By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor: The 315

Whether you’re a musician looking to collaborate with someone else, a venue manager hoping to book an act, or a music fan just wondering what type of music you’re going to listen to at an upcoming show, you probably check out local musicians’ websites and social media pages to learn the genre of their music. In most cases, that information is pretty clear. You read “Rock” or “Rap” or “Country,” maybe a few lines describing the music, and you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to hear before you even search for a video or audio clip. In other cases, you have no idea what the terms mean, and after listening to a clip or even a full song, you still have no idea what to expect from a full album or set. This reportedly happens more and more today, due in large part to the growth of hybrid genres and microgenres in music.

Smaller than a sub genre, a micro genre has its own distinct characteristics not found in the wider sub genre or the larger genre. A micro genre also differs from a sub genre and from fusion in that a micro genre is designed to cater to specific themes or tastes.

The term “hybrid genre” is often confused with “micro genre,” but while some hybrid genres can be described as “micro genres,” and vice versa, the terms describe different things in music. A “micro” genre is a type of music created to appeal to a limited audience, or to very specific tastes. Hybrid genres simply blend elements of two different types of music. There is no niche or specific target audience. Many hybrid genres even have the exact opposite impact of micro genres, widening the audience for both types of music rather than narrowing it to people who enjoy two specific things.

Country Rap

Country and rap once seemed like the last two genres anyone would try to blend together, as they seemed to have almost nothing in common. Rap grew from struggling urban neighborhoods. Country roots were strictly in the rural parts of America. And while country music certainly started out on the same socioeconomic level as Rap, by the 1990’s, it had taken such a pop turn in both style and image, it was starting to seem like music for rich pop fans who liked to pretend to be cowboys. It was not uncommon for people who liked one of those genres to declare they could not stand and never wanted to hear the other one. Today, more and more country artists are returning to an older, more traditional form of country music, while at the same time showing greater interest in mixing with other genres, including rap. By the end of 2025, there were enough Country rap artists to create top fifty song lists.

Country rap is formed when an artist raps the lyrics of what would otherwise be a country song, but the artist’s entire body of work, or even an entire album, does not have to feature rapped lyrics to be classified as country rap. Jelly Roll is perhaps one of the most well-known country rap artists today. While his lyrics blend themes common to both genres, he switches back and forth, rapping on some songs, singing country-style vocals on others, and switching back and forth on still others.

Christian Rap, Pop, or Country

Contemporary Christian music is described by some as its own genre. Others argue that because it does not have a distinct sound all its own, it is a sub genre of whatever style of music is being played. However, each specific type of modern Christian music is often considered a micro genre, because it is written, produced, and marketed to appeal to very specific themes and tastes in music.

Christian rap is created to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as is all Christian music. But it is also created for and by people who love rap music. Someone who accepted Jesus and their Lord and Savior, but did not enjoy the sound of rap music at all would not be a Christian rapper or a fan of Christian rap. The same holds true for Christian Pop and Christian Country. It is this focus on a narrow category of listeners that qualifies each form of modern Christian music as a sub genre for many.

Rap fans who never thought to listen to Christian rap before might want to try Lecrae. His song “Graced up,” performed with Miles Minnick, was released in May 2025, and sends a message of the blessing of the grace of Jesus Christ on a person’s life. Christian Pop is perhaps best exemplified today by Brandon Lake, particularly “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” a catchy song about being willing to go through trials in life to glorify God.

“The Author,” another song by Brandon Lake, is sung from the perspective of someone who realizes that God is the author of his life, and the one who holds the pen. The song is a duet with pop singer Nick Jonas.

“Deeper Still” by Ben Fuller is likely to appeal to Christians who love country music, as it sounds like a more traditional-leaning modern country song, but the lyrics center around finding Jesus “at the end of myself,” and a desire to know Him and His love deeper.

Christian micro genres are easy to find, with entire stations, numerous playlists on streaming services, and whole sections of music stores devoted to Christian music. While aimed at Christians who enjoy each type of music, those who are not Christian may still like some Christian music in their favorite genre.

