Four hundred Japanese noise albums are almost the exact opposite of content designed for TikTok. Yet it is precisely this incompatibility that has made the project by Sam Andrews, an 18-year-old documenting his journey through Merzbow’s massive catalogue, go viral.
The Guardian described the challenge as an exercise in “deep listening”: not a playlist to leave on in the background, but a deliberate commitment to navigating a notoriously difficult body of work. The paradox is that this resistance to skip culture is being chronicled across the very platforms that perfected the skip.
Difficulty has become content
The internet rewards convenience, but it also loves absurd feats. Watching an entire director’s filmography, reading a hundred books, listening to complete discographies: individual discipline becomes a serialized story audiences can follow.
The format works because it offers something rare in the feed: continuity. Each episode gains meaning as part of a journey, and the community keeps returning to see if the creator will make it to the end.
The algorithm can also distribute what resists it
It is too simplistic to view short videos and deep attention as absolute enemies. A clip lasting just a few seconds can become the gateway to experimental music, books, or cinema requiring hours. The issue is not just format length, but where it directs curiosity.
Andrews is turning an almost ascetic gesture into digital entertainment. It is a small demonstration that online culture does not necessarily just produce faster consumption: sometimes it turns the very attempt to slow down into a spectacle.
