"Sometimes you actually get caught in the web of things where people are talking about... what kind of breakfast cereal you like"

Joshua Homme points to a modern snare: the “web” is both the internet’s mesh of attention and a sticky tangle of expectations around public figures. Once inside, the focus slides from substance to palatable trivia, the kind of lightweight detail that’s easy to consume and easy to monetize. Breakfast cereal becomes a stand-in for all those benign, clickable questions that flatten a person into brand-friendly tidbits. The result is a portrait of an artist as a set of preferences rather than a body of work.

This dynamic is not just about interviews gone shallow; it’s about the economy of attention. Algorithms reward the low-friction, endlessly shareable snippet. Outlets need volume. Fans, seeking familiarity, gravitate toward small facts that feel intimate. The entire system nudges conversation away from craft, risk, or context and toward digestible identity markers. Over time, that shift breeds a pressure to perform a persona. You become caretaker of a character who has a favorite cereal, a favorite sneaker, a favorite gadget, anything but a difficult idea.

There’s also a psychic toll. When the public conversation revolves around trivia, an artist can feel alienated from their own work, like the work is the pretext and the lifestyle the real product. The “web” feels inescapable because refusing to play can mean losing visibility, yet playing reinforces the trap. It’s a loop: the more banality you feed it, the more it asks.

Escaping entirely may be unrealistic, but there’s room for renegotiation. Set boundaries; redirect curiosity toward process, values, and the messy realities that shape creation. Use humor to puncture the script rather than to decorate it. Accept that a little trivia can humanize without letting it define. The deeper insistence is simple: let the work lead, not the marketing shorthand. Real conversation costs more attention, but it pays back with meaning.