An Unhealthy Alternative to Learning

I’ve become obsessed with Joel’s new album. Or, I’ve become obsessed with the reason behind it. This is two hours of vitriol towards his gearhead landlord, whose truck leaked exhaust fumes into his tenant’s building because he couldn’t stop revving it outside to show it off. So Joel just writes a rock opera about an absolutely demented gear head out of spite.

The idea that someone could focus their petty rage into an art project is beautiful. It’s why I made the villains in my webcomic family YouTubers. And it’s why generative ai just can’t compete with human artist in the end. The whole purpose of art is to convey a feeling the artist has to whoever’s consuming it. Generative ai can’t “write a shitpost rock opera about a man named Carlito Benz who gets possessed by his ancestor, Carl Benz and his council of car wizards, to fuck every car he sees, driving his wife to divorce him, and become so powerful he defeats death itself” with any of the impact Joel did, because generative ai does not have a landlord, cannot get pissed off at its landlord, have no feelings in general and therefore cannot convey its emotion to the audience in any meaningful way. You have to have a point and generative ai doesn’t have one.

Vinesauce Joel is one of the very few Let’s Play streamers I fw because he legitimately plays games for fun and wants to entertain, he never takes ad sponsorships and the only time he asks for money is during a Vinesauce charity event. So the message behind the album hits a specific way because he made it, because of COURSE I can feel his rage twds people like Jay Leno who show off their massive car collection like it’s an impressive hobby and not a multi-millionaire dick measuring contest. Would it have hit if it was written and performed by Suno? Does Suno have a reason to sing about previously consummated cars rising from hell to beat the shit out of the grim reaper? OF COURSE NOT. And I KNOW!! This album is a shitpost. But it’s a high quality shitpost Joel put a lot of effort and time into because he’s a human artist who wanted to vent about his awful landlord because the alternative was complaining and possibly getting evicted for it. So we have this, because someone got mad. And it’s awesome.