Bubble Grunge

Bubble Grunge music is formed when the melodies of bubblegum pop music are woven into grunge music. Because the music is so heavily based on grunge/alternative, some argue that bubble grunge is not even a true hybrid genre, just punk or alternative music with melodies that lean pop. There is some support for this argument, as the one playlist available on Spotify for “bubblegrunge” includes some songs by Pixies, a well-known alternative band, and the Riot Grrrl band “Bikini Kill.” Randomly selecting from other bands on the list and searching for their genre reveals that most of these bands are considered “alternative” by various sources.

Other bands are described as blending so many genres, they are certainly hybrids of something, even if “Bubble Grunge” is not a legitimate hybrid music genre. Canadian band Metric gets classified as “indie rock” by most sources, but nearly all of them add at least one other genre, usually two or three.

Horrorcore

“Horrorcore” might best be defined as “Hip hop music for people who love horror movies, paranormal or horror fiction, and/or true crime.” The genre is Hip-hop, and some people call “Horrorcore,” a sub genre rather than a micro genre, but it qualifies as a micro genre because the themes in Horrorcore music are especially dark, even when compared to some of the grittier themes and lyrics of mainstream Rap and Hip Hop music.

The most well-known Horrorcore artists may be the Hip-Hop duo Insane Clown Posse. Some of their song titles themselves are explicit, but like much of Horrorcore, even the most mundane sounding titles or choruses are woven around graphic, scary stories. “Prom Queen,” with its chorus beginning “Won’t you be my prom queen?” sounds like a typical teen crush tune, but listen closely and it is clear that the song is actually about a young man who is planning to murder someone at his prom. Similarly, Razakel’s “Cherry Red,” blends Hip-Hop with pop and sounds like it should be a dance song, but the lyrics reveal it to be written from the perspective of a murderer threatening a potential victim.

Although the lyrics of Horrorcore music can be disturbing, it is important to remember that the artists are doing the same thing with their music that Stephen King does with his fiction or Wes Craven with film, that is, telling a fictional story to an audience who wants to enjoy that type of story.

These are far from the only microgenres and hybrid genres that exist in music. There are dozens more to discover, and a new one may even be emerging as you read this article.

Do any Utica area bands fit into one of these categories? Leave us a comment below

By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor: The 315

Teaching your art, or an aspect of your art, to others can be a way to add some fairly steady income to your practice. Some artists also teach a single, occasional class as a side hustle.

If that work involves teaching adults, students eighteen and older, it typically takes the form of “adjunct” or part-time, term-by-term teaching for colleges and universities. Taking on classes by the term can be a great supplement to the income of an artist or other content creator, but it is important to keep things in perspective.

Never work an adjunct teaching job as though it were your full-time, permanent job

Colleges and universities seeking a full-time, permanent faculty member in your field will advertise for and hire one. They are never going to treat an adjunct like a full-time employee. Even if you have been in a university’s adjunct pool for more than a decade, and you’ve had classes to teach each term, the department head may decline to offer you classes at any time, for any reason. It will not make a difference if you are teaching three classes, and someone who is a full-time, permanent member of the faculty is also teaching three classes. The pay you are earning to teach those classes is much lower than the salary that person is getting. You may be offered some benefits, but you will not be offered the same benefits as a full-time worker.

Obey the rules, treat everyone with respect, and do the work you agreed to do when you signed on to teach the classes. Just don’t grow overly attached to any one school, take on an excessive amount of extra work, or fill the rest of your day with unpaid additional work for the college or university. No adjunct needs to be up all night answering student emails, spending more than the required hours in office hours, or giving out their phone number and personal email address to students.

Think of steady, full adjunct teaching schedules as one part of your career in music, writing, video content creation, etc. and approach each term of teaching for a school as a long but individual project in your overall career. If you’re only teaching one class per term or less, you are probably not making enough income to use this work as anything but a side hustle.

