My name is Benoît Lelièvre, I’m 40 years and I’m an independent book, film and music critic living in Montreal, Canada. I’m also a journalist by trade and a member of the Vox & Hops review crew in my extra-curricular time. What qualifies me to do all this? Well, I have a master degree in Comparative Literature from Université de Montréal, but it doesn’t really do anything for me except collecting dust somewhere in a closet.
I write about art and what Chuck Klosterman calls low culture because I was raised on a steady diet of television, video games, heavy metal music and wayward internet content and if you're reading this, I’m assuming it was also the case for you.
I’m originally from a small mining town, 500 miles northeast from where I live today. Nice bucolic place, but it doesn’t have much to offer if you don’t enjoy hunting, fishing, snowmobile racing and substance abuse. So, I grew up alone a lot. Watching pro wrestling on television, playing Super Mario, listening to Slayer and chatting with strangers on mIRC to shape my understanding of the world.
So, I did what every small town kid does: I ran away to college. But unlike the romantic asshole in every coming-of-age film, I’ve never went back. I tried to make it in academia for a couple years, but I liked academia more than it liked me. Lack of teaching openings and other heartbreaks left me without much of a path forward.
I created Dead End Follies in 2009 because I was working a dead end call center job and still wanted to talk about life and culture in a smart, educated way. The stuff I really liked. Not what I thought would make me look smart to my teachers: detective novels, violent movie, music recorded by people who burn churches in their free time and whatever’s happening on the internet.
It might seem like throwaway culture to you, but to me it isn’t. Our culture is popular culture. It’s the one that matters now and the one we’re going to be remembered for. So, who gives a fuck about James Joyce when there’s A24 movies, noise rock and Blake Butler’s novels to worry about? They’re happening right now and their work is changing the world we’re living in. It inspires new ideas and shapes the future.
Dead End Follies is dedicated to what happened that still matters today, what’s happening right now and what will become of popular culture. It’s also your safe space from Star Wars, Marvel and other overbearing Disney properties. I discuss them occasionally to anchor my perspective in shared experiences, but the main mission of the site is to provide fulfilling alternatives to mass culture.
If you’re feeling a vague sense of alienation while scrolling your social media feeds. If you’re browsing through your streaming devices and never feel like watching anything. If you’re tired of having the same fucking water cooler conversations about the same fucking movies and television shows, Dead End Follies is for you.
I am like you. This is a place where we engage culture in a serious, thoughtful and heavy metal way.