Sure Plays a Mean Pinball: A Review of TikTok’s Yowie Deschanel

Rebel Meter: 9.5 out of 10

Above: AI Interprets Yowie Through Me

I just want to move my fingers.   Sometimes when I write I imagine that the keyboard is like a piano and I am playing the letters like the ivories.   It feels like I might be able to make music.  Then there is a fellow on TikTok.

I think he’s a transwoman or maybe simply non-binary.  He has no published pronouns that I could find.  He is quite young.  But then again he could be as old as 30.  It’s hard to tell.  His name is Yowie. Yowie Deschanel.  The most I could find out about him is he is actively anti-racist, fights against antisemitism and is pro trans.  And that he knows both English and Japanese.   His social media presence seems to be about a year old.  He’s done a good job of being vague. (Be careful on the internet.)  What is it about him that fascinates me – and by extension, his audience?   He plays asalato, also known as kashaka, shakers, or clickers.  

What he wears is part of the experience.  In fact, the wo(man) is a regular clothes horse.  She seems to carefully choose each article of clothing and accessory before recording.  She’ll match up the outfit with a pair of sunglasses.  I can’t honestly tell if she is wearing wigs or colours her long hair.  She sometimes paints her nails.  The finishing touch is the hair band with the flower on top just for fun.   I imagine: As a performer, all these things need to align before she’ll turn on the camera and sit down. These are perhaps the elements that give her confidence and set the stage.

 At once I am captivated in the split second she brings up her arms, and looks into the camera – lingers but just a moment to show you who’s boss here.  He keeps his eye on you. Then she’s off.  Before I know it I am swept up, not just by the sound which is full of intention and originality, but by how relaxed she is.  She does not look at the clickers or her hands.  First, she looks directly at the camera.  At me.  Defiant.  Bursting with self-confidence only a diva can get away with.  This arrogance is short lived because soon she’s closing her eyes and swaying her body with the beat and nothing else exists for her.  Not the camera, not the audience, just movement and sound.   What I mean to say is that the asalato  and the artist become indistinguishable.  They blend together like a wave.  I may be just a girl, I imagine she thinks, but I am also a mean Kashaka wizard.  A superhero for all the bois like me.  Unashamed.  Full of bravado. Don’t fuck with me.  At the same time, she is a paragon of discipline. No one gets to be that good, no one makes it look effortless without a lot of hard work, practice and commitment. He knows it. He’s good and he knows it. 

Lavender Menace : Asalato