SteevMike5Dummies

Delayed gratification (as an experiential aspect of Steev Mike) is the ability of an audience member to wait for what they believe they want. This trait is critical for negotiating the challenges of the Steev Mike experience and finding those challenges to result in their own form of “success”. One often sees the lack of this ability with audience members who claim to have arrived at answers without thoroughly thinking them through first, can't wait their turn to “explain” and blurt out “explanations”, show aggressive behaviors towards Steev Mike, and sometimes are prone to fight against the very existence of Steev Mike and even Andrew WK. This variety of audience member impulsively says the wrong thing at the wrong time and then thinks, "Why doesn’t this make it all go away?" The other audience members are left asking, "What makes you think you have it all figured out?", and both are often more likely to avoid further Steev Mike encounters. Impulsive critics of...

For a new Andrew WK audience member, the process of “dealing with” Steev Mike tends to reveal the subconscious fear which has been suppressed within their initial impressions of Andrew WK as a performer (and in turn, themselves). This disturbing interaction covers over the “upbeat” message which had been superficially disclosed in Andrew WK’s work, and more generally breaches the very foundational walls they thought sustained the Andrew WK “party” persona. This is why the typical Steev Mike encounter is so destabilizing and potential[ly] upsetting, and also why the audience member is quick to dismiss the relevance or value of Steev Mike, and how their un-understanding of both Steev Mike and Andrew WK is an always changing and crucial aspect of the work their [they’re] engaged in. For anyone new to “Andrew W.K.”, dealing with the idea of Steev Mike brings up fears the audience represses when they first experience “Andrew W.K.”.   This is because Steev Mike pokes holes in, and supers...

Steev Mike’s qualities change in every encounter it has with either the audience or Andrew WK. This is part of its strategy. It may appear to focus on a particular theme, such as the fraudulent nature of Andrew WK, but the ambiguity of both the qualities in question and the goals of the strategies simultaneously undermine Andrew WK, the audience, and even the more explicit intention of Steev Mike itself. It is not possible for all of these qualities of strategy to be addressed using any single interpretation, so a more appropriate approach is to allow the edges of Steev Mike to blur, avoid the most concrete definitions, and focus rather on some of the more pivotal elements of the Steev Mike phenomenon. As eluded to above, Steev Mike changes every time anything happens involving Steev Mike because Steev Mike is defined by everything that is not to do with Steev Mike.   Steev Mike might seem to focus on one subject, like Andrew W.K. as a fraud, but because Steev Mike deals with the m...

When considering Steev Mike‘s relationship to Andrew WK (and when considering Andrew WK as an individual and performer), it needs to be pointed out that Steev Mike is neither an alter-ego of Andrew WK, nor an alter-ego of itself. In keeping with this, it must also be understood that this in no way negates the reversals and mirrors of the edifice that Steev Mike seeks to overthrow. For Steev Mike, Andrew WK always inhabits himself and the audience, and all the more so when the audience does not suspect it. Thus, it is important to recognize that the mere reversal of the “Steev Mike and Andrew WK” opposition does not necessarily challenge the governing framework and presuppositions of the audience that are attempting to be reversed by Steev Mike. As a result, the savvy audience member cannot rest content by merely prioritizing Andrew WK over Steev Mike, or by seeing Steev Mike as an alternate “form” of Andrew WK, nor should “Andrew WK” be considered an alternate form of Andrew WK, but wh...

  Andrew WK has had a long and complicated association with Steev Mike for his entire career, including ambiguous relationships with other creative directors, managers, and producers. But his complex relationship with Steev Mike appears to [have] slowly developed into something closer to a sustained allegiance than merely an abstract association. Despite the complexity of this connection, two main aspects of Steev Mike’s bond with Andrew WK remain clear. Firstly, Steev Mike and Andrew WK both continually place emphasis upon the immediacy of experience as part of a valuable transcendental illusion, and secondly, they imply that, despite its best intents, conceptual analysis of their entertainment cannot be anything other than a secondary metaphysical exercise, and not a communication or extrapolation of the direct encounter with them or their work. In this context, Steev Mike defines Andrew WK through the absence of its presence, and as for Andrew WK, all interpretations of Steev Mi...

Perhaps the most obvious aspect of Steev Mike is that it is located in many places at once: behind Andrew WK, above Andrew WK, in front of the audience, and underneath both the audience and Andrew WK. Any attempt to sum up these locations   is difficult and would have to involve the recognition of a certain incommensurability between Steev Mike’s role as “grand architect” and the universally understood role of a “background manipulator”. The dual demands placed upon Steev Mike to remain both “in control” and also “visibly invisible” are equal to the dual challenges placed on the audience to both accept and un-understand the Steev Mike phenomenon. In this regard, Steev Mike and the audience are both equally responsible for their roles and for Andrew WK. The paradox of this responsibility means that there is always a question of being responsible to one’s own individual role as an audience member, and yet also aware of a general responsibility towards the entire audience and to what ...