Get in as many adjunct pools as you need to reach your goals, but accept offers to teach classes carefully

Adjunct teachers are a cross between employees and independent workers. On paper, you work for the school. You get the same tax forms, employee handbooks, keys, and ID cards as an employee. Unfortunately, this means the process also starts with a job application and interviews. Go through as many of those as you possibly can within reason considering your own career focus and goals. If you’re a Utica-based musician, apply to the music department’s adjunct pool at all of the area colleges and universities, but skip all of the online, for-profit schools that pop up when you search for application information. If your career focus is online because you’re a nonfiction writer building a TikTok channel or a YouTube channel where you write and present reports and commentary on true crime, then you might want to join the criminal justice and writing or communication pools at all the online colleges and universities, and skip the local schools. Someone who wants to build a local career, but also needs some time at home to work on an album or a novel might want to apply to both online and local schools.
There is no set number of adjunct pools that is right for everybody, but you may want to err on the side of too many rather than too few. It is entirely possible to be in a school’s adjunct pool without doing any work for them for a term or even for a year or more.

The independent worker part comes once you’re hired. Being hired as an adjunct/added to the “adjunct pool” means being added to a group of screened people the department head can offer classes on a term by term basis. The department heads at each school will offer you classes each semester just as any other type of client offers you gigs, readings, copywriting projects, or other work. Some schools will automatically offer you classes. Others you will have to reach out to and remind them that you’re available in order to get offers.

Avoid automatically accepting every class you get offered at multiple schools. Carefully consider how much other work you have to do and what your financial needs are before accepting each course or set of courses. A musician whose only other expected income is a single fifty-dollar gig each month may want to accept an offer to teach three classes at one school and two at another for the upcoming term, while turning down all adjunct teaching offers during a period full of high-paying gigs. Department heads at reputable colleges and universities are not going to get angry and never speak to you again if you tell them you’re not available to teach for a term, or that you can only accept one class. If they needed somebody available to work full-time, they’d hire an actual faculty member.

Remember that you’re going to find good teaching gigs and bad teaching gigs, just like with any other work in your career.

You probably have a favorite place to play, display or sell your visual art projects, or read or lecture on your books. There are probably plenty more places that are unremarkable, but a solid part of the job when you’re an artist. And there may be a few places you wouldn’t step foot in unless your bank account was down to its last dollar and there was a single dusty can of expired corn in your kitchen cupboards.

The same thing will happen when you teach as an adjunct for colleges and universities. One school will introduce you to a supervisor who treats you like a professional in your field, does all they can to accommodate you with scheduling, and offers you courses to teach on a steady basis. Most of the students in your classes will be there to learn, and will be engaged in the material and hard-working on their assignments. In the second school that hires you on as an adjunct, the department head may be great, but not offer you much work, with students who are half there to learn and half there just to play sports or party. Apply to a third school, and you might get somebody who behaves as though you’re supposed to beg them to “let” you teach a one-credit, half-term course that barely pays enough to cover the lunches you’re stuck buying from their cafeteria because you have to schedule office hours that every student ignores, but prevent you from going home. Focus on the best ones, and quietly keep the others at arm’s length, just as you would with any other type of work.

Be aware of the expenses commonly associated with teaching as an adjunct

Everything you absolutely need to teach the classes should be provided to you. Classroom space, a projector, a computer or computers, a dedicated email address, and online space to collect papers and post grades will be given to you. You should also be given a free instructor copy of any textbook you select, as long as you select it from the available options at the school store.

Buy your own dry erase markers for the boards, and any pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, index cards, folders, or other small school supplies you may want to use. You might be able to find these around a faculty lounge or other faculty center for free, or find some around your classrooms. But don’t count on it. Dry erase pens are especially prone to getting carted off or destroyed. It’s better to stop at Dollar Tree or the school supply sale at Walmart and invest five or ten dollars in the adjunct teaching portion of your career or your teaching side hustle than to make a roomful of students wait while you find the one working dry erase marker in the room.

