For almost every level trying to make a statement or really utilize Geometry Dash as a medium of art, I will always hold some amount of respect for them regardless of whether or not I think they're good or bad because I respect being bold and trying to do something more than just existing. However, in the radiator (which I'll call ITR for short) is past the realm of "agree to disagree" and it trying to make an artistic statement does not shield from the fact that is conceptually bad, horribly executed, and is a peek into an extremely self-destructive mindset, all of which are why I hold zero respect for this level.

I'll start by talking about the level itself. There is almost nothing to actually talk about inside ITR, it is roughly 4 minutes of an automatic level where the player drifts through a black void with quiet ambient music. I don't particularly like it nor do I particularly hate it, I just don't feel anything at all when I "play" the level. That's because none of the substance of the level is actually within the level itself. Instead, it's all in a pastebin found in the description of the official YouTube upload of the level. The pastebin has since been taken down, but an archival of it can be found here. I immediately take issue with this approach because it takes the route of "tell, don't show." While wless does try to explain in the pastebin some of the stylistic choices inside ITR, none of it changes the fact that the level itself is extremely boring. Whether or not they chose to make it this way does not change the fact that the level is inherently flawed. The level itself is so devoid of substance that the level could straight up not exist and wless could've just released the pastebin and not much would change. The pastebin's attempts at explaining away the problems of the level comes off similarly if an artist were to have a near-blank canvas and tried to write over 2400 words on how this canvas with almost nothing it was actually some subversive statement piece about art itself and the art market; they would look ridiculous and be laughed out of the room. Let's just call a spade a spade.

And now for the pastebin itself, while I don't agree with its message, I still want to talk about what I don't like about it. When I read it, it struck me as (1) extremely cynical, (2) very pretentious, and (3) a little bit doomer. wless talks about how the general norm for rating levels is starting to centralize on a "monogenre," experimentation is discouraged, and the GD mods and RobTop are the ones at fault for letting the rating system reach a point like this. While I do partially understand where they are coming from (though I think they are greatly exaggerating these problems), the tone of this pastebin and the general way they communicate their ideas makes me very uncomfortable and slightly concerned. Throughout the pastebin, wless seems to generalize all GD into two groups: those which fully cater to the standards and ones that don't at all. It's a very black-and-white way of looking at things. wless also carries this tone of being smarter and more lucid than the children who play this game and anyone who builds a level which caters to the standards in any way, even at one point in the pastebin calling themselves a "radical" (you aren't some unheard genius, you're just a 16-year-old with a shitty attitude). There is no other way to quantify someone who calls the rating system "the demise of creativity and experimentation" other than a doomer who gets themselves caught in slippery slopes and black-and-white fallacies.

The more I read this pastebin, the more it solidifies me giving this a solid 0. While I will almost always respect statement levels, I just can't do that when the statement in question is a look into a very self-destructive mindset and the level itself is just a hollow experience. The fact I feel nothing when I play the level while wless built it to express bottled up frustrations they've had for a long time is another failure of the level to properly convey emotions. ITR is just a something completely rotten, through and through.