The whole story with this guy as far as I understand it is very weird.

He had written a number of songs that he self published to his youtube about a year ago. They did good enough to be noticed by a publisher who presumably approached him with an offer.

So in september 2022 he or his company create accounts on Spotify, Soundcloud and Instagram, likely as part of the publishing deal. At the same time, on his youtube channel, a playlist is created, titled “Videos that make you think”.

Soon after he stops uploading music to his youtube channel, but continues with some non music videos. Shortly before his first single (the song in the title of the post) is released, he posts a video explaining the story behind it and him. This by itself is not weird, he knew when the single would be released and because he signed a deal, he knew it would be promoted.

But the way it was promoted is not normal. From what I’ve seen it was promoted by right-wing personalities, including daily wire people, as an organic sucsess, immediately after release. And because Oliver Anthony was pretty much unknown before this song was released I doubt that the song was naturally sucsessful before it started being promoted.

The song itself got some sus lyrics. Like that the fat people on welfare got more verses than the rich people north of Richmond. Also since Richmond was the capital of the confederacy, north of Richmod could refer to just DC, or to Union states, making it, intentionally or not, a dogwhistle.

And then there’s the playlist. Not gonna lie, some videos in it have really bad vibes. There’s some Peterson, some random videos and also some 9/11 conspiracy videos like 2 videos about “dancing israelis” or a video about how some real estate developer (also jewish) took an insurance on the towers before the attack.

My opinion of him after all that was really unfavorable. But then he started saying things like “diversity is our strength” which earned him criticism from the right, and now this. I still think the lyrics in his single miss the mark and that the conspiracy videos in his playlist are really bad, but maybe he personally does not believe those things.

I’d say that doesn’t just apply to social media users, but rather to people in general.