Specifically Marilyn Manson and Kanye West. Am I overthinking this?
So you are asking other people if its ok to be spineless. Looks like you already have the answer for that and didn’t liked it.
Explain Manson pls
YMMV. There is no universal answer to this question. None of us separate the artist entirely from the work and thus our enjoyment of it. I think of it in video game terms. Every artist has a power bar. They can get hit a couple of times and can still be tolerated when they’re in the yellow. But once we’re in the red zone and the character starts getting translucent or is flashing I’m out. This is all very subjective though.
Marylin Manson went red for me and I scrubbed the songs I liked from my playlists. Michael Jackson also. But I continue to listen to The Smiths/Morrissey in spite of Morrissey’s politics. I still enjoy Pink Floyd although Walters and Gilmore are profoundly unlikable characters and Walter’s politics rub me the wrong way a lot of the time.
In the age of streaming, there isn’t a lot of money going to the artist. You’re not really supporting them financially if you enjoy their music in spite of any a-holery, moral or criminal, they may have committed. If you get something out of it, continue to do so. If it feels yucky then I’m gonna guess one more hit is putting the character in the red. And if you paid for the music/album, the “damage” is already done.
I’m glad I was never a big fan of Kanye’s œuvre so I don’t have to wrestle with this question about him. I think he would have done enough to drain his power bar thrice over and thus it’s game over for me. I wish he had more well meaning people around him who could help him to protect himself from himself.
When you said video game you brought to mind a broader context for me. We often associate “a name” (musician, CEO, comedian, etc.) with a brand. But when you truly think of the number of people and entire industry involved in producing said art, it becomes a somewhat different question. Not necessarily easier to answer, and I really like your health bar analogy. I think to some extent it depends on what you personally are getting out of your interaction with the product.
Always a fascinating philosophical question to ponder.
The earthworm considers the hawk to be vile.
The hawk is a terrible digger and crawler. The hawk can’t appreciate composted vegetable scraps. Those big flappy wings and dangling claws, so ugly.
My point is, the world is large and you are small. So be humble, you are probably wrong about everything.
Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the art from the artist, particularly when the artist in question is especially vile.
Just pirate their music. Don’t stream it, don’t go to their concerts, don’t buy and wear their merch. As long as you’re not financially contributing to them then I don’t think there’s any issue.
It also, like CaptainPedantic said, matters what they’re singing about. If the artist has shitty views but doesn’t present them in their music that’s one thing but there’s no ethical way to listen to something called Heil Hitler.
You can still stream it; just use a modded app like YouTube Music ReVanced to block ads and the artist’s record label won’t get a penny from you.
(Unless of course Google pays royalties by view count rather than ad revenue. Not entirely sure how that works. Just wanted to point out that YTM ReVanced is a thing)
Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the art from the artist, particularly when the artist in question is especially vile.
I often bring up Death of the Artist, but with books and music I have an especially hard time. Authors, in particular, struggle to keep their works views and politics out of their books; the same is true with musicians, perhaps to a lesser extent.
It does make me worry about the subconscious influences of listening or reading them.
I think that if “death of the artist” was applicable to any piece of art, then the art would therefore be the equivalent of AI art.
Art by it’s very nature is influenced by someone’s views and beliefs.
The only possible exception is that some artists may drastically change their views later and even denounce previous work.
Edit: I also think it’s worth pointing out that you can like the way someone represents/expresses their viewpoints even if you disagree with said viewpoints, you just have to be aware of the viewpoints presence and potential effects.
I agree; I do think, especially with fiction and reading for leisure, that it’s easy to forget about the author’s beliefs. And often they’re expressed subtly, and… well, when I first read Ender’s Game, I had no idea who OSC was, much less his religious and political beliefs.
Reading Ayn Rand is easy: her writing is unapologetically blatant; it’s like reading those Christian comics where all of the Evil Characters are drawn so over-the-top that there’s no question. But I know my political beliefs today were influenced by my reading as a youth, and I know that I had no idea I was ingesting and being influenced by it at the time.
I think there’s a Dunning-Kruger effect for propaganda, as there is with torture. Many people believe they could withstand torture, or concerted brainwashing, or recognize and be uninfluenced by propaganda, whereas almost nobody can.
In my mind, as long as you’re not listening to a horrific song (like Kanye’s Heil Hitler), and as long as they’re not seeing a penny from you listening to them, then I don’t think it’s a huge issue. You’re getting something from them while screwing them out of some money.
like Kanye’s Heil Hitler
Wait, what??? I thought this was a joke, so I just looked it up. I have no words…
You and me both.
Is Marilyn Manson a dick? I thought they were just weird.
He groomed and allegedly raped an 18 year old.
Ok, fuck him.
Nah, he’s always gone beyond weird. Even back before the band got famous, he was a major asshole to people and abusive. If you can find people that were in the scene back then, it wasn’t even secret; some of the early fans were proud if he did something shitty to them.
I listen to Die Antwoord still and read the poetry of Anne Sexton. The former is because I think some of the accusations against them are exaggerated, and part of their whole act IS being jerks. The latter is because what she did was clearly in the throes of her severe bipolar disorder which was long before they had any good medications.
