,’ whom they credit with ruining popular culture.” From PewDiePie to Paul Joseph Watson, anti-social justice views are de rigeur among popular YouTubers. These are Fantano’s true colleagues and competition — not the lefty bloggers who have traditionally covered music — and he has adapted to their world, awkwardly.
Well at least you admit nobody is reading outlets with a "socially conscious music slant" to the point Youtubers don't have to consider them competition. It's not really working out for Rolling Stone from what I've heard. People stopped talking about Pitchfork in 2012 unless they were in it and I've never even heard of fader but it's looking like the most popular article you have is this one jabbing at Anthony. I'm no fan of critics they do not contribute anything to creativity at all, they parasite on the backs of people working a million times harder than they do even if they 'suck' so I could go my entire life without reading their unsolicited under-educated opinions on anything political.
But I don't read fader enough to even know if they are the kind of rag I'm thinking of but it's something we've seen too much of.
The article goes on to mention Pewdiepie and how he fucked up as well as Anthony's video on why he doesn't say the N word.
Then we get into Anthony's "red pilling" which was GamerGate.
The red-pilling of Fantano follows the same dark trajectory as that of American political culture at large, which is to say, it started with Gamergate. In 2014, Fantano wrote a response to a question on his blog about the feminist video-game critic Anita Sarkeesian.
His post aligned with the nascent Gamergate movement: he calls Sarkeesian an “outsider” to gaming culture spouting “pure, unsubstantiated BS,” and says that video games offer a harmless but “easy target for [people who are] quick to complain.” Life, he argues, does not imitate art: ”People have been whining and moaning over ‘harmful’ media for generations. And it should be no surprise that those desperately seeking to be offended lose every time.” At the time it didn’t feel particularly inflammatory. But in retrospect, this post provides a roadmap for where Fantano’s beliefs would take him in the future.
Anita Sarkeesian IS an outsider to gamer culture. Here it is in her words:
"not a gamer", "not a part of the fandom", doesn't even know about non-violent games or where to find them.(Hint, there's this little known company called Nintendo that makes a few. They had a little device called the "Wii" some little indie titles out like Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon...maybe she could use those three the next time Colbert asks you to name 3 games on national TV and you're stuck.) That's a wrap, she played herself on that subject and continues to.
The only reason the general public heard about GamerGate was because these rags are losing money because nobody that plays games want to read them and sponsors are dropping. Same reason you won't hear about minorities and women in GamerGate day one that don't give a raggedy fuck about some blue haired, fish faced thots sex life or how many game journalists she cheated with as long as we don't need to see the greasy afterbirth smeared across gaming publications as praise for a subpar product for 1988 NEXT TO the reviews we knew the publisher paid for.
Maybe they don't have standards or integrity but we do. On a personal note going back to the 4chan tip that's pretty much when I became known around the web for the notyourshield thing in gamergate. Not alt-right then not alt right now so this is kind of personal when I see this type of writing about people online.
These things are about politics and money. Mostly money. Then we get into Sargon, calling Sargon a right winger would make right wingers mad. Probably him too.
Pretty much everyone that calls out media bullshit and feminist bullshit is alt right. Anthony is then demonized for having Sargon and Sam Hyde on his podcast where Anthony stated repeatedly that he did not agree with most of Hyde's views. Maybe if these journalists were so afraid of people "drifting right" they would have interviewed GamerGaters to find out what they were about, instead of believing you could scream over it telling people they were something they aren't. Maybe not let people like Milo Yiannopolus and Breitbart monopolize the truth of the subject.
Oprah, Howard Stern, Geraldo and others would have the KKK on their programs and other people they disagreed with to talk. It wasn't an endorsement of those views back then that wasn't called "pandering" it was called journalism.
The article concludes after condemning him for making fun of Trigglypuff.
(my video by the way)
with the statement that Anthony's career is over because this vegan liberal, made some corny jokes and invited less than savory people on his podcast. Despite claiming "It’s now financially lucrative on YouTube to go after “social justice warriors,” or feminism." I'm just curious after seeing this and multiple outlets attack the guy what's so "alt right". He seems to be on the side of sanity. Youtube didn't "go right" as they claim it's the same as it always was. It's just people won't swallow bullshit like what feminism has become, and what journalists are lying about this week to create bullshit narratives.
I'm sorry you guys are losing your relevance, cultural capital and probably money but this aint the way to get it back...This is about the time of day I remind people Donald Trump is more popular than this shit. Everyday for the next 4 years, I'm going to keep reminding you. You lost to Donald Trump in a popularity contest. That's how unlikable you are.