It’s something I struggle with. Some bad news comes out about some public persona doing something shitty and they get cancelled. But sometimes I really struggle with giving up the things they’ve made because I like them. There are also occasions where the person has been accused of something and it doesn’t seem true to me, or I think they’re genuinely sorry and have been punished enough, and the context isn’t being considered.
What do you think? Who do you feel conflicted about enjoying?
This is going to get buried, but I miss Bill Cosby, or rather my mental model of him before all that nastiness came out.
Understood. The TV show was totally hilarious.
After being burned by a dozen creators, I find it safer for my own emotional well-being to just assume all things beautiful and evocative are made by someone who is secretly a terrible person.
Saves me from the disappointment of finding out later.
I’m constantly surprised when it turns out someone famous isn’t getting up to some bad shit.
Diddy just wanted to party.
Ye
Kanye, the one who said that George Bush doesn’t care about Black People, is not the same person as Ye, who said “I’m a Nazi and I love Hitler”.
And everything out of Ye’s mouth, music and all, is garbage
The Vornheim City Kit is a great resource for urban RPG, even though the author is cancelled.
TBH I tried to understand why, and when I did, stuff was still going through courts. I’m too wary of extrajudicial condemnation to take a side, but his associate, the LotFP guy, always have the ick for his edginess. So I’ll continue to enjoy the book I got long ago and forget about them.
If you feel like you can only like things made by people who haven’t done anything wrong, ever, you’re left with Mr Rogers and that’s about it. Liking something someone made isn’t an endorsement of their actions or opinions. Unfortunately we live in a hyper capitalistic society so buying their stuff can help them with their shitty opinions, so don’t buy new Harry Potter stuff, but feel free to enjoy it.
Phil Spector produced some of the best music of the twentieth century, including one of a handful of bearable Christmas albums in existence. Also he’s a fucking murderer. So… bit of a mixed bag, there.
Not the fresh prince of slappy slappington. That’s for sure.
Neil Gaiman. I’m extremely depressed that he’s actually a POS, and because I loved his work so much, I’m conflicted. His work itself seemed to have well interrogated values woven into it’s fiber, but I guess you never can tell.
Edit: really fucking bummed about Red Hot Chili Peppers too
This broke my damn heart. His work seemed to have the values I hold dear and be so insightful and then… he’s getting in the bath with girls who depend on him for housing.
I am thinking that power corrupts. I came up with that but you can use that phrase if you want.
Same with his ex? Wife Amanda Palmer. I love the Dresden Dolls and she’s been very inspirational but knowing she was in on it was fucked up.
Pretty sure the Anthony Keides stuff was well known for decades. It’s in his autobiography that was published like 20 years ago or something.
He’s always been the worst part of that band
It has been! That’s why it’s even more fucking disgusting to me. It isn’t well known or talked about, fucking bastards just get a fucking pass sometimes and I hate it
man, this was the worst. but he’s not getting another dollar from me, the bastard. at least he’s not fighting Terry Pratchett’s estate over Good Omens.
speaking of which, Terry seems to have been just a great guy and was better than Neil anyway. It’s really helped me to let Neil go.
Helllll yeah! Terry Pratchett, but also I’m keeping ALL celebrity at arms length without heavy vetting at this point
I remember the moment news broke out, that I just got rid of all books he authored. The Sandman graphic novels, Coraline, American Gods, Stardust .etc
All I was looking forward to reading someday but nope.
If you had donated them, to a thrift store or maybe a library, it would’ve kept someone else from buying a new copy, which would give him money.
That’s what I’m struggling with. Throwing his content in the trash regardless of content 😩 I got sandman 1 omnibus for Christmas last year, ughhhhhh
If you want to feel better about ditching things, just donate them.
kiedis from scar tissue? or is there something new i missed?
Yeah, his memoir or whatever details him knowingly committing statutory of a 14 yo girl.
All of them whose work is any good. I give 0 fucks what society (especially the holier-than-thou) thinks & can separate the artist from their work. It’s really not that hard. 🤷
i guess the only argument against this would be if you support them financially, of course with piracy being a thing its really easy not to… so yeah i dont get how people cannot separate the work from the person, i bet that most of the people downvoting you use windows which is “work” of Bill Gates, who surprise surprise is in the files. i think that matters much more then kanye being a dumb fuck on the internet and me listening to his songs from time to time without giving him any money.
Die Antwoord. The music tickles a particular part of my brain, but they’re accused of some truly heinous shit.
I was talking about them in this thread because I’m also a fan, and I don’t believe a word that Tokkie said. I think they’re not great people but I think that’s all horseshit.