Some schools offer adjuncts access to at least one of the school fitness centers or gyms, you will have borrowing privileges at their library, but food and drinks as perks tend to be pretty limited. There may be free water, tea, and coffee available in a teacher’s lounge, maybe some candy or granola bars in a bowl, but that’s about it. Should you need to stay on campus for one or more meals, you will need to either pack one for yourself from home or purchase something in the cafeteria. Ask about faculty and staff meal plans if you’re going to on their campus on a regular basis.

Understand the difference between not-for-profit and for-profit schools

Traditional colleges and universities are responsible to the community they serve. There is always going to be a lot of money circulating and there is always going to be departmental and campus-wide politics, making the college or university look and function a lot like a business. Still, the school’s ultimate responsibility, their primary focus, is to produce educated members of their community. Some do that better than others, with some schools known around the world for their academic rigor and relevance, and other schools known as places students come to party, play sports, or hang out until their rich relatives feel like giving them a job, but educating the students is always meant to be the ultimate goal.

For-profit colleges and universities are responsible to the corporation that owns the school. Their ultimate goal, the primary reason they exist, is to make money for their shareholders. Some for-profit schools simply do an extreme amount of advertising, and focus on academic rigor anyway. Others are one tiny step above diploma mills. These schools emphasize “happy customers” over educated students. Education matters little, as long as people keep buying classes from them. Being made to grade work that was obviously AI generated simply because the student will not admit to cheating, teaching “college” lessons more suitable to a seventh or even sixth grade class and then being bullied into giving nothing lower than a “B” for anything that isn’t left unfinished, and getting classes full of students who are openly there to buy their degree and are hostile to anyone who tries to teach them anything are all experiences you can expect at many for-profit schools. You may be just an adjunct, but the atmosphere of the school is going to impact your work experience for the entire time you’re there.

Anyone interested in teaching as an adjunct can find specific information for the departments and schools whose pools they wish to join on each school’s official website. For a general search of online opportunities, visit the website “Higher Ed Jobs” at www.higheredjobs.com

By Jess Santacroce

Writer/Editor: The 315

Sometimes things just don’t go well for working musicians and other artists. Gigs grow scarce, album or other project sales are down. It feels like you’re working for yourself in all the wrong ways, with nobody else even paying attention to anything you do. But since music helps with pretty much everything, the best way to get through those times just might include a “feeling unappreciated and ignored” playlist. Here are five songs to get you started. Add them all, then add five or six more, or start with one and find other songs with this theme from your favorite genre or decade.

Country: I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry: Hank Williams (1949)

No country music playlist about being unappreciated or unnoticed could exist without this song, a classic in every sense of the word. The title specifically refers to being “lonesome,” not “unappreciated” or “ignored,” but lyrics describing a whippoorwill as sounding “too blue to fly” and robins weeping “when leaves begin to die” teamed with the wailing vocals, paint a picture of lonesomeness that descended into despair a long time ago. This isn’t the loneliness of a person whose spouse is working yet another late shift this week or whose friends forgot that they like to go out too. It’s the loneliness of someone who has been completely abandoned.

Pop-punk: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Green Day (2004)

Like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” this song laments the type of lack of appreciation that comes with isolation. People sometimes mistakenly think this song is called “I Walk Alone” because that is the phrase that is repeated in the chorus. The narrator in the song describes walking alone through life with only their shadow walking beside them, and hoping someone will find them, but knowing it isn’t likely to happen.

Alternative: Creep (clean version): Radiohead (1997)

Feeling unappreciated can certainly come from feeling abandoned and isolated, but it is possible to feel unappreciated and ignored even when you are right there with other people. The clean version of “Creep” describes such a situation. The narrator sings of being someplace with the person they want to notice and appreciate them, but asks themselves “what the hell am I doing here?” and concludes “I don’t belong here.”

“Creep” is often an anthem for people who feel like they don’t fit in, like people don’t want them wherever they are, and don’t appreciate much about them, even delving into the common pattern of rejected and ignored people, holding others up on pedestals. When you feel like a “weirdo” the person you wish would notice you seems to “float like a feather..”

Those who want a melancholy song about feeling like everyone around them is better than they are will want to stick to the clean version of “Creep.” There is an “explicit” or NSFW (or radio) version that replaces “very special” with “<f bomb> special.” This small change shifts the entire mood of the song from sad to angry.

