#I hope I did a good recap for u anon <3 and anyone else who didn't watch the whole thing

[sugar-coat-it]

Could you give a summary of the interview? I don’t want to sit through an 3 hour interview 🙃

I got you, spark notes RIGHT NOW I'm just going to recap the main points as I watch

Lots of talk about the dangers of technology and the culture that it’s brought about -SATVB as an exploration of said dangers (toxic masculinity, lack of guidance for young men). It was meant to be performance art that evolved with the reactions to it (a lot of people missed the point of consumption because of disregarding context. He says that this context collapse extended to a lot of the situations that got him in trouble with cancellation) -Social media's "everyone is an activist" mentality is degrading "actual activists" -Dopamine buzz culture and the prominence of short-term pleasure -"Shortcut" to being a musician through social media -How do you regulate social media without it seeming totalitarian? - 2:07:58 "KaMaLa iS BrAt"

Some people were a bit ticked off that he was trying to explain some abstract concepts "for his fans" in particular -He would ask the host to explain things in "a way that his audience can understand" (Ex: Slow cancelation of the future and hauntology)

Discussion of art as a commodity and the suppression of creativity in a capitalistic society -We are told that the only art that is worth making is financially successful art. Young artists aren't encouraged to change the world anymore. -Companies don't want to take risks and invest in art that might not be successful (this is why we're getting so many remakes of movies or the sort of Marvel franchise phenomenon) -"The most talented, creative, young person you know will be doing the flat design for some internet company" -Consumerism overshadowing art. Art institutions in particular. -The extremely wealthy don't feel the same obligation to give back to art and culture that they used to

Matty is involved with charity organizations that fund art as an alternative institution to big corporations (cool!)

Matty is becoming really strict with not referencing music from the past, he wants to break away from genre and what's been previously done -P.S He lost his shoes at this point of the interview idk what happened there

Counterculture as a concept is dying in a way because there is a lot less separation between what is mainstream and what is considered to be fringe -The internet is a massive contributor to that, many of these subcultures have moved online

Loooots of criticism about the neoliberalist philosophy

Documentary mentioned! -"I've been making this film for ten years that I'll probably never even make" (I'm going to kill u)

ATPOAIM -An "internet web series thing of a proper thing" he's been working on -Stemmed from an eerie feeling of being constantly surveilled and subjective reality

Matty's phone was hacked for five years -Every phone conversation he had from the age of 18-24 was listened to

The new record! - "The new record is, I suppose, born from me nearly going insane and that being a kind of an internet-induced insanity, combined with the cautionary tale of my last record." -Matty mentioned not being interested in doing press for the album with any traditional media -Themes: love, sex, death, communication, religious fanaticism

I can see why some people are criticizing the interview, labeling it as a sort of "intellectual circle jerk", but there were a lot of interesting insights into how Matty operates in terms of both his art and his ideologies if you give it a chance. It's pretentious at points, I'll admit that, but he's honestly really smart and I think it would be silly to overlook that because of the way he delivers some of what he says. I do think he makes a lot of good points about art amidst major, unprecedented societal shifts, but it can get lost in the way he talks. It’s worth a watch <3