All right. Hey, hi, and hello, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well.

Let's talk about a very interesting and strange and polarizing musical phenomenon on the internet, a particular singer-songwriter who has been just getting a lot of viral attention lately, especially on platforms such as TikTok. His name is Brendon Abernathy. Apparently, he is a Georgia native, lives currently out in LA, trying to make it as a singer-songwriter. And recently, this clip I'm about to show you of Abernathy performing live a particular track that has just recently been released, the full studio version, "Married in a Year". He was performing this track live to a crowd of people surrounding him. And I don't know, maybe you can deduce from seeing it yourself, maybe for the first time, why exactly this performance clip went viral.

"You'll be married in a year in the suburbs with a kid on the way in three, Convincing yourself you're living the American dream / And I'll be dancing out in California, the kid who got it all wrong / Convincing myself one day I'll write a love song."

Now, as you can see there, that was actually, in fact, quite something. The vibrato, the salute, the tippy toes, and then also the dancing out in California bit as well. And there are multiple angles of this performance flooding short-form platforms. People are collecting and posting different video footages of this man like he's Bigfoot.

There's even a full performance angle 3 version of this video, which, in my opinion, is the most poetic and toughest watch. Not only because at the start of the video, Brendon seems to be confused about the key of his own song and needs help finding out exactly how to sing it. You'll be married.

"Nate, can you help me out, please? Can't find the key. Married in a year. There you go. You'll be married in a year in the suburbs."

Shout out to Nate for helping him do that. But also there's some dude in the crowd who, when Brendan makes reference to dancing out in California, says, where we are? Yeah, man, where you guys are. But you know what? Brendan's songs are so filled with passion and fire and heartbreak, you can't help but want to get involved.

Okay, but look, seriously, the point of this video is not to come on here and crap on Brendan or crap on people who might actually be into his music. I actually want to take this opportunity to say that while on one level, I'm sure it is true that Brendan is getting the attention and traffic he has always wanted for his music.

Simultaneously, I feel like on some level, he is a bit of a victim of the algorithm here because short form platforms like TikTok have a knack for sometimes taking some of the worst and most embarrassing moments of people's lives, taking them out of context and presenting them to the exact audiences of people who you would never want to see them.

Because in the grand scheme of things, is it true? Do I personally think that Brendan Abernathy's performance here of this song, "Married in a Year", is a little over the top, maybe a tad bit grating and obnoxious? Are the toes out and the tippy toes stuff a little weird? Yeah, sure. But it's not the worst song I've ever heard, and there is certainly an audience out there for this thing.

I mean, if you're into artists like, I don't know, Zack Bryan or Noah Kahan, and even Taylor Swift, who Brendan says he is a huge fan of, which we will get into that. Yeah, if you're into those artists, I feel like there is something in Brendan's music for you, potentially. And it just perplexes me that platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, rather than finding the listeners and the consumers who would actually enjoy Brendan's stuff, it seems like the algorithms on these platforms are more intent to gear people toward his stuff who actually will hate it.

Now, at the end of the day in the modern-day music industry, much of the time, any attention is good attention. This guy may, in fact, end up getting just hated into a bag. In fact, I would not be surprised if one or two years from now, he's opening up for Taylor Swift, because after all, he does seem to be really for the girlies.

If we take a look at the man's TikTok, he purports to be a lover of fine literature. He also has a whole video post where he explains his singer-songwriter journey, which was very much inspired by Taylor Swift with her music and seeing her live, like reigniting a passion for him when it comes to songwriting.

"It is I, the tiptoe white boy singing. I heard "Tim McGraw" by Taylor Swift on country radio was floored, went home with an electric guitar, went to Reputation Stadium tour, cried because I realized I want to connect with people with my music."

And apparently, there are segments of this man's audience that view him as an honorary lesbian? Brandon Abernathy, Drake. Now, two of my favorite artists are lesbians.

Look, while I can't come on here and claim that I myself am not guilty of not really enjoying Brendan's music too much. And also his live performance did get to me as well. But with all of that being said, the overtly negative reaction to this track and Brendan's performance, I do think is a little outsized.

Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't seem like Brendan is hurting anybody or doing anything bad. I mean, I don't know the guy. I can only comment on what I see from a distance, but he looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly. Or at least if he did, he would write a song about it after.

And I guess I would like to demystify any allegations that I'm sure have come up or will come up that Brendan is some totally fabricated industry plant. Because if you dig into his social media, he's been grinding like this for a while, writing songs, recording them, performing them as much as possible, trying to get out as much promo internet stuff out there that he humanly can.

This performance and this clip at this moment in time just seems to have been the moment that snagged and caught some audience. I feel like if this guy was totally controlled and groomed by a label up until this point, we wouldn't have this huge backlog of moments where he very visibly is flailing in the wind.

Because, man, going back into some of these in-person public moments where he's trying to get himself out there as a singer, songwriter, social experiment type stuff. Yeah, there's some tough watches in there for sure that I don't think any label would make an artist of theirs do.

Sure, while it is clear that Brendan is approaching this whole thing with maybe more of an advantage than other artists might who may not possibly have the time or the resources to be writing and promoting their songs all day, he does still seem to be passionate about what he's doing. And while it's not my personal cup of tea, I think, technically speaking, he's a decent singer.

And to further bolster this man's clear love for Taylor Swift, a lot of his recent tracks that you can catch on platforms like Apple Music, for example, sound like, I don't know, in his own head, how would Jack Antonoff produce this? But yeah, it's very dramatic. It's very over the top. It's very hopecore.

And I will also commend him on the fact that I do think he is handling some of the negative responses quite well. He recently did a little crossover collab with Kyle Gordon, which, I mean, there were some shots there where I could see the pain in his eyes. Like, 'Oh, my God, what I've done here has turned into a giant Internet meme.' But still, you have to be at least a little self-aware to engage in that thing.

"My whole thing is built on self-deprecation, so I'm actually loving it, loving the memes."

Recently, he also uploaded a response to my to his song.

"Oh, dang. Since he doesn't like it, I guess I'll just quit."

It got me thinking, I feel like a lot of what people are disliking about this track and this guy, it's all aesthetic. And for sure, I get it. Seeing him all sweaty and on his titty toes and in this shabby chic outfit that's supposed to look like loose and dirty and artsy, but then when you look closer, there's not a scuff on the guy. It does seem like he's playing up a bit of an image here during clips like this. But to me, it just reads as an early up-and-coming artist trying to find their voice, find their way, find their look.

Again, it's a reminder of the weird position a lot of up and coming artists are in now in the internet age, where you're forced to put yourself out there constantly online while you may not actually be ready or fully where you need to be sonically or visually in order for people to actually care about what you're doing or think it means anything.

So yeah, I would like to explicitly say I don't harbor any ill will toward Brendan, and certainly I feel like he's entitled to pursue his career as a songwriter, even if that one live clip hit me in the wrong way, like it did many people.

Just a reminder that it is so strange that we go on platforms like TikTok to hopefully be entertained or exposed to things that we like, stuff we can get excited about and passionate about, when in actuality, what a lot of these algorithms are doing is just driving hate trains in the directions of people who don't necessarily deserve it.

Because I mean, what did this guy do outside of write a song that you feel like is annoying and stand on his titty toes for a bit? But yeah, let me know what you think about any of this stuff down in the comments.

Anthony Fantano. Brendan Abernathy. Tippy Toes. Forever.