Apparently, Carly Rae Jepsen has only ever written one song. (This is nuts and I love it)

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fatalbanana

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#1  Edited By fatalbanana

Here's a cool thing. What if I told you Carly Rae Jepsen isn't what you think she is? Besides being the inarguable best thing in pop music right now, what if I said she has never written a happy song in her career? That all of her songs she has ever recorded and released not only stick to a specific theme, not only connect in a specific way but are about the exact same relationship/situation/person/experience? That all of her upbeat sounding songs are actually a dark and depressing treadmill? No way right?

Screenwriter Max Landis discovered something sometime in 2016. A revelation that will change his outlook forever. What I explained above is what Landis proposes and subsequently, explains in a 149-page post to a website he created just for this event. Not only does Max go into exhaustive detail to prove his theory he actually breaks down every single song the artist has ever recorded. Decoding lyrics and analyzing music videos to find a message that is actually not that well hidden at all. Jepsen has written songs about the same thing over and over again for about a decade in the industry. Turning herself into this Sisyphus esque figure who can't seem to get past this one massive boulder and its pretty fucking genius if you ask me.

Max introduces you to a list of things Carley absolutely does not write about and has never written about or sung. (pretty weird for a pop star)

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about just wanting to dance and have fun.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about the club/partying unless it’s to escape something.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about looking great or feeling confident.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about openly treacherous boys or being betrayed.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about memorable good experiences.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about wanting to be successful, beautiful or powerful.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about reciprocated dedication in a relationship.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about feminism or empowerment.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about sex or seduction for the thrill of it.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about successfully getting over a breakup.

  • Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing songs of vengeful condemnation nor open rejection.

  • With only one exception, Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about abstract concepts.

  • With only one exception, Carly Rae Jepsen does not sing about other women

And a list of themes that Carly has stuck to like she read this thing before Max had even written it.

  • TEMPTATION (SEXUAL)
  • OBSESSION
  • LIMERENCE
  • SECRETS
  • ESCAPE
  • REJECTION
  • MISERY/LONGING

This might seem creepy at first but this deep dive into an artist's deep dark subtext is a cool, fun, weird and interesting internet thing. If you are a music nerd like I am, a fan of Jepsen, you want to be (and you should) or just want to see and read something cool.

Check it out: A Scar No One Else Can See.

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InsidiousTuna

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Landis is a moron who didn't know what a saxophone is.

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Efesell

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Don't know that I can get past the creepy.

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Fear_the_Booboo

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This is super creepy and is way too many words to explain some stuff that inherently comes across when you're listening to her last album.

Also Landis acting like he knows what her songs are about more than anyone else is just plain wrong.

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imhungry

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I remember reading some of this yesterday and my takeaways were that Max Landis comes off as extremely creepy and appears to be a person who thinks very highly of himself, has never heard of/read a piece of music criticism before and thus thinks he's a genius for pioneering a field of arts that, unbeknownst to him, has existed for centuries.

Overly harsh maybe, but as you rightly point out he writes for what I can only assume is 100+ pages to

to find a message that is actually not that well hidden at all

and presents it through a lens of weird images and video of himself which honestly comes across as being bizarrely self-important. I will note that this is probably coloured by my already less than impressed opinion of him.

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deactivated-5b85a38d6c493

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Max Landis is such a fucking hack. Did he go on some sort of coke fueled binge when he came up with this shit? I don't care so much about the creepy theme of it, I just hate everything this dude is involved in. He's a terrible screenwriter.

I had a laugh when Anthony Fantano put up a video taking this vapid rambling analysis piece seriously and praising it.

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OurSin_360

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Fun fact, i had to google who these people were! ;-)

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fatalbanana

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#8  Edited By fatalbanana

@insidioustuna: @fear_the_booboo: @imhungry: @boonsong:

Not knowing much of Landis before this I have no idea where you're getting the "self-importance" thing from. I'm not saying this is a masterpiece of writing or anything crazy, I'm not taking this that seriously. It seems like a spontaneous cool, weird thing. Me being a fan of Jepsen's music I had a fun time exploring it and that's about it.

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duke_of_the_bump

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Gee it's almost like mainstream pop songs are all about universal themes like infatuation and fear of rejection so everyone can relate to them ?

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Jesus_Phish

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Who?

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Alick

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this sounds really stupid

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TuxedoCruise

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@fatalbanana: I don't think anyone here has an issue with your fascination of Carly Rae Jepsen.

It's Max Landis thinking that Max Landis' work is a masterpiece is what people have an issue with.

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deactivated-5ba16609964d9

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Max Landis is terrible and the whole Carly Rae Jepsen thing seems like he is trying way too hard to capture the brief time in the spotlight where people sorta liked him after Wrestling isn't Wrestling. Nearly everything Max touches is terrible save for three things Chronicle was a genuinely good movie, the Wrestling isn't Wrestling video was hilarious, and Max made the one smart decision to be friends instead of fighting with the Red Letter Media guys after they gave a less than stellar review of American Ultra.

