bst

i will line edit your writing (thesis paper / think piece / artist statement)

Noticed a bunch of people who reached out about doing a studio visit were ultimately looking for a close read on their writing, so.....

Bump up to the $50 tier this month if you want me to line edit + give overall feedback on your artist statement, think piece, or thesis paper

This is an irresponsibly underpriced offer compared to the cost of getting a line edit via a college class lol

Here's what I look to develop in an edit:

-a BOLD thesis statement. The first paragraph should immediately pique the reader's interest while establishing your intentions for what comes next

-CLARITY in every part of the writing. No nonsense, no wordiness, no repetition. Writing is meant to be enjoyed and understood by the reader, not bore them into submission

-overall CONSISTENCY. What are the core insights of this writing and how do they relate back to the thesis? Does the analysis make sense? Does the writing build to a clear conclusion?

bump up a tier, send me an email at bradtroemel@gmail.com with your writing attached and i'll get back to you ASAP

50 PRINTS SHIPPED TO PATRONS!!

PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!

e-mails have been sent to all the recipients

and guess what? if you didn't get one this month, i'm doing it again next month :-)

Studio visits available tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday Nov 16)

Hello,

if you are available to do a studio visit over Zoom from the hours of 4:00 - 7:00 pm EST on Wednesday November 16, then send me an e-mail with a link to the work you'd like to discuss and any other relevant attachments.

I'm gonna look through the applicants and try to find 5 people whose work I'm best equipped to offer feedback on.

I'm going to review the first 20 emails I receive then choose 5 from that pool.

my e-mail is

bradtroemel@gmail.com

THE CELEBRITY ARTIST REPORT

graphic design by Anson Nguyen 

video outro edited by Nick Vyssotsky 

music by Deftones - Change (in the house of flies) 

PRINT G*VEAWAY THIS MONTH!!

Hello I'm sending 50 random patrons a signed print this month so if you’re signed up there’s a decent chance there will be a little gift in your mailbox come the first week of November 😋👀😎

In the mean time I'm currently writing the CELEBRITY ART REPORT with the aim of releasing it at the end of the month.

P.S. 

If you haven't watched last month's HUSTLE REPORT check it out here! 

October's Very Own Report + more more more

here's a little peak at what's coming up.

sound off below if there's anything you want me to cover!?

the HUSTLE report

credits:

Graphic design by Anson Nguyen

Outro video produced by Nick Vyssotsky

Shirt by @earth_worm.exe

Song by Bring Me The Horizon

research chemicals:

• Line Goes Up by Dan Olson
• Among the Reality Entrepreneurs (Urbit goes downtown) by James Duesterberg
• Web 3 Is Going Great by Molly White
• NFT ep on Trueanon
• The Intellectual Incoherence of Cryptoassets by Stephen Diehl
• NFTs: crypto grifters try to scam artists, again by David Gerard
• On The Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
• Texas Messiahs, Cognitive Dissonance by Sean Joseph Patrick Carney
• Tales From The Thrifts: from savings and loan banks to the crypto hucksters by Noah Kulwin
• Why Are Young People Pretending To Love Work? By Erin Griffith
• Sam Bankman Fried (wealthiest crypto billionaire on earth) openly admitting the entire industry is a Ponzi scheme via Bloomberg
• Reality Intrudes on a Crypto Utopia by Eric Lipton and Ephrat Livni
• This Social Club Runs on Crypto Tokens and Vibes by Erin Woo and Kevin Roose
• How Influencers Hype Crypto Without Disclosing Their Financial Ties by David Yaffe-Bellany

Bonus:

watch the NFT report from 2021

THE HUSTLE REPORT is next!!

coming september: the HUSTLE REPORT. 

a look at how the past decade of hustle culture memes have reflected broader changes in the economy and social media.

do NOT miss this one.

and if you haven't watched the KAYFABE report then check it out! especially if you've been watching The Rehearsal

THE KAYFABE REPORT

In this report I talk about..........

-the history of professional wrestling and how it went from a war-time sport to a carnival-inspired form of theater called kayfabe (0:00 - 16:29)

-Andy Kaufman's wrestling-inspired career, how he used babyface and heel characters to get his audience to question the line between fiction and reality (16:30 - 44:43)

-3 tiers of transgression and where Andy Kaufman's work fits among them (44:44 - 54:32)

my favorite writing I came across:

1. Lost in The Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman by Bill Zehme

The reason you'll see this book referenced by alllll the other books written about Kaufman is because this is the best biography of Kaufman written! It's super detailed without being boring. It seamlessly combines hundreds of different interviews with the people around Kaufman and their primary sources into one cohesive voice. If you're going to read one book about Kaufman check this out.

2. Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America by Scott Beekman

A concise history from America's beginnings to present day McMahondom. The author does a great job gleaning the best insights from academic writing without falling victim to tangents or moralizing. It moved from era to era of wrestling with a consistent grasp of what made each different and the people who defined them. 

