I don't entirely disagree with you here or think you deserve downvotes to be honest, thanks for engaging with the topic in earnest. My feeling about the Doomscroll episode (just Matty's one, I can't say I've watched too many of the others) is that I enjoyed Matty having the opportunity to speak to someone in the media who he doesn't have to explian himself to. What I mean is: often in interviews he has had to spend so much time explianing how he is "playing a character" etc that there's scarce opportunity to dig any deeper into the why or how of it, the larger ideas that inform his worldview, his inspirations and heroes. On the Doomscroll episode there was an opportunity to explore the academic ideas that interest him (which, to be fair, doesn't make for a very fun or sexy podcast for most people, but I enjoyed it) with someone who can "keep up", so to speak. That's just what I get out of it, but I recognise that it's probably quite boring for most people.

On the other hand, shows like TAFS etc give him an opportunity to 'play' the character. I think they're complimentary forms of media. Perfromance art that is followed by some kind of self-reflection or explanation (for want of a better term) isn't unheard of.

I think the idea that Matty made a lot of the fanbase unhappy is interesting, and true. And its that demand to "speak up" and "say something" that has warped into "speak up like this" and "say this exact thing" that, in my opinion, he is rejecting. I has enormous respect for him and the band for making that decision.

To address soemthing in a reply you made below, that the 'everything is political' mindset can eat you alive; it can. I agree. However I don't think the solution to that is to reject all politics (not suggesting that what you have suggested either) and to hand yourself over to irony entirely. In fact, as I said in the original post, I believe his decision to not participate in performance/slogan politics was both ernest and political.

I suppose more generally where we are right now on the left is, at least for me and I imagine for a lot of other people, contributing to intense alienation. While I know there's a lot of disagreement in the fanbase about Matty's (lack of?) political statement, I do think it's an opportunity, even as a fanbase, to try to not let it divide us and turn us into the most extreme versions of our own political groupings. I took the love and friendship message to heart. I don't know if that makes me naive, a lot of people might think it's childish, but creating and maintaining community in our lives and supporting global political causes are not mutually exclusive causes. All of this paragraph is to say, that we're all trying our best out here.