Bogdan Raczynski interviews Bogdan Raczynski

The ember for this 2.5/5 star word buffet is the way in which art is entangled with politics, capitalism, injustice, and its responsibility in addressing these issues.

This was incredibly difficult to write, a collection of self-inflicted humiliations. But I hope it might provide some balm to others that are having similar internal dialogues – how can I make a living while still being creative and honest without hastening my own demise while still being an ally of justice and minimising the climate chaos spiral.

As difficult as it is to acknowledge, we are all responsible for our situation. Blaming a few people, governments, and CEOs is insufficient; all of our systems would crumble if the rest of us stopped supporting them. Being painfully honest is what’s needed.

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Does anybody still read?

It’s not that there isn’t anything new to say, clearly there isn’t. All we’re doing is freshening things up for a newer generation; cooler slang, edgier analogies, a hipper platform.

No, the question is whether there’s any point in writing any more.

It’s not that I question the value of the word. Obviously, words mean nothing. They are stones, dead, useless. We, the readers, give them purpose, not by READING them but by doing something WITH them.

No, I question whether there’s any value in the reader.

Yes, you.

If someone shares something with you, but you do nothing with it then you have nullified the meaning of those words.

If we do this often enough and to enough people, the meaning slowly bleeds out.

This is what we have been witnessing and grappling with, the loss of meaning.

Artists are the canary in the coal mine.

We entrust them to tell us the truth, the kind that kids know of before they learn about the world of lying. We let artists in to paint our lives and soundtrack our summers and heal our heartbreak more intimately than we allow even ourselves.

There is no greater betrayal than when they, too, have fallen silent.

/Bogdan: Hey?

Bogdan: oh fuck, not you again.

/Bogdan: what’s up?

Bogdan: Jesus, I’m just trying to get some work done, my taxes are overdue and I’ve got 12 other things I’m rotating between forgetting about while five other mental notifications ding in and out just long enough for me to feel guilty enough that I’m forced to do something. What do you want this time?

/Bogdan: have you see that clip of that artist running off the stage in a hissy fit over being called out for being on team evil?

Bogdan: you don’t even have the courage to call them out by name?

/Bogdan: not really, do you?

Bogdan: no, I’m a fucking coward. But I think in this instance there is more power in being vague. Instead of thinking about the person and context I’m thinking about others are left to wonder if we’re thinking of someone else in connection with something else at some other date which is useful because I have little doubt that this is going to continue to happen.

Plus, who the fuck am I? It’s taken me 10 years to get 14,162 followers on Instagram and 2539 on Youtube; nobody gives a fuck what I have to say. My biggest achievement is a quote from Aphex Twin saying that I’m “underrated” for some shit I did 25 years ago.

/Bogdan: so only people with an ample enough platform should speak up about wrongs? Aren’t you being hypocritical?

Bogdan: shit, fair point… but what are my true intentions? Do I genuinely intend to have an impact or simply virtue signal from the comfort of my phone? And what about all the other fuckers that’ve been silent or vocally on the side of evil?

/Bogdan: well?

Bogdan: well, it’s pathetic, yeah, but aren’t we all? The rest of us think ourselves to be so supreme because we’re aware yet we sit on our asses doing what… furiously liking and reposting and occasionally meeting up with others to walk down the street and shout at the fucking sky because nobody else listens?

/Bogdan: so you’re just going to be complicit and not do your part to call that shit out?

Bogdan: fuck, man, idk what the fuck to do.

/Bogdan: maybe start with calling out the shit you see in your sphere?

Bogdan: tell that to those being mass murdered or starved or ethnically cleansed or “re-educated” in internment camps or forced to dig for rare minerals as 5 year olds.

/Bogdan: I know, it’s fucked up. Is there an ethical and responsible way to live and work and be creative during this time?

Bogdan: no.

/Bogdan: Fuck, so what do I do?

Bogdan: well, for starters we amplify the news sharers and boycott the living fuck out of the complicit corporations.

/Bogdan: I’m sure Google and Amazon and Coca Cola and Apple are losing sleep over your armchair activism.
Bogdan: BDS fucking works! What else do you suggest?

/Bogdan: There’s no silver bullet. Like I said, start with your own neighbourhood. Why are we avoiding the elephant in the room?

Bogdan: ugh, it’s so difficult. We’ve entrusted the makers and poets and musicians with our hearts and minds and now they’re either silent or stuck on “it’s-complicated.”

/Bogdan: how do we go back to listening and watching and reading the works of these people…

Bogdan: knowing that (not so) deep down they’re pieces of shit?

/Bogdan: yeah, but don’t get fucking high and mighty. What the fuck are you doing?

Bogdan: I know, that’s also why it’s hard to call shit out; how am I any less complicit?

/Bogdan: don’t make excuses you coward.

