I haven’t responded because I don’t see the point in speaking on Kieran’s behalf. You reached out to me for an interview and then published a bunch of false claims when I declined.

My user page was intentionally inflammatory. I literally say I’m from North Korea on there, so it’s wild that people don’t see the irony in that LMAO. Fantano ran with a TikTok thinkpiece without reaching out to anyone or even properly checking the article. Which is further proof of why I see him as a total idiot. He is literally like the PewDiePie or Asmongold of online music discussion, the landscape for music content online is just that niche and he has been in the game for so long that he is elevated to the top. This in my opinion will not be the case in the 2030s, 100% with the way things are heading with the blog revival. My opinions on the state of music journalism are genuine, but I also praise Kieran for a reason. If you were making a vaporwave Wikipedia page in 2013 when most legacy media was ignoring it and the only reliable source was Adam Harper, you would probably give him praise too, wouldn't you?

If I made a mistake, it was not highlighting the other writers who contributed to these pages: Alphonse Pierre, Solomon Pace-McCarrick, Samuel Hyland, Alexis Petridis, Mark Beaumont, Cat Zhang, Mano Sundaresan, Eli Enis Jameson Orvis, Sheldon Pearce, and others. Additionally, Kieran became friends with Jameson Orvis in 2020, purely because of the fact that they were the only other writer covering niche topics like sigilkore and digicore. That should give some sense of how small the landscape is for documenting internet music ephemera. There has not even been a YouTube video essay on hexD since one uploaded by 108 Mics in 2020. Orvis wrote a lot for the blog Passion of the Weiss, there's a bunch of other important blogs and writers I source like Enis' Chasing Sundays, Hyland's SAMMY'S WORLD, Nina Protocol... etc.

The original TikTok by Ben White also shows some jealousy because they edit Wikipedia and felt that there was no reason for me to be interviewed, but if that is the case, why not create pages for internet aesthetics, hexD, digicore, or jerk, all of which are culturally significant? They ironically say that Pitchfork is a reputable and important publication so what I'm saying which isn't important shouldn't be on there. But if what I'm saying is on Pitchfork doesn't that mean it's important? Pages for important record labels like Dismiss Yourself had not existed until I decided to do it. That TikTok is bizarre in the fact that they do not delete any comments spreading misinformation about how me and Kieran are the same person or working together and even went as far as to imply that Kieran would write a whole article about themselves as a Wikipedia editor under a Nigerian name.

People spreading these conspiracies also ignore that I have created pages unrelated to internet culture like the Los Angeles freak scene, the 1960s “freak out” slang fad, and the Sex Pistols’ Lesser Free Trade Hall show. I have even considered making a page for the 1950s Payola scandal. It is surprising that such a major event in the music industry still does not have a Wikipedia page. Many people have told me they were shocked that the Sex Pistols’ legendary show, possibly one of the most important concerts of the 20th century, did not have a page. So does that not again show you how most people have not given a fuck about this stuff and ignored it when it is so vital to understanding a lot of music history on the front page of the Internet? I mean how many people even massively contribute to Wikipedia? Most of the site is written by like 300 people. This is also the case for history in general, like have you not heard that less than 1% of people even write a book in their lifetime!?!?

At the end of the day, no one in mainstream media is covering niche hexD subgenres like “sextrance.” It is extremely obscure, and it is worth recognizing that Kieran is helping legitimize these artists in real time. People also overlook that Kieran had already been cited on Wikipedia multiple times before I even started editing, you can see it on pages like Corecore and Infinite Craft.

Kieran’s Rabbit Holed column focuses on niche internet spaces, that's the whole point. Pitchfork has never shyed away from stuff like this. Think of the well-known Radiohead review written in a gonzo style about how it changed the writer’s life. Last year, Kieran even did a column on the TikTok Marxist meme page thomassankarafan like this is not out of the ordinary at all if you're in the loop lmao. At worst I feel the column should have highlighted other editors, but there's truly nothing more to it than that.