R&B: The Little Things: Jessica Mauboy (2019)

The previous three songs rely on imagery from nature, feathers, birds, the moon, shadows, to craft a mental picture of isolation, loneliness, and low-self opinion, all offshoots of being unappreciated and ignored. Jessica Mauboy’s “The Little Things” narrates a story about a couple falling apart because one member no longer remembers and appreciates the little things in life. The song opens up with “You don’t say I’m pretty...not like you used to” and goes on to describe blowing up little things just to get her partner to notice them.

Metal/mixed genre: Faint: Linkin Park (2003)

Much of the time, being ignored generates feelings of sadness. We wonder what we did wrong, what there is about us that makes people simply start acting like we barely exist. As we can see from the previous songs on this list, isolation and trying harder to get the people ignoring us to pay attention to us are relatable responses.

Other times, being ignored makes us angry. This is the song for you if you’re going through one of those times. Searching for the genre of “Linkin Park” three times gets you seven different combinations of types of music. Some of their songs are indeed rap, some metal, and some pop, with elements of those and more in still others. “Faint” is one of their heavy metal songs, featuring a narrator telling the person ignoring them that they are going to listen to them “like it or not” and a chorus that includes the line “Don’t turn your back on me, I won’t be ignored.”

Making a themed playlist can spark ideas for songs to cover, inspire songwriters to write their own songs with similar themes, or just provide a distraction that allows you to calm down and begin focusing on the solution to things like lagging album sales or sparse performance attendance. And that’s before we even listen to the songs.

By Jess Santacroce

Writer/Editor: The 315

Utica artists can add one more to our list of reasons to fight against AI. It is increasingly being used to scam our community and others.

The scam call filter on our phones is a great tool, but it can cause some missed important calls. Once in a while, you have to answer anyway, especially if you’re expecting calls about gigs, day jobs, side hustles, or anything else important from numbers you may not know.

Should you need to check, or if the scam filter fails or is nonexistent on your phone, one scam making the rounds this month is the “credit card balance scam.” This is an old scam, but it appears to be in heavy rotation once again.

At first, the call appears to be from a legitimate, local number. When you answer, the caller asks for you by name, and identifies themselves by their first name and “member services.” Asking what company they’re with gets their name and “with member services” repeated. They then add, “Our records show you have been making your payments, but you still have over a $7,000 balance on your credit card.” This short dialogue alone contains enough red flags to let you know this is a scam.

The call is unsolicited and outside of the area of focus for credit card companies

Credit card companies rarely cold call customers about their balances these days. You’ll get a paper letter in the mail or a message in the inbox of your online account page first. When you are contacted by a credit card company, it is usually because you missed payment deadlines or there was suspicious activity on your account. Credit card companies don’t reach out to tell you how bad they feel that your balance is high even though you’ve been making regular payments. Regular payments on a high balance are exactly what credit card companies hope for. It means you’re paying a lot of interest.

The agent you’re talking to is an AI bot

Scammers have long been able to spoof numbers, calling anywhere from across the street to across the state to across the world from a number that looks like a local one to where you are currently living. Today, scammers can also use AI generated voices and background noises that mimic the typical accent, age, word choice, and environment of the typical bank or credit card company employee in your area. You could be talking to a group of thirty-year old men in a crowded call center in Lagos, Nigeria, while the background noise and voice sounds like someone slightly older sitting in a quiet corporate office an hour or two away from you.

The giveaway tends to be that the voice has a slightly robotic tone. Real people with legitimate jobs making cold calls of any kind are fully aware that they’re being annoying. They tend to go out of their way to sound warm and friendly. A robotic or flat tone, one that sounds human but slightly annoyed or bored, is probably AI generated.

Information about the company is vague

There is absolutely no legitimate reason why anyone would not know what company they were working for. Even if you’re a freelance virtual assistant, taking customer service calls for multiple places from your home office, the name of the company you’re working for at any given moment is going to be right on your screen. If you ask what company they’re with, or what account this is in reference to and all they can do is repeat that they’re with “member services” or “member services for your Visa card,” it is a scam.

