They Might be Giants
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All of the personal information in this article was sourced from Jason DeLima personally, not his tumblr like he claims and any complaints should be taken up with him |
They Might Be Giants, or TMBG, are a band so bad not even hipsters like them, consisting of two rather odd looking men from New York, both named John. Both Johns insist there are other people in the band, but no one actually cares enough to look. The majority of oldfags will remember them as writing that one song that got stuck in their head before Chumbawumba came along and did it better. Everyone who matters will recognize one of their songs as being the theme tune to the long running, and not very good American sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. Their fans are noted for being obsessive, creepy and getting very angry when you point out that they sound like a shitty cross between the Beatles and Frank Zappa.
—John Linnell admits the truth | ||
Music
They Might Be Giants have made an entire career out of ripping off Frank Zappa and the second side of Abbey Road, mixed with even more pretension than either band ever had, something previously thought impossible. TMBG disguise their lack of originality by not only being less talented musicians and having to play much simpler music, but by also filling their songs with accordion and entirely nonsensical lyrics that their creepy fans think are deep and meaningful.
Their music is so nonsensical, basic and childish that the difference between their albums aimed at adults and their albums aimed at children is arbitrary, perhaps best evidenced by the song Mammal which came out 17 years before their children's album Here Comes Science. Despite this it is just as patronizing as all of the songs on the children's album.
The Two Johns
John Flansburgh and John Linnell are the Lennon/McCartney of mediocre college rock aimed at the kind of people who quote Monty Python, wear fedoras and watch shows aimed three year old girls and still can't understand why all women won't fuck them. John and John are so bad that they in fact miss their target demographic and instead managed to gain an audience of socially awkward young women who will eventually live in homes filled with cats and die alone.
John Flansburgh
—John Flansburgh discusses the TMBG fanbase | ||
John Flansburgh is the louder, less talented Giant. People sometimes call him Flans or Flansy, but it's probably best not to encourage him. He is responsible for the generic alt rock songs that are scattered over their 90s albums in a desperate bid for commercial acceptance, culminating in the forgettable theme song to Malcolm in The Middle. Flansburgh deals with the business side of things, so the stories of the band charging extortionate rights fees are all down to him.
While many TMBG fans think Flansburgh actually likes them and finds their creepy obsession with his band somehow life affirming, a more likely explanation is that the always money hungry Flansburgh realized he had a waiting fan-base with deep pockets that he had yet to pluck and Fox weren't going to pay for the use of his music. This may explain his association with the TMBG wiki, TMBW, which is moderated by several people who are not allowed within 200 meters of the band.
Like all super intelligent people, John Flansburgh is an atheist.
Flansburgh is also documented as having physically attacked a member of a more successful band for coming on stage to cheer for TMBG during an encore.
John Linnell
—John Linnell, not actually surprised he has to specify this | ||
John Linnell is the quieter, more talented Giant, and as such is object of many a young fans obsession. Linnell is noted for being incredibly shy and tends to avoid interviews and photos, so the TMBG fanbase decided to respect his wishes by creating obsessive blogs devoted only to pictures of his face. Linnell was previously in a new wave band, which would of been all but forgotten if not for TMBG fans somehow digging up not only their only single, but a bunch of unreleased demos. If you didn't think these people were scary, think about the fact they found a load of demos from an obscure 80s new wave band because they like the guy who played keyboards.
Linnell is the bands main songwriter on all their albums not aimed at children, and some of his lyrics concern mental illness, paranoia, murder and recurrent images of skulls. Of course the rest of his lyrics are utter nonsense with little thought behind them and he hasn't written a great song since Flansburgh started using TMBG as a jew gold farm. With Linnell's influence so strong upon the band, many wonder what Flans actually does, especially since they hired a different lead guitarist because Flans was too busy singing to play properly. The answer is invariably that Flans provides a public face for the band, something Linnell would find difficult. This is probably not true, because Linnell could hire anyone to run a twitter account, but it probably makes Flansburgh feel important. It's speculated that Linnell made Flansburgh a special captains hat for his "sad days".
Despite certain fans desperate to make him one, Linnell is not an atheist (as stated by Flansburgh on the linked podcast). This hasn't stopped certain fans from fabricating quotes from Linnell to make him agree with their atheism, because heaven forbid someone they admire have different views to them.
Fans
TMBG fans are special kind of really fucking creepy in general, but one or two rise above the ranks and into even fucking creepier territory. Consider this something of a hall of fame.
Quinn
Quinn Collard,(aka, SelfCalledNowhere, MuseumOfIdiots, aFraudandaFake) is a 30 year old woman who is obsessed with John Linnell. Fortunately for everyone, she stopped listening to the band and attending shows for nearly a decade. But then she came back, because what would anyone do without her?
The rise of Quinn's obsession with Linnell is documented in horrifying detail on a custom TMBW page, entitled "tmbiography". Quinn's true decline in mental sanity seems to have begun on August 10th 2001 (which she refers to as 'the day that changed her life'), when she dreamt about exchanging flirty emails with the front man of a band she insists she barely liked. For most of us, that dream would be a mild spurt of googling, followed by a short conversation with a friend about how weird that was. For Quinn it was the impetus to spend years of her life devoted to a man who plays accordion in a band that writes songs about adding numbers.
