it's not your responsibility to worry about how people react and analyze and think about your things, or you, or your relationship to your things once you release them, but i am over here Relating and having a weird crisis about the concept of celebrity and personhood and it's especially weird because i have this crisis all the time, it's an easy one: everybody's a person. just people. my favorite bands (if you will excuse the idea of favorites for a few moments): they're just people, and they are huge nerds who will give me corrections to transcriptions i make of their stuff cause they like the stuff and i like the stuff and that gives us something in common. my favorite actor: people. also a huge nerd who is excited about the things i am excited about, so we can be excited together at the stage door if i make it there. my favorite vocal ensemble: people. very good at their job, some of the best in the world, but you have to be a huge nerd to get that good and that means we're excited about the same things if we interact about them, because the tiny details get clearer the closer attention you pay, and then we can share the excite. there's a line in henry v "the king is but a man, as i am. the violet smells to him as it does to me" i think about whenever i am getting too close to putting a person whose work i like on a huge pedestal, and instead i get excited about how people whose work i admire are just people and i am too so i can do things too.  however, it's an extra weird case to be so deeply involved in liking your stuff, because so much of your stuff is your story of yourself. first of all the songs and the history videos, of course things you make are going to have light from you shining in em. but even less removed from your Self the questions page, insta hints, reality videos, expert mode all have personality and then you come out with a live interview and a straightforward lyric explanation video, and what is there that i can Like that is not just a piece of you? is it the things you make i like, anymore? or is it what i can see of you? does it matter? not to you, probably. but it seems important for me to know. and maybe it is better for you if the glorious melodic contour has a bigger effect on me than the half-smile as you mark time before the next mime drum take. it's definitely the skill involved in setting up the turnaround that impresses and engages me, but if i associate that with the fondness that gets in my spirit from reading and empathizing about the door touch for the tempo run to find the split, what am i appreciating? is it the beautifully finessed fill that is unstoppably embedded in my psyche, now, or the endearing knowledge that you think nobody wants to see a band of 5 keyboard players? do i appreciate hotewig because of the awe-inspiringly constant level of fun and incredibly consistent density of information, or because it's your voice and your humor delivering it? both, i guess.  i try to like things because they're good, instead of because i like the person who made them, but what if the person who made them is good? it'll be my job to try and extricate my inspiration by your content from my inspiration by whatever You i can know from what you've left in the open. it's not your problem. but it's jiggling my obsessive and analytical tendencies and now i'd kind of like to know if you've ever had this feel.
one thing that seems to be particularly enticing to me is when i find someone who is doing things in a way similar to the way i would like to do it, AND that person seems to be quite successful. it's that killer combination that makes me want to learn everything i possibly can about them and their life