I Am Rectangular
I Am Rectangular
A song that changed my life by irritating me to the point I deleted TikTok, the Guy Fieri Principle, etc.
I deleted TikTok a few days ago. This wasn’t a huge move for me. I had only downloaded it a few months prior. For a while, I said that I wouldn’t ever use it. I already had my fill of social media platforms, and this would just be the one that would miss me, marking the end of my days as a Youth Involved in the Culture. I caved after watching a bunch of videos where a guy guessed what a paint shade would be based on the colors mixed in, and went from there.
Still, I used TikTok relatively sparingly. I’d surf for a little while and maybe save a video that I thought was funny enough to want to show my friends later. My diet totally consisted of what the algorithm fed me because I only got around to following two users: Tony Hawk and Patty Harrison. I never got fully engrossed in it. But I was on my way there.
It’s tough to rely on the algorithm and try to shape it to your exact tastes. In college, when I worked a data entry job, I started a Pandora playlist and would dutifully thumbs-up or thumbs-down a song to try to create a singular station that would be a rotation of my complete musical interests over time. Based on the fact that I haven’t used Pandora since 2012, I’d say I failed.
But my TikTok algorithm chugged along and tried its best. Lots of cooking videos. Lots of videos critiquing bad cooking videos. Some daily routines of stay-at-home girlfriends. Videos parodying the daily routines of stay-at-home girlfriends. Stand-up routines chopped up with subtitles – mostly Stavros Halkian crowd work. This guy with a weird voice and small army of chipmunks that he tells to “fill the cheekies” with nuts. Based on the sheer amount of content, it threw just about everything at me to see if I would like it. Eventually it caught on that I liked music, and threw me some music-related videos.
One clip from a musician in particular affected me so deeply. If I can’t say that it was a song that if it didn’t change my life, it at least altered it for the better. Because it was the song that made me think, “Holy shit I need to get off of this site.”
“I traveled 1,000 kilometers to New York City to do this,” he said. His green hair matched his plaid tie, shirt unbuttoned like he had been at a wedding for a few hours and the DJ had gotten everyone into “Shout” territory.
What the hell was he going to do? What did he travel 1,000 kilomters (621.37 miles) to New York City to do?
He traveled 1,000 kilometers to New York City to do this:
As a music journalist of some repute, I feel like I have to point out that the lyric is actually “I fill no hole,” as in he is a square peg in a world of round holes, but the auto-generated subtitles going to “I feel no hole” is hilarious.
I didn’t like the song, so I scrolled by. That’s what you do on TikTok. You scroll away in search of a different jester to entertain you.
This is where I felt like I was on my way to fully being a TikTok user. In these moments when I would be stuck in a scroll, I’d say to myself “OK, just scroll until you find something good, then stop.” Then I would find something good, save it, send it to a friend or two, and then think, “Well what else I can find?” This isn’t a new epiphany. This is exactly what these social media platforms are designed to do. Dopamine hits to keep you chasing the dragon. And it works!
This guy in the video is Sean Stephens. His shtick is that he is some sort of CEO who doubles as “an undiscovered rock star.” Anyone who has seen this video has also probably seen the other ones. As a CEO of what looks like a creative firm in Canada, he seems to understand the basics of web marketing. Shove things down people’s throats until they have no choice but to remember you.
So, there are other videos of Stephens debuting this song on the streets of New York in the hopes that his “undiscovered” status would change.
In this one he adopts a very stiff, St. Vincent-esque posture, staring directly into the camera, unmoving aside from abrupt, choreographed head turns. In this one he pretends to play a tiny piano like Schroeder.
It worked to some extent, because apparently his video got a million views. That song was listened to, or at least heard (there’s a difference I feel) one million times.
While using TikTok, since I watched the original video for more than two seconds, the algorithm trusted that I wanted to hear more of Sean’s music, and fed me every version he put out.
I heard “I am rectangular” in my head on a loop for days. Weeks. I’d hear it in the middle of the night when I woke up to go to the bathroom or even just roll over. It wouldn’t leave me.
And it was my final straw. I suddenly wanted nothing to do with the app. I wanted nothing to do with him or the countless other weird guys who populate these apps. The creepy South African sociopath who speaks about hypothetical future spouses and what they need to do to commit to being with him. The creepy unspeaking cowboy hat kid who shows us his different little outfits and also how well he treats his girlfriend. Enough with these guys! I hate these guys! I hate that I know these guys!
