Technology

For all of you guys that aren't going to read the relatively long article, here's a TL;DR

The artist in question is Devon Rodriguez, who you will more likely recognize if I say he is "the painter who draws people on the subway, from TikTok."

He did a gallery, and this critic, Ben Davis, said that these types of subway portraits are nothing new. The portraits are good as far as realistic portraits go, but as an art critic, the portraits themselves are not very noteworthy. The videos of him making the portraits are what is noteworthy.

Devon Rodriguez didn't like the review and pointed his fans at it. His fans didn't actually read the review (nor did Devon). The fans really got stuck on the part where the critic said that you might not recognize the artist until he called him "the painter who draws people on the subway, from TikTok."

On Saturday morning, I woke up to a tidal wave of anger from Rodriguez on Instagram, tagging me across scores of posts. Hundreds of his followers went on the attack, swarming my Instagram: “loser,” “hater,” “pathetic,” “jealous,” “your a dick,” and on and on and on. There were many creative variations on “kill yourself.” Others said they were going to get me fired, or said things like, “we are going to start a cancellation campaign against you.” A large number thought that defending Rodriguez meant calling me bald, ugly, fat, or whatever they thought could get under my skin. Most didn’t seem to have actually read my article. A contingent went after my wife. “Some women will do anything for money,” one commented. That one was funny, actually.

Meanwhile, Devon makes public posts saying, of the critic, "love will always outshine being a hater, I hope I taught you that today."

The critic goes on to say that Devon Rodriguez's videos are obviously faked, and posts the most obvious example he could find, where another TikToker dances on the London Underground for 30 minutes while he makes a sketch of her that clearly seems to be from a photo not taken at the time. The whole thing has multiple camera angles, and then she acts surprised when he reveals that he drew her.

He ends talking a lot about how problematic parasocial relationships can be. These are where a lot of people feel like they "know" a famous person, but he clearly doesn't know them. And the celebrity ends up with a lot of people acting all wacky to defend him.