It’s been said there are no such thing as coincidences, and that naturally occurring phenomena can be explained no matter how bizarre it may first appear. So you would have to excuse us in suspending our belief for a moment after we’ve come across one of the strangest occurrences in recent memory.
Behold, the curious case of 40-year-old Matthew Sullivan, whose opinions about western pop culture align exactly with those espoused by writer Chuck Klosterman. We hardly believed it ourselves until we sat down with him. Literally everything that came out of his mouth matches up with what could be found in any given Klosterman essay or personal story.
“I am perfectly capable of forming my own opinions! As far as anyone is concerned I alone have spent years over-philosophizing about the cultural legacy of ‘Saved by the Bell’,” said Sullivan. “Look me in the eye and tell me Motley Crue isn’t the greatest rock band of all time. Sure I haven’t listened to a single song of theirs, but I just have this nagging feeling that it’s true.”
The mind reels! Every opinion he’s formed since the early 2000’s perfectly syncs with a certain bespectacled best selling author and columnist. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that Sullivan is a secret Klosterman clone, or perhaps that they literally grew up with the same pop culture references. That or there’s some spiritual mind meld occurring that requires the intervention of a medium.
“Why does everyone think I’m copying him? Sure, it’s possible I may have glazed over an article or two of his. And yes, it appears all of his takes on philosophy and culture resonate with me on a spiritual level like no other. But I swear I figured out that Radiohead predicted the events of 9/11 song by song on ‘Amnesiac’ at least three or four days before ‘Killing Yourself to Live’ was published.”
If we didn’t know any better, Sullivan clearly absorbed Klosterman’s entire school of thought via osmosis in the most bizarre case of parallel thinking of all time. Whether or not his musings on the Lakers, living in North Dakota, Billy Joel fandom, blaming John Cusak for setting unrealistic relationship expectations, or overusing the word ‘ANYWAY’ are creations of his own mind, it’s undeniable that he and his kindred spirit Chuck are very, very annoying.
Photo by Rich Fleischman.