Compositesludge
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2019
He tries so hard to be Tom McDonald, but he doesn't "get" Tom McDonald, so it ends up being almost a parody of it.
"Kids are getting weaker because of society. Pumpkin spiced Ativan for seasonal anxiety". That's funny and coherent. Jr is barely comprehensible in his song.
Jr flexing about working at a gas station is...odd at best and I don't think Jr actually understands what a flex actually means. It's something that few people have done or are currently doing. Having a wife and full time job aren't a flex. They're quite the opposite of a flex.
A better flex would be saying something along the lines of Jr ruining 3 career paths in so many years.
I was going through the rap line by line, but stopped because it was a lot of effort and I don't think anybody would want to read that much of my bullshit. But the conclusion I came to was about the same that you came to. I joked about his rapping being a random subject and then a snippet from his life, and I'm a little disappointed that his rap was exactly that, but for far, far too long.
The flex Jr's going for is about being, well, boring. The conceit of this song is partially that his life is boring but pragmatic, and that's the kind of life that everybody should be proud to have. The other conceit is an oft-incomprehensible political screed against stimulus checks, vaccines, and anti-Christian sentiments, and the only thing it conjures to mind is a man destined for mediocrity flailing against it by pretending that it's impressive. Nothing in his life is actually bad, it's just proof of how amazing he really is and what incredible things he's doing and going to do.
He's not squandering every opportunity he had. He's "fading like Kobe," which is a weird thing to say because Kobe's legacy is and will always be far greater than Jr's. He's not disliked because his music sucks. He's disliked because he has morals, is a straight white male, and is going head to head against cancel culture by (???). He's not at the gas station by choice. He's there with his squad, working overtime and trying to be patient (for what?) and feels amazing, presumably because he's not relying on stimulus money and can feed his children, this bit's pretty ambiguous because he's actually trying to cope with it rather than endorse it.
You compared him to Tom McDonald, but I think that's a little too kind a comparison to make. He's more like Don Quixote (perhaps with Jack as his Sancho) combined with Alex Jones, but with none of the intelligence, wit, charisma, and other positive attributes that those two men have. It's less a rap song and more a manifesto in defense of crab mentality, in which those succeeding because of what society has offered them (if one would be so charitable to draw a link between his many educational opportunities and stimulus money) are the enemy because of the opioid epidemic. If there was a church of mediocre dumbassery, Jr. wouldn't be its patron deity, or an angel, or even a saint. But this song would definitely be one of its hymns.