A whole bunch of people will probably say that he viral marketed himself spamming threads here. Id oubt that's true from what I saw. I started coming to /mu/ in early 2011, it had a completely different vibe, and meme's weren't as pervasive as they are now. I mean people would meme the fuck out of stuff like Tyler, but nothing like today's meme or die approach where sincere opinions get lost. Anyways back on topic, a few months later in some bandcamp threads he posted his music, and it was good. Much better than the average /mu/tant stuff, and pretty soon other people, myself included, started sharing it in 'best stuff you've found on bandcamp' threads. A lot of people knew about him, but his stuff was ever spammed. Anyways, fast forwards a couple of years, he was still spoken of highly, but most of the population didn't seem to care much about him. He must have released a new album though, and fans, once again myself included, found it pretty average, other people asked why anyone even cared, and got turned on to twin fantasy. Newer fans didn't understand why it had been forgotten and spammed it a little, eventually to the point it was known primarily as a meme. The same thing seems to happen a bit, but without the artist coming forward as a /mu/tant themselves, Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum come to mind.
All of this said, thisa is just how I saw it happen and I could be completely wrong, but the whole thing seemed organic to me.
