Alright I processed it over a couple times last night and low key want to do a line by line analysis bc there’s some deep stuff in ALL of this. But. Overall.
It is all of us. I am at fault. You are at fault. All of us are contributing to this man’s and these men’s suffering. Some more egregious than others and most not directly our fault and with no malicious intent.
It’s their Cobra. “Breaking down, and I got the whole world watching” and “as long as everybody gets paid, right? Everything’ll be ok, right?”
I think an overlooked part of the song is the very beginning, talking about being counted like sovereigns (I picture UK money with their royals printed on it) and payback and Prada - it’s quick and not as shocking as the real name line. But it’s the modern music industry machine. It’s RCA squeezing him to make profit.
Simply by observing and singing along while he’s crying and using this man’s pain as entertainment. We are contributing to his exploitation.
And yes, the ones that dox his address and harass him at restaurants and yell his real name and demand things and are disrespectful at gigs and all of that, they get the direct call out. But one thing about being in fandom for a long time I’ve learned.
It is so easy to say “well I’m not as bad as THEY are. THEY are worse” and absolve ourselves of any wrongdoing. “They” do it too with each other and just as easily absolve themselves.
And nobody “I’m not like other fans” the way that Sleep Token fans do! “TikTok fans are a plague. Reddit fans are too serious. Twitter is a cesspool. This person was in a groupchat with identities discussed, block them.”
Is it warranted? Yeah if they’re being disrespectful to the guys and other fans by name dropping in the comments and showing people things they don’t wanna see behind the masks and just. Being gross.
But is it also more than just those obvious “unscrupulous individuals” that are contributing? Is it also us being ANY level of parasocial, of us posting a million photos of him, clamoring over when he cries on stage, exploding when we get a new…anything?
Yeah. It is. Because we feed the machine and demand he dance for us to distract us from our own pain.
Does that mean we should stop consuming entirely? Well. What do I always say with Sleep Token. Multiple things coexist. Fear and hope. Love and toxicity. And I think that’s true here as well. You can be contributing (intentionally and maliciously or indirectly) to the objectification of this man. But also be the thing that is saving him, and giving him joy, and making his dream come true.
He isn’t saying don’t come to the shows. In fact the opposite, he tells us to sing along. That he’s glad we came. That he’s blessed. That this is everything he wanted.
All we can do, is try and be better. It’s stopping the entitlement of demanding more things and new songs and more tours. It’s not interrupting their personal lives, and letting them just be guys. It’s not taking the masks as a challenge to uncover and blasting their real names all over the internet. It’s respecting the boundary that they asked for.
It’s getting off the Internet and thinking about something other than these four guys.
Doing our best to not let the machine we are constantly funding wring them dry.
To the guys behind the masks, I am sure you will never read this. But you have my deepest apologies anyway. I know you’re playing a character on stage, and I’m sorry that so often we overlook the Guy part. We appreciate yall so much and want you to have all the success and positive things that this music can bring, and what it’s given us. I’m sorry we forced you into this role of being a savior, which you have said time and time again is not what you want, and put you up on pedestals that are impossible to maintain.
I’m sorry we took your dream and the thing you love and made it a prison.
I hope writing this song loosened the lock a little.
And I hope you find that dream again. That we can give you the love you WANT. And less of the kind you don’t. We’re still full of it, after all. And we will share it with you for as long as you’ll allow us.
