So, I’m listening to Bad At Sports after looking at this because Chris Mendoza sent it to me, and — those two statements are not at all causally related by the way–, and Bad at Sports are trying to get Chicago Art People to fight with each other, and Amanda starts singing, in the background, quietly, and in a very cute voice “Go Shorty! It’s your Birthday, gonna party like it’s your Birthday, 50 people singing 50 cents! Go! Go! Go! Go!” over and over and over and over again. And I am thinking, well, they often put strange little backgrounds to their pieces that repeat over and over, but this one is particularly annoying.

But after twenty minutes, it is no longer a joke. And it starts to seem intentional. Like, they could not keep repeating this for this long unless they were trying to be annoying. Now, I know they like to piss people off, but to annoy is not the same as to piss off. Regardless, this just seemed… too much.

I finally decide I cannot take it. I am getting stressed out hearing this fucking thing over and fucking over again, so I am going to skip all sorts of pithy exchanges between chicago art people to a later section, where they will have a different loop going.

So I click forward, and it is still going!

So I click forward further, to the closing credits, an hour plus into the podcast. And It. Is. Still. Fucking. Going! Why on earth would BAD AT SPORTS repeat Amanda singing fifty cents for over an hour? I am hurt. I like them, but this is hurtful, and I am not sure if I can forgive this. It shows no respect. Worse, it is mean-spirited.

So I hit stop.

IT IS STILL FUCKING GOING. “Go Shorty! It’s your Birthday, gunna party like it’s your Birthday, 50 people singing 50 cents! Go! Go! Go! Go!”.

I know enough to realize that if stopping the file won’t stop it, that deleting it won’t either, but I delete the file anyway, because I hate it, and I want it gone.

STILL GOING. Empty the trash.

STILL GOING!

What the fuck, you bad at sports chicago JODI motherfuckers! How have you done this to me??!?! (Never mind why; I don’t even care anymore.)

And that’s when I realize. It’s not Amanda at all. It wasn’t bad at sports. They didn’t have any background loop.

It was this motherfucker. Now, to be fair, I had clicked that page, and I had forgotten it was there. So it was my fault. Not his.

But anyway, he brings up a realization I then had. I thought, what is it that I do not get about the art world that can explain why asking an indian architecture firm to design a house based on a song, or a crow jumping around telling you the time, is any good? (or even a good joke)

And the answer is, I don’t know. I may never know. I am not part of those people, as much as I would like to be. But that was the question. It was not the realization.

The realization was: this.

(are you ready?)

This

Stuff

Is

worse than Digital Media!

The only way it is not worse is if no thought was put into it. But if any was. If the artist wrote or thought anything about it, then it is worse than Digital Media.

And that is pretty amazing.