FWR Aaron

2 minutes ago, longtimeman said:

Hi Aaron. It's good to see you here! I always enjoyed your videos, and the way you paid respect to the artists you were reacting to, and tried to understand what they are doing creatively, not just jumping to the conclusion that everything in a song is simply a diary entry broken up into short lines.  I'm glad you're doing well, and whenever you get around to the mass of music that Lana has released, I"m sure you'll enjoy it, even if it is off camera.

30 minutes ago, MagicalTrancePotion said:

I loved how you connected with her music. Hope everything is going well for you and your family 

Thank you, guys!  I really appreciate this.

Things are going well, and real life is pretty wild. My kids are launching into adulthood, with driving, and jobs, and college.  It's a joy to watch them as they do. 😊

I wasn’t really sure where to post this (or if it'd even be OKAY), so thanks to @Elle for pointing me in the right direction. 

Up until spring of 2023, I had a YouTube channel called For Whatever Reason, on which I documented my first listens to NFR!, COTCC, BB, and the first half of DYKTTATUOB, song-by-song. Frankly, I prided myself putting out videos that were atypical of the run-of-the-mill "reaction" channels out there, which seemed to be full of clickbait-y titles, and had thumbnails of people screaming and/or exploding. I wanted my stuff to be more about actual music exploration, appreciation, and community. I aimed to be genuine and thorough, and a lot of my videos were on the longer side, because I'd often play not only the album version of a song, but also live versions, along with occasional supplemental material, like interviews or making-of-the-song type-stuff.

The channel did well, but it took up FAR too much of my time, and I needed to shut it all down in April to focus more on my family and my mental health. I received a lot of messages asking me why I didn't just leave the YouTube channel alive, even if I'd stopped making videos. The answer is that I KNOW myself. I would have been tempted to dive back in to comment sections, and I'd have felt the pull to dedicate more and more of my time to it. 

I've been doing a lot of reprioritizing (and therapy) in the interim, stepping away from almost all social media, but I've made all of those old Lana videos available on my Patreon, which is basically on auto-pilot, and doesn't require a lot of day-to-day maintenance from me. I’ve now got all four of the LDR albums that I listened to on YouTube grouped as Patreon “collections” (which are similar to playlists). There are some non-album tracks there, too. Access to everything is a buck.

As I write this, I STILL haven't listened to the back half of Tunnel, nor have I heard any of Lana's pre-NFR! output.  My hope is that I'll eventually get back to exploring her career, but at a more sustainable (slower) pace, and in a way that I could still share those first listens, without it compromising my duties as a husband and dad. I'm just not there yet. 

At any rate, thanks in advance if you decide to check any of this stuff out!

-Aaron