A hyperfixation from last year has awakened again recently, so I'm going to get it out of my system here. I don't think this will be interesting to anyone else- if you read this all you get a cookie.
Jreg (real name Greg Guevara) is an artist from Ottawa. He is typically described as a satirist, or a post-satirist. He makes videos about conceptual frameworks such as politics, mental health, art, and irony, usually with a comedic or absurdist tone.
He presents his ideas wrapped in multiple layers of irony, making it hard to decipher what his actual opinions are, or even what his personality is like (in some videos he's being sincere, in some he's being ironic, in some he's being ironic about being ironic, etc.) Most of his work takes the form of skits, music videos, educational videos, personal discussions, and spoken word poetry, often with green screen and other effects in order to talk to himself or layer ideas on top of each other in a disorienting way.
His videos have gone through a few different arcs over the years (referred to as "jreras"). He first found a following when he started exploring politics, from the perspective of an "anti-centrist": he claimed to be a supporter of all forms of political extremism. His most well known work is a series from this era called "Centricide", which featured humanized incarnations of various political ideologies at war with one another (it's a musical!)
After this, he focussed on the topic of mental health, claiming to have every mental illness and advocating for the benefits of insanity. He is currently in a "normal" era, claiming to be completely mentally healthy and advocating for self help, exercise, and neoliberalism.
He also does a lot of strange public performance pieces. Including:
-making an onlyfans account and posting softcore content of himself to raise money for an anti-pornography organization
-posting a song about how much he'd love to get killed by his fans, giving out his real address along with a time and date. A small crowd of fans showed up at his building, and he let them in and hung out with them (no one killed him, sadly).
-running for the mayor of Ottawa, on the platform of building a huge wall around the city. He put sincere effort into his campaign, even though all his proposals were silly
-(after growing out his hair long during his mental illness arc) cutting his hair to show that he is now mentally healthy, and selling it to "one lucky freak" in his fan base
-giving "ironic therapy" sessions to people over the phone
As you can probably tell from these descriptions, his work is a bit off-putting and obnoxious (even though it's genuinely really funny at times). I can't really recommend it to people because it can be very cringey, usually intentionally (I think). But that's part of why I find it fascinating. When I first started watching his videos I found myself wanting to investigate further just to figure out what this guy's deal is.
For some reason one of his videos that first really grabbed me was his 300k sub house tour. I had seen a few of his videos before and thought he just seemed kind of dumb and flippant about serious issues. This one was a tour of his home to celebrate reaching 300k subscribers on YouTube. He went through his home room by room and showed his abysmal living conditions (mold, rotting floorboards, dangerous wiring, broken fridge, mattress on the floor without a proper blanket, heaps of garbage piled up in the kitchen). His green screen was tacked up in a cramped corner of his room, and the laptop he edits his videos on was on a stack of cardboard boxes.
He had already made loads of videos at that point, in that environment, which I think made me realize that he cared intensely about the things he was making. Even if I didn't agree with the things he said (or more accurately, the way he said them, since no one could tell what the hell he believed), he was clearly speaking from a place of real pain when he talked about things like mental health and politics. Also, I have to admit I can relate a bit to being very wrapped up in your art and neglecting your surroundings and health.
Nowadays he's less obtuse with his use of irony, so there are a few things we can glean about him (though still with a layer of plausible deniability):
-while he sympathizes with a lot of extremist ideals, he's a moderate leftist
-he does have at least one form of untreated mental illness, likely bipolar (although he says he doesn't "identify" with having bipolar). He doesn't trust doctors, so he treats his manic episodes with niacin
-he has a loved one with schizophrenia, who he has spent time caring for
-he has since moved into a better home
That's all I got. Thanks for reading! Have a cookie!
02 Jul 2023, 8:32 pm
