PixPixPix is a slim story of a chapter, a vignette of fifth graders in 1978 attempting to call into a television station to play a video game on air after school. I couldn’t help but ask “Why is this chapter even in here? It’s not about the band, it’s not about New York City specifically, and yes, it’s a great capture of what elementary school kids did after school before the internet and overachievers and helicopter parents, but how, specifically does it relate to The Beastie Boys’ story?”
But the answer came almost immediately. Luc Sante’s chapter is big and sweeping and it would be incredibly easy to position the band as being savants somehow, destined by their gifts and the era to become the stars they eventually became. PixPixPix is about showing they were goofy, dumb kids just being themselves. No one was destined for anything. It’s about having fun, not about any sweeping grand pronouncements.
It lets you know that fun is the important thing in this story.