tom moody

Hi, I'm Dylan Matthews (named after Thomas not Bob) and write articles for Vox like "15 FUNsettling facts about drones," "Your favorite singers' vocal ranges, in one chart," and "Each state's largest minority, in one map." As you can guess, I worship Buzzfeed and its genius founder Jonah Peretti. It's especially cool how he ropes you with clickbait headlines that play on your inherent narcissism ("hey, this is about me!"), simultaneously delivering you to advertisers and inflating click counts so publications like New York think Buzzfeed is a thing.
So, I found out what many people already knew, that Peretti had an arty background and read theory in college, and something you may not have known -- that he wrote a paper in the '90s based on Deleuze that criticized MTV for the very things Buzzfeed does now. Except Peretti, because he's Peretti, isn't a foul hypocrite but actually this Warhol-like figure that's critiquing all the way to the bank, and at the same time showing old media how they can combine advertising and journalism and ride the wild whirlwind of VIRAL CURRENTS that supposedly no one can get a handle on.
So I like, "reached out" to Peretti and asked if his old college "critique" paper was in fact a blueprint for his current venue's outstanding marketplace success and you know Peretti said? You know what he said?

He emailed me back and said "LOL." That's all. Can you even comprehend how cool that is?

Background links:
http://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5730762/buzzfeeds-founder-used-to-write-marxist-theory-and-it-explains
http://nymag.com/news/features/buzzfeed-2013-4/
http://www.critical-theory.com/from-deleuze-to-lolcats-the-story-of-the-buzzfeed-guy/
http://www.critical-theory.com/buzzfeed-founder-responds-to-his-marxist-roots-lol/

Dinnertable conversation from last night, as near verbatim as possible:

You said you were making techno music.
Yes.
That's what you call it, techno music?
It's techno in the sense of, it's all electronic. About 50 percent of it has a dancefloor beat, but there are elements of what you could call classical. Parts that harmonize or play in counterpoint, changes of tempo, a structure with distinct parts that are developed. And when I say "electronic," the sounds could be samples of traditional instrument sounds, like a drum hit or piano.
And how is this being heard?
I have an account on Bandcamp, where the tunes are offered for sale.
Oh, you're actually selling this.
Yes.
How much are you making?
I'm not going to share my balance sheet with you. You can also stream the music, you don't have to buy it.
And people dance to this music? Your music?
I've performed it live but it wasn't as a DJ -- it was in a live music or gallery venue. I have DJ'd and people have danced but I wasn't playing my own tracks.

Instructions on how to take screenshots using various platforms, via Cosmic's Pinboard.

Now you, too, can take people's utterances out of context and/or "repeat them back in a dumbass voice," as Goatmilk once characterized the dark art of screenshotting.