Paradoxical kittens

Ryan Adams’ love of animal tweets - REVIEWED

Early 00s sixth-form favourite and flannel incarnate Ryan Adams hit the news with his Taylor Swift-aping concept conceit 1989, live on YouTube this week. Adding his authentic-branded country lilt to bangers such as Style and Bad Blood has inadvertently functioned as a politcised art project on the meaning of authenticity, inspiring reviews more like think pieces, and dozens of hot takes on the offensiveness of this epic, if unintended, mansplain.

Few, however, have looked into the depths of his Twitter feed for answers. Specifically, his obsessive retweeting of cute animal pictures. Alongside the Carl Sagan astrology quotes, and, irresistibly, Taylor Swift’s own endorsements of his album of her covers, Ryan has retweeted puppies not understanding hiccups, gifs of kittens cuddling and a puppy jumping to Slayer to his 719k followers. If you liked that Buzzfeed story about a dog standing guard over his hole-stuck pal, well, shucks, so did your guy Ry.

It’s disarming, sure, and it’s probably because, like most of us, Adams actually likes sweet animals, and Welcome To New York. It’s also #basic, and that’s why he does it, because embracing basicness, that all-pervasive pyjama party of culture, is the most democratic, authentic even, action of all.

Yet here is where the whole, delicately built edifice cracks: one cannot self-consciously broadcast a lack of self-consciousness, any more than you can artfully craft a lack of concern. Such is the unforgiving double helix waltz of alt v pop. We don’t make the rules, but you sure as shit can’t break them: you can be sincere, but not #sincere, sorry to say. And tweeting a picture of some animals cuddling to three quarters of a million people is as sweet, contrived and totally unnecessary as recording an alt.country version of a Taylor Swift album. 6/10

CJ

Making children cry

A foam star child’s toy - REVIEWED

What is this? What the hell is going on? Is that supposed to be a toy? What child would ever want this? Why is it so sad? I grew up in the north and all we had to play with up there were any dead or dying cats we happened to stumble across on the cobbles, and even they didn’t look half as gutted as this star. This star is the saddest “fun” thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve met Les Dennis.

The sad star costs £49.95. P+P is an extra 10 quid. That, in total, is as near-as-makes-no difference £60 – 60 UK POUNDS – to get this pliant slab of inevitable childhood trauma into your house. Presumably it comes with a “PEOPLE ALSO BOUGHT...” recommendation linking to the hundreds of waterproof plastic mattress covers parents will inevitably need. Maybe it’s a scam: there will also be an optional pension-like 20-year payment plan for intensive regression therapy the aghast nippers will surely need to redeem come adulthood. Honestly, hiring Pennywise the Clown to rock your weans to sleep every night would be less disastrous to their formative emotional wellbeing than buying them this sad, sad star. Or telling them that a puppy somewhere in the world died every time they ate that biscuit or did that poo because they’re ugly and adopted – THAT would be better for them, in the long run, than this stupid, sad, incredibly expensive star.

This is usually the part of these little reviews where I say “but...” and then offer some nonsense reason for giving the item in question a high mark out of 10. The old review-switcheroo. But not today. This sad star is also a shit star. I truly, truly hate this star with a fire in my belly and wish it was here so I could – with paraffin, match and glee – remove it from a world that would absolutely be 100% better off without it. -50/10

LH

Animated electromagnetism

Pylons in anime - REVIEWED

Short review: oh good, more anime.

Long review: oh good, more anime about something impossibly boring. A few weeks ago we had people arguing over condiments, this week we’ve got still images of telegraph poles. Seriously, isn’t this meant to be the genre of highly stylised ultraviolence, of depraved sexual acts with futuristic octopoid creatures? Where’s the weird shit, guys? I was promised weird shit. Seriously though, for what it’s worth, these are very pretty still images of telegraph poles and power lines and pylons, of wires stretching off into the infinite. Even for an adult with bills to pay and binbags to put out, there’s still something vaguely magical about that latticework of strings and cables that hangs above us, quietly humming with data.

