Pharrell’s the pop icon version of ASMR to me and I can’t put my finger on why.

So we’ll go with “how”.

How do I love-hate thee, Mr. Williams? Let me count the ways…

1. He dances like an old man… and makes it look really cool.

This is like the dance version of Julia Roberts Syndrome (a term I’ve recently co-created with my mom for when the parts of someone’s face aren’t stunning, but look amazing when put together). When you see little snippets of Pharrell dancing like this gif, he just looks like somebody who’s celebrating having just gotten laid. Or paid. Or both. But when you see it in its entirety accompanied by his so-catchy-I’m-sorry-I-ever-listened-to-it songs, you get the warm and fuzzies all over.

2. He dresses like an old lady… and makes it look really cool.

When I first saw this, I asked my buddy who also lives in CelebrityCity, USA to please reprimand Mr. Williams for stealing Maya’s church clothes. Just ‘cause she’s passed on and merged with Glob world doesn’t mean he can go rummaging through her hamper. Even if he does end up looking like a black James Dean in her duds.

3. Despite dressing and dancing like old people, he never actually ages.

Part of me wants to hatefully hunt down the entire catalogue of Pharrell’s 2014 candids to find at least one that makes him look as old as he. That way I’ll have photographical fodder for shade throwing at someone who’s probably a very sweet and kind man and who cries on Oprah when I should just be “Happp-aaay” for him. In fact “happy” is probably what keeps Smokey the bear bearing fewer wrinkles. (That’s both the healthy attitude and the song which probably allows him to afford monthly botox.)

4. Yep. The hat.

No, really – does it choose his tunes like the one from Hogwarts does class groups?

5. He’s read books like “The Alchemist” and had deep experiences.

I love that book.

Have I finished it yet? No.

But it’s got a lot of great quotes in I’ve found on Google so it can sound like I have.

6. The album “GIRL”

…and its songs that merge with my reluctant memory like your femur and clavicle ossifying together until your only mode of movement anymore is a continuous, sloppy somersault that looks like a flat tire. Indeed, “Hunter” has been somersaulting through my head since the first time I heard it. And I want to cut it out with a scalpel. What I also want, though, is to know something about this album’s title: Is a reference to coke – AKA “white girl”? Because he caught a lotta shit for not having enough black chicks on the art part of his album. And I feel like that had to be a symbolic thing versus the racist thing people were superficially assuming it was.)

7. And, finally, this moment:

See? Even Streep’s fallen prey to the street drug of Pharrell’s addictive ditties. Thus, in the end, I’m still schizo-reactive to Pharrell. I adore this synesthetic phenomenon… and wanna pinch his still-youthful cheeks sadistically until he cries slightly. But instead of torturing him, I’ll probably just torture myself.

By buying his next album.