There is a tasteless but hilarious joke on the show Difficult People where one of the characters says "It's like that horrible thing John Landis did" and the other character goes, "You mean the negligent homicides or his son Max?".

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poobumbutt

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#14  Edited By poobumbutt

@insidioustuna: Seeing this as the first comment after the OC was pretty great. "Oh, cool. I guess everyone else thinks this is a silly thing to obsess over too. And a little creepy."

The google searches for Max Landis (since yeah, I didn't know who he was) are awesome. Result 1: "Screenwriter Max Landis' Ode to Carly Rae Jepsen is Brilliant". Result 2: "Max Landis Discovers Music Criticism, Writes 149 Pages about Carly Rae Jepsen". Result 3: "Max Landis Wrote a Loony 149 Page Theory About Carly Rae Jepsen". Just the whole spectrum there, huh?

Landis seems like a self-important hack and this reminds me of the time when I was like, 15 and I wrote a 10 paragraph rant on an anime site about how Neon Genesis Evangelion was all a metaphor for depression, like I was the only person ever to think that. Ugh.

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BladeOfCreation

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This strikes me as kind of creepy in the same way that the media loves to analyze every fucking Taylor Swift song, trying to figure out who she sings about in breakup songs and shit, and then criticizing her for singing about breakups.

Except instead of a long series of articles spread out over years, it's a single insanely long post that he actually created an entire website for. Eww.

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BladeOfCreation

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@poobumbutt: In your defense, you were 15. Max Landis is a professional writer. What's his excuse?

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fatalbanana

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@tuxedocruise: Cool your jets cowboy I said I was a fan. Not a fascination just like her songs and really just one album.

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fatalbanana

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#18  Edited By fatalbanana

You guys seem to be taking this guy and this post way too seriously. I get not being a fan of the guy's work or even his personality but some of you guys are acting like he spit in your face. I don't really get it.

Do you though, I'm not trying to tell you how to feel.

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Luchalma

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#19  Edited By Luchalma

I really, really like Call Me Maybe.

That's all I have to say about that.

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htr10

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Carly Rae Jensen is great. What is not great about her is the obsessive creepy following she has from Internet personalities. I'm looking at you Griffin McElroy and Patrick Klepek.

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BladeOfCreation

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@fatalbanana:

The original interview seems to have been deleted, but here's an idea of how utterly full of himself (and how utterly gross) this guy is. Yes, I know. Jezebel is shit. Ignore all of the opinion in the article and just read the quotes from Landis himself. He does a great job of painting himself as a complete sexist tool without any help.

http://jezebel.com/screenwriter-bro-just-might-be-hollywoods-biggest-fuck-1440597536

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Tom_omb

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#22  Edited By Tom_omb

I'm somewhere in the middle here. The only Carly Rae Jepsen song I know is "Call Me Maybe" and I enjoyed the Max Landis written movies I've seen (Chronicle and Victor Frankenstein). I'm not sure where all the hate for Max Landis is coming from. I think I first heard of him on the Nerdist podcast where he pitched a pretty interesting take on a new Peter Pan origin movie that made me want it to be made.

Sure, this production over an essay he wrote is a bit over the top, but at least he's being creative with it. I'm not reading it, but I watched the video. I will say his comparison of The Beatles only writing about something as superficial Yellow Submarines and Carly only writing about a handful of universal themes doesn't hold much water.

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imhungry

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You guys seem to be taking this guy and this post way too seriously. I get not being a fan of the guy's work or even his personality but some of you guys are acting like he spit in your face. I don't really get it.

Do you though, I'm not trying to tell you how to feel.

Look duder, nobody here has a problem with you. As for Landis, did you watch the video on the front page of that website? I guarantee you nobody is taking Max Landis more seriously than Max Landis himself does.

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fatalbanana

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@bladeofcreation: I don't know how trustworthy Jezebel is but if he did say these things yeah, fuck this guy. This just seems like a hit piece though? Is there proof he actually said these things or feels this way? not trying to make excuses for the guy, I'm tempted to delete this post so I don't show any semblance of support for him if this is legit.

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fatalbanana

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#25  Edited By fatalbanana

@imhungry: No, I 100% get that but again I'm not understanding the outright dislike of him because of his opinion of himself. I wrote that stuff off as a joke when he does it in his piece but maybe that makes me the weird one I don't know. But even if it's not why do I care if he thinks he's a genius?

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SSully

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Max Landis is a fucking idiot

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cmblasko

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Max Landis should spend less time worrying about Carly Rae Jepsen and more time going to Milwaukee to shoot Best in the Worst with the Red Letter Media crew so that they can put out more Neil Breen episodes.