So yes, rifling through these eight pages of stills, with their lovely precise brushstrokes is a deeply soothing experience. But then occasionally I get to an image of a telegraph pole with, say, a robot looming ominously in the background, and I think: “What’s that robot doing there? I want to know more about that robot. Is he going to crush someone between his platinum fists? He is, isn’t he?”

And then I remember: anime isn’t meant to be soothing. It isn’t meant to be a Jonathan Meades documentary on BBC4 at 9pm on a Wednesday. It’s meant to be chaotic, grotesque, over the top. It’s meant to be a Japanese boy crying bitter tears over the death of his mother at the hands of a half-crab half-goat monstrosity built in a futuristic lab by the evil Dr Miyamoto. It’s meant to be that same distraught Japanese boy vowing revenge on the hated Miyamoto and all his crab-goat hybrids, slicing them up with lasers and howling furiously into the night sky as the credits roll. If anyone’s got a Tumblr of that, please do send it my way. 5/10

GM

A silly, silly footballer

Bastien Héry’s new do – REVIEWED

Male footballers enjoy an inordinate amount of attention. But, sadly, all most people want to talk about is their bloody craft. How are you meant to carve out a proper identity when the only thing people care about are your god-given talents?

Everyone knows that the easiest – and fastest – way to turn heads outside the professional context in which you originally rose to minor renown is to get violently slated on the internet. So you can see why Carlisle United player Bastien Héry has decided to style his hair into a spherical red mohican; one that some people have said resembles the Nando’s chicken.

This isn’t Héry’s first attempt at showing that there is a significantly flawed human (the internet’s favourite kind) behind his successes. According to Wikipedia, previous efforts at controversy have included Héry claiming on Extreme Fishing With Robson Green that his father was a fisherman and subsequently revealing that to be untrue; and also by calling the town of Rochdale a “dump”.

This, though, seems to be Héry’s most successful attempt. It’s not the style itself that’s important: it is simply that such a wilfully misguided decision – and the attendant mockery – has made him a sympathetic character with whom everyone can identify. Ridicule makes you relatable, humiliation makes you human, and styling your hair like the Nando’s chicken? That’s just the first step in a lifelong journey of self-realisation. 9/10

RA

The darkest corners of social media

What comes up when you search ‘Saturation Cucumber’ on Twitter – REVIEWED

When reviewing stuff, you often presume there’s a purpose to the thing that you’re reviewing. Some things may appear to have no purpose at all - Ex On The Beach, Jeremy Hunt, yoghurt - but these are the exception. Normally the reviewer’s job is to ascertain the purpose behind a work and then assess how well the work delivers on it. Then slathersome ad hominem abuse on top for effect.

But how do you review a collection of items that appear to have landed in the same place only at complete random? The search “saturation cucumber” on Twitter brings up three responses but they’ve all come from entirely different places. The first is really about being happy but needs a complicated device involving first comparison to a cucumber and then explanation as to what a cucumber actually is. The second seems to compare the cucumber-pickling process to ageing and comes with the baffling hashtag “#reconnectionyouth”. The third is simply a woman saying she’s had enough cucumber thank you very much indeed. And tomatoes too, while you’re at it.

Each of the posts are confusing, mainly because they’re badly written. But there are elements that intrigue too. Why do the first two associate the word “saturation” with pickling? Have the authors been on a course? Is this something that Americans just know? Meanwhile is Nicky W really happy living as a German-born English teacher in Spain? Could her frustration with gazpacho (which i’m guessing is what she’s talking about), be a symbol for a deeper frustration? Given the fact she’s still living in Andalucia two years later (according to her profile page) I’d guess not, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.

Ultimately the only item of real interest is why Brendon Connelly ever searched “saturation cucumber” in the first place. But short of knowing that I’m afraid it’s a 2/10

PM