In the rare case that you would receive a phone call from your credit card company, the agent making the call would be able to tell you the specific name of the corporation that issued you the card.

The information they have on you lacks detail

The amount of your supposed balance may or may not frighten you. Some people are perfectly comfortable using credit cards, carrying large balances, and paying interest. Their actual balance may be well over ten grand, and someone calling and announcing they had a balance “over $7,000” would not phase them for a second. Others would absolutely panic if they even thought they might have allowed a balance to grow to even a few hundred dollars, never mind several thousand.

Either way, someone legitimately working with you on your account would have your exact balance available. And they would not need to say “you’ve been making regular payments.” They’d have your exact payment amounts and dates in front of them.

The goal of this particular scam is simple. The scammer hopes you will mentally fill in the details, and begin discussing your account with them in order to get them to lower your rate, offer you a statement credit, or forgive a payment. As with most scams of this nature, they’ll tell you that they “just” need your credit card information to “verify” that they are talking to the correct person. Once you give them the information from the account that sprung to mind when they said “member services” and that vague balance, they have all they need to start charging things to the card and even open up other cards in your name.

The easiest way to end the call and avoid offering the scammers any information is of course to hang up without saying a word. If they get as far as the balance, announce “No, that is not me,” as soon as they throw out that vague balance. This will trigger the response, “Sorry to bother you,” and a hang up. Never ask “What card?” or “Can you tell me my exact balance?” This only prompts them to talk to you more, and the longer you talk to them, the more chances there are that you will accidentally share usable information with them. At the very least, they will see you as a potential mark, and you’ll get several callbacks from scammers at the same call center throughout the rest of the day.

By Jess Santacroce

Writer/Editor: The 315

The Tramontane Cafe, known as “The Tram” has long been known as haven, hub, and second home to a large portion of the Utica artists community. On Saturday, September 26,2026, two pillars of the local music scene took the stage. Each musician played a one-hour set of his own choosing, but the two artists fit together, as both are known not only for immense talent and skill but for versatility in their work.

Lou Santacroce took the stage first, opening the evening with “The Concert Song,” a zany tune jokingly warning the audience that they’re actually crazy for coming out, as nearly every problem imaginable is happening around them, some of their own making. He moved on to more serious songs, including “Picture of the Pain,” which Lou described as a “divorce song,” noting “Fortunately I don’t have to write those anymore.”

Other songs addressed real-life situations that impacted the community as a whole. The lyrics of “Connie and Carl” tell a fictionalized version of the 2015 prison break in Dannemora, New York. “With Your Eyes” is a portrait of a man grappling with depression, told from the point of view of someone who knows him. While the song is not written about a real person, each depression symptom highlighted is real. “Mama Gets Drunk” tells the story of a little boy the narrator knows, a child forced to live with a neglectful single parent.

And of course, Lou can also write a beautiful, personal love song. He introduced “Traces” as a song about “the perfume my wife wears” and ended his set with “The One Who Holds My Heart (for Jess),” an engagement song written for his real-life wife and one true love.

Throughout the evening, the spirit of cooperation and support always in evidence at any Tram event could be felt from audience members and performers alike. Friends, family, and fans of both musicians gathered around the tables near the stage, occasionally strolling around to check out the music and other art for sale along the bar, purchase food and drinks from the counter, and greet the performers and each other. A true “listening room experience,” everyone in attendance was there for the music and the musicians.

As he prepared to turn the stage over, Lou introduced “the incredible Frank Bianco,” to which Frank responded, “Not better than you, Lou” from the audience.

Frank Bianco began his set with vocals, then quickly moved on to guitar and vocals and then to instrumental music. He described his shift from vocals to purely instrumental music explaining, “The funny thing about pursuing all of this is that for the past three years I was kind of in the singer-songwriter category.”

Throughout his set, Frank explained that much of the experimentation he does with the sound of his instrumental work comes from variations in tuning on his guitar. His ability to find inspiration and ideas for his music reaches just as far as his skill in writing and playing.

