14 Comments
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nc's avatar

im in awe by how you write such timely pieces with such pertinent examples and unique dots i would never think to connect! and how you're able to integrate them across a theme so effortlessly! really appreciate the perspective you bring to cultural criticism -- especially for the fact that survivor made it onto your chart omg

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Brendon Holder's avatar

thank you so much for saying that!! i appreciate it :)

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Andy's avatar

Feels like Trump subscribes to the Oscar Wilde philosophy of “treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

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emel's avatar

Phenomenal piece!

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Brendon Holder's avatar

thank you :)

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autumn angelettie's avatar

this piece feels super in conversation with this essay about post-irony: https://www.documentjournal.com/2024/10/when-post-irony-renders-real-and-fake-indistinguishable-irreverence-becomes-a-political-weapon/

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Brendon Holder's avatar

oOoOO I'll take a look :)

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Cat Jones's avatar

I remember the early 00s film adaptation of the Importance of Being Earnest being pretty cute if you need something to watch while you recover from the flu! But I was like 14 so take that with a grain of salt.

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Brendon Holder's avatar

oooo that sounds like a good watch. I am curious to see how much of the script is lifted straight for Oliver Wilde!

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E G's avatar

twigs is lowbrow these days im so sorry!!!

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Brendon Holder's avatar

would love to hear your thoughts on why you think that is! by the way, when I say 'low brow,' I don't mean it as a derogatory classification. there is plenty of 'good art' that is low brow, in my opinion.

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E G's avatar

i love twigs i just think shes crossed over into lowbrow now bc a lot of the buzz of eusexua is about her working w north west (a child of 2 trump supporters) & diva dolls serve violence rings untrue when shes dabbling in maga-world 🙈

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Brendon Holder's avatar

yeah, the north west feature is a bit of a head scratch because 1/ i don't even picture her in the kardashian-west universe and 2/ i never really see her art in conversation with any popular culture discourse/celebs so i'm curious about the intent. what i will say is that i had an opportunity to listen to the album a months ago at a listening party twigs hosted in brooklyn. the benefit of this was that we heard the songs without a track or feature list which meant i heard childlike things without any context of to who the feature was (i thought it was twigs or a japanese sample lol). having the ability to listen to the song without any context was phenomenal, there wasn't one person who wasn't dancing and saying that that wasn't their favourite song when we left the party. it felt so unexpected. i think if we knew who the feature was, it would have distracted from the fact that the song is a bop. it shows me how much context can change the way we appreciate and evaluate the merit of art. it was also... well before the US election so such a different context even if we knew it was north west in the end.

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E G's avatar

wow that party sounds amazing!!! 😭 im debating if i want to go to the tour in toronto or chicago bc ive never seen her live and i rly would love to still

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