She is well known within the TMBG fandom, eliciting extreme reactions from people of either unconditional love or hate with almost no middle ground. Her online activities extend to self published zines, novels and poetry, much of which is about John Linnell.
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Quinn's TMBW profile -
Quinn's "tmbiogragphy" -
A typical Quinn blog post -
because that's not creepy -
Quinn's Last.fm top artists -
She's in an open relationship, guyyyyyzzz -
She's already a crazy cat lady! One down -
Quinn's fetlife account
Quinn's Quotes
— Even Quinn's boyfriend is sick of her shit with John Linnell | ||
Previous Quote | Next Quote
Jon Uleis
Jon Uleis, aka CapitalQ is "one of the few active admins on TMBW", and as such it is he who has decided that TMBW should take it's cues from North Korea and never criticize it's Dear Leaders. Jon has been known to actively remove negative criticism or even quotes that don't fit Jon's personal view of the band. It's under Jon's supreme guidance that the wiki became the circlejerk of stalkers and obsessives that we all know and hate.
As well as his Job at eGifter, a start up you've never heard of for good reason, Jon has many hobbies. These range from posting guitar tabs for R Kelly songs to posting on an actual real wiki that doesn't kiss the ass of it's subject, however even these take backseat to Jon's real passion: correcting people or proving them wrong. Jon is so intelligent that he uses his reddit account to share his intellect by correcting peoples assumptions or proving them "liars" (in the loosest sense of the word). Without Jon, people might lie on the internet, so we should thank him for his tireless efforts. In many ways, Jon is an unsung hero of the people.
If you wish to thank him, his website provides his resume with his dox, although they are hidden inside a PDF document which as we all know makes them very hard to get at.
- Update: Jon is attempting to have this section removed (Note how Jon, the reddit genius, cleverly used the same username he uses for his twitter account to throw us off the scent), and has in fact written a small essay on the talk page to try and persuade us all that this whole thing is a bad idea. why not read his words now, as surely someone will preserve them in book form and use them as the basis for a new religion, such is the brilliance of Jon Uleis
August Krater
August Krater (source, mirrored for great justice), aka Antgeth is an autistic school child who thinks he's (probably) a photographer/graphic artist of some kind. August, hails from Portland, Oregon, and appears to spend much of his time obsessively scanning and rescanning images. Because of this, he is somewhat indispensable to TMBW, which as we discussed above with CaptialQ, is nothing to be proud of.
Rumours abound that August, who apparently likes to be called Augie (someone doesn't get laid), is nothing more than a Quinn sockpuppet. This doesn't appear to be true and seems to arise from the fact his email is hosted at Quinns site. It's more likely that Augie is one of the many TMBG fans who doesn't find Quinn terrifying.
August Krater is a hard man to find online. While not explicitly hiding behind the Antgeth name, he is less blatantly associated with it than others are with their usernames. Thanks to the efforts of Jason DeLima however, we had no trouble finding him.
With all this in mind, why not add August on Facebook?
Jason DeLima
Jason DeLima is the source of almost all the information about "fans" in this article, thanks to his almost constant backstabbing, and any inaccuracies should be taken up with him. Helpfully, Jason has compiled a page of his dox to save us doing so; however the page is PASSWORD PROTECTED NOW, will share when I get it, but feel free to contact him about any of this.
Jason DeLima is an 18 year old "musician" who appears to be laboring under the mistaken belief that perpetuating an incredibly shallow relationship with a female will convince everyone he is perfectly happy and better than all of us. Few people actually believe this, and many feel that Jason's imaginary relationship is mostly about him overcompensating.
As well as being insufferably annoying, DeLima suffers from a chronic case of unwarranted self importance, believing himself not only to be the lynchpin of the TMBG fandom but somehow above most fans because he's in a "relationship" that's as deep as a puddle. His case of USI has only got worse since he began 'dating' someone, and is now believed to be terminal.
It is perhaps knowledge of the seriousness of his condition that made Jason such a backstabbing idiot. At the drop of a hat, DeLima confesses peoples secrets, bitches about their personality and sometimes even turns on long time friends who disagree with his choices (such as taking medication for mental illnesses he doesn't actually have in the hope that people will now take him seriously). We at ED would like to take this moment to thank Delima for his behavior, as it helped us create an entertaining and enlightening article.
Jason's Music
Jason's Music is even more erratic than TMBG's, mostly because while TMBGs music evolved from their own likes and dislikes, 99% Jason's music is in fact just directly ripped off from TMBG, or one of the other really really shitty bands that Jason likes. The other 1%, which constitutes original work, is formless noise with no point or structure and nonsense lyrics, as Jason tries desperately to articulate his thoughts into something someone might actually like to listen to.
See Also
External Links
- Their very own wiki. - Possibly the worst thing ever created.
- Shockingly, a Facebook fan group appears.
- Their MySpace
- Shitty fanfic here
- Oh dear God, slash
- NauticalSponge a fan of TMBG, makes shitty covers of their song “We Want a Rock”.
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They Might be Giants is part of a series on Visit the Music Portal for complete coverage. |
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They Might be Giants is part of a series on Visit the Truth Portal for complete coverage. |
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