One instrumental piece was described as “a song for my dog, Murphy,” with the backstory “He was at my feet as I wrote this song.”

Another instrumental song was introduced with “This next one goes out to my alter ego, Brian. He retired and he became a Buddhist monk in Nepal.”

The song, “Oh 8 or 840 Upside Down” received a shorter introduction, only described as “a little spooky.”

As his set drew to a close, Frank circled back to guitar and vocals, with an unreleased song titled “Port and Touch,” a tale of walking into a bar/massage parlor and “telling a masseuse about the tension in my soul”, “Couch Fly,” from his first album, and “Haul Away Joe,” described as a “repurposed sailor song.”

As the evening drew to a close, audience members quickly finished drinks and meals and drifted out to the sound of conversation and congratulations for both of the artists on two outstanding performances.

For more information about each of these fine musicians, including upcoming performances and releases, be sure to follow their professional pages.

Frank Bianco’s Band Camp page can be found here: Music | Frank Bianco

Lou Santacroce’s professional page can be found at: Lou Santacroce | Santacroce315

Those who would like to purchase physical copies in person should stop in at the Tramontane Cafe at 1105 Lincoln Avenue in Utica. Be sure to follow them on facebook for updated hours, menus, and other great events featuring these and other Utica artists. Their page is available here:Facebook

Photo credit: Jess Santacroce

By Jess Santacroce

Writer/Editor: The 315

Research is an important part of a lot of artists’ careers, whether that be the primary research of going out and experiencing things to write, play, sing, paint, photograph, or draw, or the secondary research of reading and watching videos to learn more about something we want to address in our art.

Those who are not Christian, but would like to learn more about Christianity for their art, to create a Christian character or address a Christian teaching, concept, or stereotype in their work, will likely look to websites like TikTok and YouTube for information and insight. Those are indeed good starting places, but when evaluating Christian channels and sites, take the time to examine them carefully.

True Christian content is always backed up by scripture

Any Christian podcast or video host you watch should be citing scripture to back up what they say, and that scripture should actually back up what they say. If you are not a Christian, you don’t read the Bible, and you would have no idea how to judge this, there are free Bible apps you can use. The website “Bible Hub” is especially easy to navigate, and even contains articles with life application lessons and historical explanations of Bible verses. A search for “Bible Hub top ten” followed by the verse you’re hearing will bring up the top ten lessons that verse offers.

A channel host who begins every sentence with “God told me,” but isn’t following that up with references to the Bible is a content creator to avoid. Receiving word and visions from God is indeed part of a Christian’s walk with Jesus. Some people even have the gift of prophecy. But true word, true visions, and legitimate prophecy are always in line with the teachings of Jesus.

And even then, nobody is perfect. You may find someone who bases 99% of what they say on sound examination of scripture, but just can’t resist getting their own political views woven in there on one or two issues. You don’t have to completely avoid someone like this, just remember that Jesus was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. If some content creator is making it sound like He was, look deeper into that portion of their content before accepting it as Christian doctrine.

God is not the Amazon guy

Many Christian channels and podcasts, along with several of the books you see in Christian sections of the bookstore today, teach that God rewards His children materially for the good works that they do. This “Amazon wishlist” approach to God, the belief that if I pray this much or go to church this often or donate this much to this ministry or be kind to this many people today, God will bless me with material things, is not Christianity. This is an un-Biblical offshoot called “prosperity gospel.” Proponents use the name of Jesus and even reference the Bible, but at its core, prosperity gospel is closer to the pagan practice of adopting a patron deity and making offerings in exchange for assistance than it is to Christianity.

The Bible does say that God will provide for the needs of His children. Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will meet all your needs according to the glory in Christ Jesus.” In Matthew 6:26, we read, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

The detail that prosperity gospel likes to skip over is the “according to the glory in Christ” section. God’s idea of “need” and “blessing” are more than a little different than our own earthly human idea of a need and a blessing. God gives us what we need, blesses us with, those things that are necessary for each of us to do His will, to further His kingdom on earth for His glory. He doesn’t give us things based on our own will, as presents for being good.

