Comedian turned meta-pop artist jake from the timeline introduces his new vertical music video, “5G.”
Jake explains, “For better and for worse, our relationships are largely mediated by the internet,” jake said. “Some people are terrified by the way it’s influenced our world, some take on a kind of utopian attitude, and I can relate to both. To me, what’s important is to positivise that alienation and distortion, to make something constructive that expresses the value of playfulness and humor in a dangerously unsubtle environment.”
On a different timeline, jake from the timeline, aka Jake Fertig, was a Mashable comedy director and performer who ‘save drake’s life’ and began the ‘world’s youngest boy band’ until social media platforms shuttered editorial online video and his role along with it. Jake responded by posting pedestrian Instagram stories as performance art.
According to Jake, “I got the urge to start posting Instagram stories that were increasingly dumb. I’d post a video of myself talking about sitting in a chair or recommending pasta to people visiting Italy. I had this idea that people would be scanning through their stories, the place that’s supposed to be saved for your ‘authentic’ behind-the-scenes self, and see something strange, someone, who almost seemed to be performing. And I’d call myself jake from the timeline.”
Then a friend suggested he implement the identity in music.
He says, “Ultimately, that’s what I make music for — real people like me who are trying to figure out how to live a good life in the age of the network.”
“5G” opens on austere colors rolling into a thumping rhythm topped by jake’s revelatory voice, infusing the lyrics with technological portents. When the harmonies ramp up, the song takes on rumbling, thrumming leitmotifs mirroring rippling coloration.
“we tripped on the shaman / inflated the shrink / joined so many fellowships / we should get a ring / but we like eric andre / we pirate his comedy / bird up / we’ve upgraded to 5g/”
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Significant because of the pervasive intrusion of 5G on people’s consciousness, as well as questions about who really cares, with “5G,” jake from the timeline delivers a song at once poignant, troubling, and humorous.
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