Moving Slowly But Surely

September 7th, 2024

Hey, me again. A bit late, and I was planning on getting one of these last Friday, but couldn't really find the motivation. Classes started, and I've gotta get back into the groove of working on a schedule, because I guess I lost it. I honestly don't know what to do for it anymore, just gonna have to go at it and see if a work ethic is something you just dive into. Anyways, there was something I wanted to talk about before but wasn't sure if I wanted to. I'd have to get a bit personal near the end, but the idea was too interesting to give up on.

Dan Olson's video "I Don't Know James Rolfe" is deeply interesting to me. I don't have nearly as much of a connection as Dan, but regardless the creativity and thoroughness on display makes it his best video, maybe even one of the best on the platform. There's almost always a unique way to present footage throughout the video, Dan pushing his filmmaking skills as far as he can. There's a lot of meaning packed into it, Dan is not only looking through Rolfe's work but also his own perspective on it. As much as it critiques Rolfe, it humanizes him and reflects on how rough his sitation was at the time.

I tried searching "has James Rolfe reacted to Dan Olson" just out of curiosity. Obviously, he didn't, but there were some reddit posts about the video, and the comments from there are a bit interesting in their own right. In a lesser version of Wavelength or even how James Rolfe reflects on Dan Olsen, the reactions to the video are more reflective of what people think of James Rolfe, Dan Olsen, and their own level of media literacy. Some only saw the video as a shutdown on Cinemassacre, James Rolfe, and the Nerd. Others viewed it as Dan's personal Wavelength, only acting to say more about him than Rolfe.

I won't detail each and every post, I'll just give my own take on it. To view the video as a critique of James Rolfe or only Dan's reflection of his life is oversimplifying the message and misses the forest for the trees. It is an analysis of the life of James Rolfe, based on the public information that we have, through the eyes of Dan Olsen. And as he moves through what ultimately ends up saying nothing, the mundane life of a man he's never met, the video reaches a silent climax by having Dan look in the mirror and realize that what he was really looking for were his own insecurities being reflected through a man who is satisfied embodying them.

The video does not compensate for criticisms by saying that it reflects on Dan himself. He will sympathize with Rolfe, show his circumstances, never go further than necessary to get the point across, but he does not use his projections to soften the blow. The most telling point of it is that even in the Reddit comments saying that Dan went too far, none of them ever disagree with his conclusions. The issue they have is not that Dan lied or misled the viewer, it's that he was rude. They see the issues that Dan points out and see them as scathing, when the reality is that Dan himself mentions that it's fine for things to be this way, AVGN "is not a load-bearing pillar of reality" and Rolfe doesn't need to push himself creatively to make every single video. They're like the Cinemassacre Truthers here: They aren't disagreeing with the video, they're being scared by their own shadows, their own fears of what Rolfe and Dan already accept.

I don't want to end it here, so I'll come back tomorrow and finish up with the second half.

On a bit of a side tangent, "I Don't Know James Rolfe" recontextualizes a lot of other Folding Ideas videos. When Dan goes to Vegas to do a few skits between talking about Wall Street Bets, I didn't really remember it. It was just some extra stuff between the content. Now, though, I can recogize what it's supposed to be. It was padding, fleshing out the work to make it more than just a video essay. The same goes for all of the other real life bits in other videos. When Dan goes to a lake to check for the Earth's curvature, or writes a book in two weeks, that's to elevate the level of his analysis, make it as authentic as possible.

Alright, where were we? Right, there was this one comment under the video, it ended with saying that "His descent into mediocrity is relatable on a human level." My opinion on this didn't originate with the comment, but it's a good springboard. I can ask my rational mind and get a decent explanation agreeing with this idea. I've seen plenty of artists find their artstyle and stick to it forever, James Rolfe doing the same with AVGN should be no different. It is, undisputedly, common for people to find their niche and stay there, but framing them like that feels... wrong.

It's good to clarify now that this is clearly a "me" thing. I don't think it's bad for people to do this, to be happy where they are. It's just that the idea of stopping at a certain point personally rubs me the wrong way. Continuing to work, not even for a company or desk job, but creatively, at the same level for as long as you can, is something I have trouble understanding.

Another video, The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall, features a much more straight-forward criticism. Doug Walker does not have endlessly complex problems that are easier viewed through the lens in which they dissatisfy you, he just screws up. The video on him is much more impersonal, and isn't hard to wrap your head around. He didn't understand The Wall, and made a parody album featuring that on full display. There's no discomfort, only obvious failures. Despite being in a similar position to James Rolfe, it's easy to put down Doug Walker for the same or worse criticisms without batting an eye. Because... The Nostalgia Critic fails. Doug Walker can try to make a bigger production and push his skills to higher heights, but failing those attempts leaves nothing to the imagination.

It's easy to understand failure. If you try at something and fall short, that happens all the time. If you push something off and procrastinate the day away, that's no different. Everyone's spent a day doing nothing important, that's fine too. But to work, successfully, at the same level you were at decades ago, not just anyone does that. At no point has Rolfe failed to reach his own standards; by those measures, he is as successful as he's always been. The question is if those standards in themselves are wrong to keep. And at this point, the question starts pointing inwards.

Forgive me in advance if I write a "I'll stop talking here" and end on a dime, there's probably a certain point where I catch on to this being too personal and drop it. It's also been the better part of a day, I had to leave for awhile and now it's 10:15 PM and this post still isn't finished.

I guess part of it is that I don't see an endpoint to the work. No matter how good I get, there's never a point where it's fine to stop. Sure, there might be an objective point where there might be no obvious way to improve, but that's not really what I mean. The point is that if I have to do something, I'd do it the best that I can. It's perfectionism. Not the stereotypical "nothing is good enough" perfectionism, but a "best for my situation" type. Sure, if I'm working at 3 AM on an essay due at 6 AM, I don't mind if it's not my magnum opus. It's mostly setting a goal and reaching it. If I'm doing something for myself, I'm making sure that it's done "right".

There's also the idea that even if I somehow reach a plateau in a certain skill, I can always just spend my time on something else, another skill to learn and perfect. Like I said before, the part I don't get is continuing to do something while staying in the same place. Moving onto something else and letting a skill stagnate is fine, since it's not that you're staying in place, your focus is just in another area.

There's a part of me that wants to call it fear, but that doesn't describe it as well. It's closer to incompatiblity. The fear is not thinking of the act, it's imagining myself in that position. I don't think I'll ever be able to feel that way, and viewing a version of myself is scary by the fact that I'm picturing myself without an aspect of my personality, something that's almost load-bearing in how I view my own life. In that lack of function, I'm no better than I am in my worst days, just... Yeah, I'm tapping out.