3. Andy Kaufman: Wrestling With the American Dream by Florian Keller

There are some great insights in here about censorship and Kaufman's work in general ....if you can handle the theoryspeak/PhD-thesis paper elbow patch style of writing. But it's good!

4. I'm From Hollywood by Lynne Margulies and Joe Orr

A documentary made by Kaufman's widow about his life as a professional wrestler. It features interviews with Kaufman's comedy friends that never reveal his performance as a work, each offering their "heartfelt concerns" about Andy's safety and mental health during his kayfabe feud hehe. I'm guessing media rights precluded them from being able to include too much from the Letterman appearance (much like how WWE-owned media rights stopped me from uploading this video to youtube) but the doc gives a complete picture of their entire feud from start to finish, with clips of ALL the promos and matches. Highly recommended.

5. Andy Kaufman FULL video archive on Youtube as one convenient playlist

Can't get any better than watching the real thing.

6. The Art of the Heel by Mike Edison

My favorite of all the "politics is like wrestling nowadays" articles that connects kayfabe to the mango stained shitgibbon who used to rub cheetoh dust on his little hands in the oval office. xD

LOT'S OF UPDATES! NEW PROJECTS COMING IN JULY!

hey gang, i've been working on three projects this month that will all be coming out in july. they include.....

1. The KAYFABE / Andy Kaufman Report

This one started as being a report about Andy Kaufman alone then I realized the part of Kaufman's career I wanted to talk about the most was his time as a professional wrestler. The way Kaufman created an all-consuming heel character across media channels made me start researching the history of kayfabe so the report has slightly shifted focus. The report is now a history of wrestling entertainment in America, with a special focus on how Kaufman's work brilliantly responded to that history. This report has probably been the most fun I've had researching a topic (compared to, say, reading Artspeak for several hours a day) so hopefully that comes through in the final product. 

2. Season 2 of Main Characters and Events

Hunter's back and you won't believe what he's been up to at Playground Gallery the past year! I'm done with the first 4 storylines for the new season with plans to finalize ~6 or so more after that. The new season comes complete with a new clothing line, new gallery installs, new physical paintings being made, new LORE. I've been writing the next installment of MCE for the past few months so I'm stoked to finally start releasing new parts of the story come mid-July.

3. Anson and I have been designing a tour poster for one of your FAVORITE podcasts 

As you may have seen from the crops I've posted to Instagram, I've been working on making an entire flat hellcity. The concept is a riff on Equiterra, the U.N.'s proposed DEI utopia. There's gonna be hundreds and hundreds of details and tiny hehe's :-) to discover in this one and it will be available for purchase on the podcast's tour. I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say which pod but it rhymes with BlueAnon. 

the social media beef report

in this report i talk about...

-how institutional failure has led to the success of independent outlets (podcasts,substacks,patreons) as an alternative for people looking to form a media-consumption-diet-turned-peer-group

-how those independent outlets are then pressured to fulfill the role of the institutions that came before them by recreating consensus worldviews/endorsement networks

-how the contentious nature of building these endorsement networks leads to conflict and resentment (how the oversharing and co-signing that builds up the outlet is the same thing that inevitably causes it trouble)

-formation of “Negative Fandoms”, or places where people congregate on social media to relentlessly criticize the object of their fandom

-conflict is the content, all the different things made in response to a post are an inseparable extension of whatever content initially provoked them to be created

-the content hierarchy of appreciation, guilt, and conflict

-how conflict is emotionally and algorithmically designed for audience participation

THE SOCIAL MEDIA BEEF REPORT

When I did the AMA the #1 question I got was some version of WHATS YOUR OPINION ON THE BEEF BETWEEN X PERSON AND Y PERSON???? so I made a whole report about social media conflicts and the dynamics behind them. Video comes out June 6 😳

ASK ME ANYTHING! new video

Hey gang, still working on the Andy Kaufman report + Season 2 of Main Characters and Events so I'm gonna do a little AMA video in the meantime.

I feel like this could be a fun chance to quickly touch on a bunch of topics that might not warrant a full half hour video but could be summed up in a minute or two?

Drop your questions below or feel free to DM me on Instagram ;-)

Zoom studio visits available on Sunday!

Hello, 

if you are available to do a studio visit over Zoom from the hours of 1:00 - 4:00 pm EST on Sunday May 15, then send me an e-mail with a link to the work you'd like to discuss.

I'm gonna look through the applicants and try to find 5 people whose work I'm best equipped to offer feedback on.

I'm going to review the first 20 emails I receive then choose 5 from that pool.

my e-mail is

bradtroemel@gmail.com

the ANDY KAUFMAN report coming up this month!