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htr10

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#28  Edited By htr10

My favorite part here is that this thing that Max Landis posted 4 days ago is three quarters of his Personal Life section in Wikipedia.

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BladeOfCreation

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@fatalbanana: Jezebel and several other sites had posts with quotes from that interview. The only reason I linked to the Jezebel one is because it had the longest block of quotes from that interview. Say what you will about Jezebel, they have a clear bias and a way of saying things, but I don't think they literally make up quotes from people. Max Landis himself also posted a link to the interview at the time. The direct link leads to a deleted article. I couldn't find an archive of it.

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fatalbanana

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@bladeofcreation: Yeah I seemed to find the same things. Alright, point well made I'll delete this post in lieu of this guy being an apparent piece of shit.

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htr10

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@fatalbanana: How dare you? You create the "hot thread of the weekend" and then take it away? How dare you.

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BladeOfCreation

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#32  Edited By BladeOfCreation

@fatalbanana: Nah man, it's all good. I was just giving context of why people don't like this guy.

For his side of the story, here's what he said about that interview (just search the term Jezebel and it will take you to that part). I don't honestly feel bad for him, but there it is. The things he said speak for themselves IMO, even without Jezebel's particular brand of editorializing.

https://filmschoolrejects.com/max-landis-doesnt-say-anything-controversial-in-this-interview-about-me-him-her-e2a3eb3214d0/

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TuxedoCruise

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@fatalbanana: I don't think your amusement in Max Landis' obsession with Carly Rae Jepsen could be taken as a liking or endorsement of Max Landis.

This thread has been unintentionally hilarious to me, because seeing a unified disgust from the GB community towards this guy is something I wasn't expecting, and don't see much.

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fatalbanana

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htr10

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We could all just pretend that John Landis wrote this piece about CRJ instead. He's likable. Who doesn't like Animal House and the Thriller video? Nobody.

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fatalbanana

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fatalbanana

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I can't seem to edit the post? "Access denied"? that's weird.

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BladeOfCreation

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@fatalbanana: Sounds good! This has inspired me to check out some Carly Rae Jepsen, at least!

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poobumbutt

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@fatalbanana: Like what others have said, my also rather negative comment wasn't meant to be directed at you. Landis just seems like a fool.

However, your post here isn't only what I would call the "correct" length for a theory like this (not a 149 page dissertation), but it summarizes the actually cool parts about his theory really well. So, good job on you. Your editing made this interesting.

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mike

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You're right, it did seem creepy at first. Then it was still creepy. Also I had no idea who this Carly person even was, I stay as far away from modern pop music as possible.

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Shindig

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Most of Taylor Swift's work implies she's a terrible judge of character who revises history and is worryingly possessive.

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kcin

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If anyone has any doubts about Landis' self-importance, I urge you to read his Twitter account: twitter.com/uptomyknees

Personally, I have extremely mixed feelings about Max. His father clearly doesn't like him very much, and Max has been quite open about how his dad is basically a dick, and has been his whole life. His dad is extremely successful and controversial at the same time, and Max grew up with that safety net (which, assisted by being his father's son, he turned into a successful writing career), but also in that shadow. I can only imagine how a life like that could create a complex of simultaneous neuroses and self-aggrandizement. And much like what are his own apparent conflicted feelings, I feel for the dude but also he needs to check himself half of the time, and he just doesn't.

Nobody's wrong to think he's self-important or to dislike him, but it's at least worth understanding his life was incredibly weird and being in his family was probably quite hard. And uh, I only have this much to say or feel about him because Max chooses to live in public at a massive scale. Last I checked, he records almost an hour of Snapchat videos a day, and is on Twitter literally all day, tweeting and responding to all kinds of people, all of the time.

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Hayt

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So glad to have no idea what the fuck any of this is.

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HellBrendy

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Alot of artists isn't writing their own stuff. Most of Elvis' songs were written by someone else, so it's not even a new thing.

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deactivated-64162a4f80e83

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I have no idea what's going on here. Just came here to say that since E-Motion Carly Rae has consistently had the best pop songs <3

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MeierTheRed

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@hayt said:

So glad to have no idea what the fuck any of this is.

In the same boat so don't sink it please.

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veektarius

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Limerence falls under obsession. I didn't know that before I looked the word up, but it's true.

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cikame

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I thought this was going to be a topic about how most pop singers don't write their own music, the only things i have to add are
1. She has more than one song?
2. It looks like there are about 20 other writing credits for her songs, so thinking the lyrics are so personal seems difficult.

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Panfoot

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@cmblasko said:

Max Landis should spend less time worrying about Carly Rae Jepsen and more time going to Milwaukee to shoot Best in the Worst with the Red Letter Media crew so that they can put out more Neil Breen episodes.

A thousand times this. Man, me and a few friends watched Fateful Findings and it just....destroyed us.