Finding Shawn Mendes (2019)
43 comments
·June 9, 2025saaaaaam
amiga386
It's taking vapid pop lyrics literally for humourous effect.
You could call it bathos.
dooglius
Not everything needs to have a purpose. The most likely explanation to me is just that inspiration happened to strike the author as he heard the song.
whycome
That sounds like a purpose.
tough
I also read it fully, which i don't usually do.
I'm just left guessing if there's some cryptpic yet important geo-political statement hidden in a funny post about some celebrity i had never heard of until now
sylens
It’s a satire on how deeply some fandoms read into lyrics or “hidden messages” from artists and works of art in general
4ggr0
to me it reads as a well done parody on conspiracy theories.
tough
right! that's it, its like this nonsense numbers conspiracy theories that seem ramblings of some mentally ill person, but written in a more coherent, interestnig way that any of these (they usually are harder/cryptic to read due to its nonsense) so it ends up being an easier read as a parody than an actual conspiracy theory
stavros
I think this is one of those things that either has intrinsic purpose for you, or it doesn't. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this analysis of Shawn Mendes' cryptic lyric.
pryelluw
It’s the brain ticking itself.
eps
Excellent deduction, but somewhat rushed at the end. Almost sloppy. If Mendez is flying to meet up with a friend at a hotel, it's clearly necassary to check if there are any hotels on that island to begin with.
We can, of course, assume that if there's an airport, there's a hotel, but being a Russian territory even the most benign assumption may prove false, so it's still prudent to check.
The good news is that there is not one, but two hotels on Iturup, both with impressive ratings (even if across a dozen reviews each). With this in place, I trust, we can put the final dot to the story of finding Shawn Mendez and his views on the annexation of the Kurils.
benatkin
I think patio11 would do this part well. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/two-americas-one-bank...
rwmj
Sort of on-topic: The Kuril islands are a big deal in Hokkaido. I attended a protest there (by accident) a few years ago with many Japanese demonstrating for a return of the islands to Japan. It was kind of odd as an outsider because the protest clearly has no effect, and there's no chance of it ever happening outside of Russia losing a war.
nati0n
This… this is impressive dedication to a gag blog post. Enjoyed the read.
Brajeshwar
Oh Man. A few years back, my daughter played so much of Lost in Japan repeatedly. I thought the singer was another girl, because of the others in the playlist such as Kate Perry, and Justin Beiber.
xixixao
The article suspiciously leaves out whether there’s a hotel on Iturup Island, on which the whole argument hinges.
Quick Google Maps reveales there indeed is one.
What a relief!
codazoda
This is also an exercise in deductive reasoning, which I recently read, somewhere here on Hacker News, is a good skill to exercise.
Scarblac
But just how seriously should we take Shawn Mendes' stand on the Kuril islands? How big of a hit was _Lost in Japan_?
esafak
It wasn't Big In ... ok I'll stop.
wy35
This is hilarious, I need to find more blog posts like this.
dkga
Precisely the type of thing I immensely enjoy reading on a holiday!
fshafique
And thus was born a new game, one that combined knowledge of history, politics, and pop trivia.
I’m really not sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I read in terms of the words - but I don’t understand what its purpose is. But I don’t necessarily think it matters…
It was thoroughly diverting, held my attention and made me wish that more people wrote pieces like this where the only real purpose is the conceit, and the subsequent journey the author takes you on.