I have a weird interest in South African rock music. I would buy SA CD compilations on ebay and discogs Nd listen to all the cool SA bands. One of them had a track by an artist called Max Normal. The track fucking slapped. No one in the US has heard of these SA artists I listen to. One day I mention my interest to a coworker and he said something like “oh man, you should check out Die Antwood.” So, I did. I’m reading about Die Antwood and I had a holy fuck moment. They were the same artist on that compilation CD. They changed their name to Die Antwood. The artist of an obscure track on a compilation CD I have went on to become an internationally known artist. I also found out they are pretty shitty people. Life is crazy sometimes.
Do I dare ask? I have this sinking feeling it’s racism related…
I don’t know about that but I saw something about how they just like, kept a kid? Like in a basement? From one of their videos
I think they were grooming young teens? Forget the details
I think Ninja told some girl he wanted to fuck her after he told her she looked like his daughter.
Typical dodgy celebrity stuff, support young artists get them high, rape…
And then there’s Racism, and exploiting kids
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. I have several of his print books and still enjoy reading them; ditto his old cartoons. They really spoke to me years ago, as a cubicle-coder.
hey, read the books you already own all you want. that doesn’t put anymore money in his pocket.
being “cancelled” doesn’t mean we stick our fingers in our ears and act like it didn’t happen. it just means being conscientious about funding the lives of people who are actively making the world a worse place.
this is a critical detail that I think people often miss
I stopped liking dilbert when it became obvious that dilbert was becoming a side character so he could prop up PHB. Anything I’ve seen since then is just insufferable.
Bill Cosby is a monster, but his stand-up special “Himself” is a master class on comedic story-telling.
Privileged white folk really don’t realize how much good Bill Cosby has done for poor kids. He contributed an insane amount to the community. He supported schools programs financially and helped a whole generation of black folk.
And when the news came out, you better believe we were all in the 5 stages of grief.
Just a complete 180 on his entire body of work. Like finding out Batman used homeless people for target practice. Or Jesus was a sith lord.
The only respect I’m ever going to give Bill Cosby, is how he stood up and criticized the black community for their ghetto-like behavior and how they continued blaming the white man for all of their problems. That took balls and only he could have done it because he’s black as well.
So uh I’m guessing that aligns with your beliefs. Please explain to me how white people didn’t fuck over black people? Obviously not all problems black people face are from white people, and obviously not ever single white person has fucked over a black person, but please explain how white people aren’t responsible for a lot of the problems black people go through right now please?
I’ve got a few pretty big counter examples of how they did right here that I’m sure you’d find interesting.
He was a holier than thou hypocrite. Dude had been drugging and raping women for years before he got on his high horse about that.
Fuck him.
Justin Timberlake. I’m in my mid 30s now so I don’t follow celebrity gossip as much as I did in my tween years but from what I’ve seen he didn’t do anything too bad? The DUI was really stupid but I thought that was mild compared to a lot of celebrities. Felt more like it was cool to hate him cos he’s been famous for a bit but no longer at the top. But I still think he’s a fantastic performer and some of the new songs are great.
He was cancelled?
At least online, this past year or two, maybe not fully cancelled but got a lot of hate. Since his last album/tour a lot of comments are saying that his success has only been by stepping on successful women. Things that get brought up a lot is the Superbowl “wardrobe malfunction” and people seem to think he threw Janet under the bus (which I don’t think he did and his and Janet’s relationship was fine), and also his relationship with Britney from 25+ years ago. Britney also released a book which probably didn’t paint him in a good light.
He coerced her to have an abortion she didn’t want, and while she was in agony on the bathroom floor, he thought “maybe me playing guitar will cheer her up.” Seriously fuck this guy.
I like him even though I’m not into pop, he’s like the only pop star l listen to.
I hate Justin Timberlake for reasons that aren’t (entirely) his fault, but that if the culture at large.
I don’t know why, but I blame him for the backlash that Janet Jackson got after he flashed her tit. I’m sure this was figured out beforehand (given how clean and quick it ripped), but she was the only one who really got any shit for it.
Yeah that’s one of the issues that keep getting him a lot of hate I think. But from my understanding their relationship was fine. IIRC Janet confirmed that she told him he could apologize for himself but not to say anything on her behalf, so that’s what he did. But that was 20+ years ago so I might be misremembering.
Walt Disney
This one hurts because he really pushed an art form.
Cartoons were not at all well respected as a method of storytelling back in the day. And Walt threw himself into the fire pretty often to strike success and build the Disney empire.