It's gonna be a dope and savage report about Andy Kaufman's legendary work + his influence on today's comedy + anti-comedy + wrestling entertainment + mass media hoaxes and much much more

People have asked me to 'do a report about art you actually like for once you frickin scrooge' so, guess what? Here it is! Half an hour of me talking about one of my all time favorites hehehehehee

UPCOMING REPORTS!

Plus, if you haven't watched the report that caused me to lose 3,000+ Instagram followers yet, then be sure to check out THE ARTSPEAK REPORT !!

the ARTSPEAK report

1. International Art English by Alix Rule and David Levine

2. The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe

3. Elite Overproduction overview

NY in person studio visits available for tomorrow

Hey let's try this again lol

If you are available to do a studio visit from the hours of 3:00 - 7:00 pm tomorrow at Forlinis in NY then please send me an e-mail with a link to the work you'd like to discuss.

I'm going to look through the applicants and try to find 4 people whose work I'm best suited to discuss at length.

I'm going to review the first 20 emails I receive then choose 4 from that pool.

my e-mail is

bradtroemel@gmail.com

in person studio visits now available!!

Hey these are in Hudson, NY tomorrow evening (Monday March 7)

they are IN PERSON, not over the lap top!

please only sign up if you're sure you can show up:

https://calendly.com/bradtroemel/hudson-in-person-studio-visits?month=2022-03&date=2022-03-07

the SELFIE MUSEUM REPORT

song id: 

i9bonsai - nthn 

reads:

1. The State of Culture 1 by Ben Davis

2. Reprivatizing Art in The Name of Equality by Angela Nagel

3. The Rise of Immersive Art by Anna Weiner

4. Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia by Richard Hertz (probably deserves a report of its own)

5. Selfies Are Not Self Expression by Rob Horning

6. Susan Sontag on photography refresher

7. DIS #artselfie archive of Instagram posts (incredible scroll esp if you're a millennial who was in the NY art world this looks like Cobrasnake now lol) 

8. Against Curating by Stefan Heidenrich (my original Art Exhibitions Without Artists chapter had a few paragraphs comparing that phenomenon of #artisterasure to "The Curatorial" / 89+ as a similar process where organizers overshadow exhibitors but I figured it was too tangential. Sharing this short/fun read in case I never return to the subject) 

9. International Art English by Alix Rule and David Levine (might have to do a full report on this some day)

10. Josh Citarella and Dean Kissick on art and transgression 

new report monday

the SELFIE REPORT is coming..

NEW REPORT COMING SOON :-)

monday march 8, 2022

NEW REPORT COMING FEBRUARY 28

THE CULTURE WAR REPORT

BOOOMMMM!!!!! ready to get TRIGGERED?!? xD

Links:

1. The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron

2. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism by Fred Turner

3. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis

4. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

5. Undress or fail: Instagram’s algorithm strong-arms users into showing skin

6. Touchscreen Capture by Mark Fisher

7. I Write The Songs by Rob Horning

8. Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead by WSJ

9. Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show by WSJ

10. FaceBook Apologizes For Psychological Experiments on Users

new report coming next month January 2022!

THE FAKE NEWS REPORT is a look at how big tech monopolies determine reality– both through the news stories algorithmically promoted and the intentionally vague guidelines for user censorship that allow them to police discourse under the guise of "fact checking". Fans of Silicon Valley should NOT watch this report next month!!!

in person studio visits at Forlinis tomorrow! friday dec 10

available to all patrons

all times are EST

visits are half an hour long

we can talk about whatever you want but you have to come prepared to talk about *something* ;-)

sign up for a time slot here:

https://calendly.com/bradtroemel/in-person-studio-visits-at-forlinis?month=2021-12&date=2021-12-10

wednesday studio visits available for guaranteed tier

sign up sheet here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/59635652

THE FUNKO REPORT

What’s behind our cultural obsession with nostalgia? Why’s it feel like there’s nothing new happening? How has entertainment fandom become a political identity? And what the heck is going on with men? How has masculinity become defined by either infantilizing yourself or cosplaying as a kitschy traditionalist? 

1. Mark Fisher - the slow cancellation of the future 

2. Contrapoints - men 

3. Making Fun: the story of funko pop 

new report coming Monday December 6!!

The FUNKO REPORT will be coming on Monday, prepare yourself....

in person studio visits available for tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland!

Times are for 2:00 / 3:00 / 4:00 PM.

I have no idea why the calendar lists them as 20/21/22, but just know that on the sign up sheet

20:00 = 2:00 pm

21:00 = 3:00 pm

22:00 = 4:00 pm

Studio visits are IN PERSON (not over zoom) and go 45 minutes. We can talk about whatever you want but you have to come with *something* you want to talk about ;-)

https://calendly.com/bradtroemel/geneva-in-person-studio-visits?month=2021-11&date=2021-11-11