Okay Die Antwood is interesting to me. I listen to a lot of obscure indie bands from South Africa. I have a few South African compilation CD’s. One track on one of those CD’s was Be Kind to Animals by Max Normal. I had some coworker reccommend Die Antwood because I said I liked South African music. I was reading about Die Antwood only to realize they’re the same artist. I couldn’t believe some obscure track on some 2001 compilation CD turned out to be by one of the biggest South African artists. Yeah the dude is a real asshole from what I’ve read.
Apparently South Africans are NOT fans of the band despite their success. I think what Tokkie claims about them sounds made up, apparently he’s an addict and trying to extort them is their take on it. It just doesn’t sound truthful at all.
Yeah I can’t imagine South Africans appreciating Ninja daying racism is a thing of the past or whatever he said. What was Tokkie claiming exactly? I remember someone claiming they were harassed by Ninja, is that what you’re refrencing? I remember reading about it it but don’t remember the exact specifics. Disclaimer, I am not South African so I don’t claim to speak for them.
Tokkie claims he was sexually and physically abused by them and made into a slave. None of the sources seem very well sourced, it’s just based on a video he made, and they state that he’s an addict and trying to extort them for drug money. Capetown child welfare workers went to their house to see if their daughter Sixteen is ok, and apparently had no problems with them. I take abuse seriously but what he’s saying seems super farfetched and made up. I don’t think they’re great people exactly, but their characters are obviously an act and they’re middle aged parents under it all.
Yup. It’s very easy indeed.
Pirate the fuck out of their stuff, enjoy, repeat.
Well there is enjoying an artists music and there is supporting an artist and defending them. But you have to decide when to cut off an, “abusive relationship”. I can hold a person and artist in separate spaces. A love a lot of music, literature, art that was created by terrible people but try and avoid giving those people my attention and money. Also don’t get caught up in tabloid crap, someone’s mistakes caught on camera or tweeted and they later regret is not the same as a horrible person repeatedly hurting others. Media is paid by anger.
The bigger problem with Rowling is how she rubs it in everyone’s face that any money going towards her is spent on hate speech/groups.
I don’t think so. You’re always going to remember. You can be good at pushing it down. But it’s always going to be in the back of your mind. Just depends how skilled you are at ignoring that part of your mind really.
The artist is smarter than you.
The most politically incorrect truth is this: People are not good or bad, individual people do a variety of good and bad things. Mister Rogers told his gay friend to stay in the closet and marry a woman. Hitler banned animal cruelty. We don’t like to talk about these things, but it’s a true principle and a useful one to live by.
It’s not politically incorrect at all. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are just too simplistic ways to interpret our complex world. It’s idealistic to try and put people in such simple categories, and it leads to a delutional worldview.
The only ‘politically incorrect’ part is that some people might jump down your throat for pointing out things about Hitler which weren’t terrible, because unfortunately neo-Nazis abuse this rhetoric as a wolfwhistle or for whitewashing. But as long as you’re clearly not doing that, there’s nothing politically incorrect with saying Hitler drank water.
I mean… technically, yes, we all do good and bad stuff.
But you can’t say Hitler was a good person just because he was against animal cruelty. I don’t think any person out there is cartoonishly evil to a point they never did anything good - that doesn’t make those evil persons not evil.
I’m sorry I should read more English literature, but I’m a bit in a hurry right now.
- You shouldn’t feel guilty if you haven’t given them a cent since they’ve been exposed as Nazis (and as a rapist in Monson’s case), and if you haven’t listened to any new release, i.e. if you don’t contribute to their careers now. You may have done this in the past, even by normalizing them, but that’s all you can do right now, and at the same time the bare minimum.
- Should you feel allowed to get emotional on a Nazi’s music? Cold rationality may make us stray away from humanity when we touch this topic, honestly; I’m all for rationally discussing Nazism, but ambivalent people really need to understand that a Nazi is de facto a monster first, and that they’d be so much more useful dead than alive that it outweighs the usual considerations on their dignity as a human being. Now, yes, if it helped you keep pushing back then, if you don’t fund their careers and if you don’t listen to new releases.
- As a reminder, you may self-host a private tracker on an old computer that won’t boot Windows 10 for you and your friends, complimented by a Jellyseerr/Sonarr/Readarr setup. Anyone with a bit on experience in piracy has a few high-quality discographies, so maybe one of your friends has downloaded their discographies on TPB back when they were “controversial”.
- As a semi-related reminder, the IRC protocol is designed for asking questions. Linux distributions (and other standard operating systems) have the best compatibility; interestingly enough the protocol has kept one third of its user base since its peak, and the Undertale’s Undernet is actually the name of one of its oldest servers. You’re probably gonna need help with your first server so feel free to come around and ask questions.
Dont support them by buying their stuff. Just pirate their music. For me personally, i dont follow artist in anyway shape or form. I have bigger problem to worry about. I just listen to songs i like and go on with my day.
