If there’s anything we’ve learned over the last day—which heretofore will be known as #DressGate and/or #TheEndofHumanity (be sure to use these hashtags when socializing this article)—is that we are all fucking idiots who just want to consume. What do we want to consume? We don’t know. But we just want… something, anything, all things. Just gimme that. Gimme this. Just put it in front of me and I’ll take it, and I might even share it, baby! I see gold and white. You see black and blue. "What color is this dress?" has genuinely become the most influential piece of internet content that’s ever existed. It’s fascinating, really, because nobody quite knows how to respond. If you embrace it, you’re an idiot. If you get angry about it, you’re also an idiot. If you enjoy it ironically, you’re for sure an idiot. There is nothing we can do, except consume it. That’s it. Just the content. Straight into the mouth that is our brains. And now that we've hit this point, that’s it, you think, right? We’re done. We’ve officially entered the dystopian future we’ve all feared for years. The internet is eating itself, and therefore eating us. Existence is fleeting. Life is hell. We’re in the last days. We might as well embrace it, baby!Continued below.Not so fast. It’s not over yet, fellow humans sitting in front of electronic devices. Last night, a little (but very tall) singer-songwriter who goes by the name of Tobias Jesso, Jr. took the stage of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show alongside the Roots and delivered what is probably one of the most moving performances I’ve seen in a very long time. Not because of the song’s content (hah, content!), but because of the situation. Here’s a kid in his late 20s who about a year ago was living in his mom’s basement, recording some songs on a shitty keyboard about being broken hearted, figuring out how to sing, with barely enough money in his pocket to buy a cup of coffee. The songs he recorded came from a place of such genuine pain and frustration with his own life that he went on and tapped into something so visceral, so painful, that the way it sounds is almost joyful because he’s able to finally release the pain he feels in a way that other people will understand. His songwriting is elegant, and simple—tapping into the likes of Graham Nash or Harry Nilsson—and when placed before a backing band like the Roots, its sweeping affect is overwhelming.I’ve been lucky enough to hear Goon, Tobias Jesso Jr.’s upcoming record out on March 17 via True Panther, and it truly is something. Sure, we’ve spent the last day obsessing over llamas and the colors of dresses and holy shit I can’t believe I just wrote that in a sentence, but damn, there are moments like this that have the power to pull us back: the simple elegance of a piano blended with the struggles of every day life. Take a breath. Forget about gold and white and blue and black. Watch the performance below. There is no left shark involved. I promise.Eric Sundermann's existence is fleeting every day. Watch it happen on Twitter.Now, watch this performance Tobias Jesso Jr. did last September on La Blogotheque.
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