Bogdan: I’m not doing enough, but amplifying and boycotting is better than nothing. And even nothing is better than saying “it’s complicated” or saying that art and politics don’t belong in the same sentence.

/Bogdan: That last one drives me fucking insane.

Bogdan: right? Politics is not something you do, it’s something you ARE.

/Bogdan: oh, good one, let’s use that one.

Bogdan: done.

/Bogdan: does that mean that a person’s inaction and/or views can be so bad that we should consider the entirety of their works to be tainted? Poisoned? Empty?

Bogdan: I’m starting to think so. If your wellspring is not empathy then what the fuck is it?

/Bogdan: and do you therefore lose all trust in that artist?

Bogdan: yeah, I think it’s that simple.

/Bogdan: baby and the bathwater?

Bogdan: fuck it, throw out the goddamned bathtub while you’re at it; the whole fucking system is rotten.

/Bogdan: you mean like the one you’re taking part in?

Bogdan: yeah, I know, I’m also neck deep in complicity in this horrible system that pledges allegiance to capitalism and enriching the illionaires. The music industry is no less a part of that.

/Bogdan: so you can’t really say you’re doing everything in your power to stop this, can you?

Bogdan: no, I can’t. I can’t avoid the reality that I am benefiting from this horrible system. It is enabling me to sustain myself financially and therefore my family and my creative soul.

/Bogdan: that’s fucked up.

Bogdan: we’re doomed.

/Bogdan: aren’t you being a hypocrite? You’re calling out the system while you sit from within the system? Isn’t this some reverse Stockholm syndrome type shit?

Bogdan: yes, I am being a hypocrite. I haven’t figured it all out. I am still profiting from these horrible platforms, whether materially or through reach. But you know what, I don’t need to have the answers in order to ask questions and point fingers. I think this reflexive demand for answers is bullshit. That’s why we’re having a conversation.

/Bogdan: dude, how is this a conversation, you’re literally talking to yourself.

Bogdan: whatever, stop interrupting. Why the fuck are we regular folk expected to have answers? Isn’t that precisely why we have governments and leaders and scientists and experts and all of these international institutions? Aren’t they all supposed to be looking out for us?

/Bogdan: so how does burning bridges by calling out people and platform by name help anyone

Bogdan: because what we need now more than ever is not love, we don’t need more conversations, we don’t need understanding nor peace, and we certainly don’t need both sides of the story or respect. What we fucking need now is truth.

/Bogdan: you mean the kind of truth where people call you out for being a hypocrit and inconsistent and whiny and partaking in and benefiting from these systems you’re taking shots at?

Bogdan: yeah, ngl, it’s scary as fuck. As it stands my career is running solely on fumes.

/Bogdan: shouldn’t you just keep your head down and play along until you’ve gotten some clout so your words have more meaning?

Bogdan: fuck that, I might get hit by a bus on my way to the store today.

/Bogdan: jesus, why do you always have to be so fucking dramatic?

Bogdan: why are more people not more dramatic?

/Bogdan: you want everybody to be embarrassing themselves? Do we really need more high school art class quality videos of people draping themselves with audio cables?

Bogdan: don’t patronise me. The high schoolers are going to inherit this fucking perpetual fiasco of a world, show some respect. And we’ve been back and forth on this a hundred times, the cable shit was embarrassing but how can you expect if you’re not giving truth? Humility is beautiful, it’s embarrassing and it’s painful but when I say that truth is what we need I mean even when it’s embarrassing and painful.

/Bogdan: idk, you raise some decent points, but overall you sound pretty fucking unhinged. Brolords talking about aliens inventing smartphones sound more grounded.

Bogdan: the way I see it, if I was unhinged I’d give up, go back to doomscrolling viral cheese recipes and dance crazes and bury deep all those videos of mass murders and ethnic cleansing and internment camps and 5 year olds getting buried in mines as they’re looking for parts for our next phone.

/Bogdan: what’re you saying?

Bogdan: I’m saying that all of us “unhinged” ones flailing desperately and naively and uncomfortably and insufficiently are actually the optimistic ones. If we didn’t have hope or didn’t expect better then we’d shut the fuck up and be “normal.”

/Bogdan: what does all of this have to do with creativity anyway?

Bogdan: what the fuck does it NOT have to do with creativity? What is creativity without honesty or empathy? What is life without empathy?

/Bogdan: capitalism?

Bogdan: I’m no longer sure that capitalism is the problem. Just like I don’t think a few specific artists are the problem or that a few specific leaders are the problem. The only reason these people have power is because we given it to them.

/Bogdan: sounds like you’re deflecting and making excuses again so you don’t have to make the hard choices.

Bogdan: you’re probably right. I feel like we’ve just gone in a big circle.

/Bogdan: yeah, this is getting a bit fucking tiresome.

Bogdan: *sigh*

You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever is out now.

All the links are here