Christians you see being kind to others, serving in their church, attending church, donating money to their church or supporting missions, are doing these things because once you start serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you want to do these things. You’re not doing them to get something in return.

Everybody is not possessed by the devil but me, you, and a random person on social media

Many of the Christian channels you will find in search results will have titles like “These are doorways to the demonic” or “These products draw demons.” Known as “deliverance ministries,” some Christian channels focus almost exclusively on driving demons out of people. Demons are real, and they do influence people, but chasing them around shouldn’t be the primary focus of Christian life. Most of the people in deliverance ministries get so caught up in yelling Jesus’ name at demons, they forget to actually spend time with Him. They grow so content that their casting out of a demon solved the problem, they neglect to walk with Jesus through the completely mundane parts of life.

Poverty may exist because of the human sins of greed and pride, but if I’m called to fight poverty, studying scripture related to poverty, praying and asking Jesus to guide my steps, and then working at the food bank or homeless shelter He leads me to is going to do a lot more to fight back than standing over people who have less than me screaming at a demon who likes poverty to get out.

Christian clickbait is still just clickbait

“God will show you this video when you’re about to have a breakthrough.” and “God will show you this right when you need to see it” as video titles are nothing more than clickbait designed to get you to click on videos.

God does everything at the exact right time. Some random YouTuber’s video isn’t any more under the control of God than anything else that happens. Some of these channels may still quote scripture. They are not necessarily prosperity gospel or deliverance channels, just because they use these titles. At the same time, when you see titles like this, you already know that this person is perfectly willing to use references to God, the name of God, to boost the clicks on his or her own channel. That is certainly not in keeping with scripture. In 2 Corinthians 2:17 the Apostle Paul warns that unlike many, “we do not peddle the word for profit.”

AI slop content is running through Christian social media

That same scripture should come to mind when videos with titles like “Use Bible versus to make easy money with AI” are offered up by the search results. Christians read the Bible for guidance on our attitudes and practices concerning money. We don’t try to use Bible verses as quick cash generators.

There are some beneficial or neutral uses for AI. Many in the medical community are finding it useful to conduct deeper research faster and organize information more efficiently. Those in all fields may find the now built-in summaries of search results helpful when they need to know something quickly. And we all have fun with those little cartoons and pictures. At the same time, there are multiple drawbacks to AI. The technology being woven and crammed into every available online space leads to the building of data centers that put far too much strain on the environment and on the community around them. Overuse or misuse of AI is diminishing our critical thinking skills and social skills. Some even experience psychosis from AI usage.

In business and in the arts, AI is especially detrimental because the use of “AI slop,” or content generated from AI rather than created by a person, is being offered as a replacement for marketing and for many forms of art. Of lower quality than actual created content, this material is driving away customers and supporters.

One of these misuses of AI centers around the Bible. Rather than using the Bible as a way to learn the word and the will of God, some content creators use it to create a money grab by running Bible verses through video generating AI content machines, slapping their names on the resulting Bible cartoon, and posting it to a YouTube channel.

Some of these videos may be encouraging, engaging, even helpful. Others are clearly slop, featuring cartoon characters with mouths that don’t line up with their voices and people who appear to float instead of walk. But like anything else created by AI, these generators could easily have found something someone who never read the Bible posted on Reddit as one of their sources. If you’re going for the money grab, copying and pasting Bible verses and prompts and then posting as fast as possible, there’s a chance you posted a “Bible story” that is not even in the Bible.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

Anytime you find Christian content online and you either don’t know enough about Christianity to evaluate it, or you just aren’t sure for any other reason, ask a friend who is a Christian, or ask a pastor. Any church that is truly following the teachings of Jesus will welcome you to attend a service or a Bible study and ask questions.

Author’s note: I have no formal training in Bible studies or Theology, but I have been a Christian since late September of 2016.. If you would like to ask me anything about Jesus, please feel more than welcome to email me at: JessSantacroce@outlook.com