Enough!
I feel bad that Sean Stephens here is taking the flack here, because from my vantage point he hasn’t actually done anything wrong.
I’m reminded of the Shane Torres stand-up bit defending Guy Fieri. “As far as I can tell, all he ever did was follow his dreams.”
Sean Stephens is following his dreams. Do you know how hard it is to follow your dreams, especially when it’s something vulnerable like art?
But, as Torres puts it, “because he has flames on his shirt,” the culture at large disapproves of Guy Fieri. Sean Stephens looks like a permutation of an attempted cloning of Fat Mike after several, several attempts, and just because he’s on this app, I am unfairly lumping him in with guys who are outwardly promoting toxic traits masquerading as lifestyle influencers.
I don’t know Sean Stephens on a personal level. That’s part of the problem maybe. I’m basing my entire understanding of him on him taking a song that, let’s be real, could use some work but isn’t the worst song I’ve ever heard, and relentlessly forcing it upon me, and that gave me a snap-out-of-it moment about my digital consumption more effective than any episode of Black Mirror ever could. I don’t have to hear this. I don’t have to know about it. I don’t have to know about him or any of these other guys.
There are similarities between Guy Fieri and Sean Stephens. No one is going to accuse either of reinventing their craft and taking it to genius new heights. But maybe they’re both cool to hang out with at least. They seem to be having fun. They have silly dyed hair and make that a cornerstone of their personality.
Torres’ bit even touches on the fact that “Meanwhile, you all can’t get enough of Anthony Bourdain,” who “puts on a Rolling Stones T-shirt and tells food courts they suck.”
I love Bourdain, but there’s a point here about the packaging. If we’re predisposed to liking something because the culture at large says we can, we’re going to overlook the shortcomings and, conversely, we’re going to slam things we’d otherwise praise if they came from someone the culture found less than desirable.
Here’s something the algorithm fed me before I deleted the app to back this up:
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Now, the important distinction here again is that “I Am Rectangular” is not a good song. It feels similar to AI-generated jokes: The system digested generations of songwriting and created its closest approximation of what is legally music. But, Sean, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, buddy. It’s just not your best work (I assume and hope). And hearing it so many times, being so acutely aware of who this guy who lives more than 1,000 kilometers from me is, caused me to delete the most popular social media app of our time and pretty much swear off it like I had before I tried it.
I genuinely hope the best for Sean Stephens and his musical/business career. I hope he finds the success and discovery that he clearly craves and works toward. Again, following your dreams is a noble pursuit and I will never be the guy who tells you to give up on that dream.
But I will not be viewing his ascent any more.
This is probably not the outcome Sean Stephens wanted when he traveled 1,000 kilometers to New York City to do this. Being a meme isn’t a good way to get to where I assume he wants to end up. It’s hard to tell exactly where he wants to end up. There’s that idea that no publicity is bad publicity, but that phrase was coined before social media. Maybe it’s the vest, but he strikes me as the type who misunderstands “the industry” and thinks one big break at the battle of the bands will bring in a cartoonish record contract that never actually exists in real life, but again, I’m maybe unfairly ascribing something to this guy in the same way people do to Guy Fieri.
The Guy Fieri Principle extends beyond food. We decide something is bad because we don’t like how it’s packaged. We consume the same product in different wrapping and we find good things about it.
All of this recognizing the good in something and giving people a chance is not enough for me to want to go back to TikTok. And, unfortunately, Sean’s song was the last straw that made me want to swear off of the site full of weird guys forever.
So, while I am happy that something clicked in my brain to spend less time on a social media platform, I’m sorry that it comes at the expense of dunking on a guy who is trying his best and (hopefully) is a good dude in a sea of weird bad guys. And as Rax King masterfully wrote, there is value in the Guy Fieris of the world. I will defend the likes of Jimmy Buffett until I am red in the face.
But god damn, I have had enough of these guys.
Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Poltergeist.
Quick plug! I got to do something really fun! Esquire commissioned me to analyze the phenomenon of Major League Baseball on-deck music. So, I gave some thought about what makes a good one, a bad one, and how players use/overlook good opportunities. You can read it here! I have a few more fun freelance projects in the works, so I’m excited to share those when they’re out in the world.