Ask Lemmy

I try not to, but it seems like most rockstars are shitbags and the stories don’t always come out until much later.

No. If I have problems with a creator, publisher, etc., I'll stop consuming. If I previously purchased and own some work (i.e. an album from a band that turns out to be shitty), I will still sometimes engage with that, but no new money is going to them.

I presume most everybody, myself included, does. Otherwise I doubt we'd be consuming just about any media.

Edit:

I mean this as things like old films, TV, books and the likes. I personally try to avoid controversial content creators and the likes, regardless of platform and media type. For books, I wouldn't wanna be caught reading certain alive authors.

I had my first run in with this in the tail end of highschool. Lovecraft was the first author that really hit me. The feeling of existential dread and the idea of forces beyond our comprehension that we only survive sharing reality work because we're too inconsequential to do anything about were both formative and comforting ideas to my anxiety riddled mind. It wasn't until deciding I was truely a fan that I found out he was so racist the kkk didn't want to be associated with him.

He's not my only brush with this, I find that any figure I grow to like inevitably fails to meet my standards. Neil Gaiman, Danny Masterson, Dr. Seuss, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Joss Whedon, Louis C. K., Jack Black, Walt Disney, Jane Goodall, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, and the list goes on. At this point, the only heroes I've had that haven't turned out to be bastards and sex pests are Weird Al and Bill Nye.

To this I've taken to the idea of the death of the author . In short, the essay states that you should ignore the artist's intention and biography when considering the merrit of the art. Awful people are just as likely to create something beautiful as anyone else. This doesn't hold entirely true and your mileage may very, Lovecraft's Xemophobia makes his inspirations far more obvious, but removing all of the overtly racist parts has no affect on the actual horror or conveys. That doesn't work for Scar Tissue by Red hot Chili Peppers which is explicitly about raping a minor.

Play it by ear. If it's not explicitly problematic then it's not on you to feel bad about it You can like a song without it meaning more than that.

I've done my best to mentally discredit Gene Roddenberry of contributing anything meaningful or worthwhile to Star Trek. Despite what the fandom and producers claim otherwise.

But no, I can't really bring myself to abide by 'separating art from artist.' The artist puts their intent into the work. There's no separation to be made. Simple.

I still listen to Kanye West music. Sometimes even the new stuff.

Depends on the level of bad and even though i will sometimes pirate some of it.

I was about to say no, but I still listened a bit to the last One Morning Left album after I learned the singer was caught grooming an underage girl.

It sucks because the album was in my top 5 of the last 10 years and now I can't listen to it.

As soon as the other bandmates learned about the situation, they dissolved the band. So good on them for killing their livelihood to at least make a difference.

Depends on what they did and how it puts them in perspective to the messages in their art.

Problematic is tolerable if I'm not actively bankrolling harm to someone. But I don't want to experience art made by people divorced from their own message.

I try not to enrich creators who are bad. Like Polanski and Weinstein and Whedon and Besson and Rowling and Gaiman. I might watch/read old stuff, but I'll avoid spending any money on it.

Then there's people who aren't rapists and abusers and virulently homophobic but are still not great. I'm thinking YT creators who pull dumb and mean pranks, or just revel in the more negative aspects of human nature. I don't watch them, but mostly because I don't enjoy that sort of content. It makes me depressed and sad. Since I don't like that sort of content anyway, it's hardly an effort. Same with MAGA bro podcaster types; I don't enjoy that garbage so "boycotting" it really just means going about my life per usual.

My favourite book is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. My edition has a foreword about how Lewis Carroll really really wasn't a paedophile, he just loved children very very much. That foreword convinced me that he was a paedophile.

Yes, we all do.

That said, everyone has a line, and if it makes my blood boil just thinking about them, I won't listen to them.

Good example: I used to follow this local band around. They mostly did covers. They took a song I loved and turned it into a pro-Nazi song. I'm not fucking kidding. Like a parody, but not funny. That was it for me. And I still kinda love a couple of their songs, but I will never listen to them again. That's a hard fucking line and they crossed it. And no, they were not being funny or ironic. My wife still thinks they're fine, but respects my decision.

For her, it's JK Rowling and her anti-trans stance. I too dislike JKR, but I'm also a big Harry Potter fan. I think the recent game, Hogwarts Legacy, is a great compromise. One, it has a trans character in it, and it's said that the developers did it to piss off JKR. Two, it has nothing to do with Harry Potter, except the castle. And I think a couple of the old wizarding families are mentioned? I can't think of any. There aren't any Weasleys, Snapes, Dumbledores... none of the main ones for sure, but I do vaguely recall hearing a name and thinking "oh that's so and so's ancestor." Very minor connection though. Mainly just the castle. You can explore the castle. Every bit of it. Except the Chamber of Secrets, the conditions for opening that are not present (you can't be a Parseltongue, for one). I think it's a fair compromise at least. She isn't so sure. She kinda wants to roll a Hufflepuff, but she also doesn't want to be seen supporting an anti-trans writer. And I respect her point. If I watch a Wizarding World movie (as in, JKR was involved with that, wrote it, whatever), I don't do it when she's home.

I still think Rooftops is a banger, but I won't listen to it after finding out what the singer was doing to literal babies. Even though he was recently killed in prison. I think it's okay to listen to Lostprophets now, because the rest of the band deserves credit for the work they did... but I don't wanna hear that guy's voice. I would listen to them if they got someone new to sing it. So I haven't heard it in... over a decade, at least, I think. I had it on a mix CD. I never owned their album. It's funny... the Japanese band ALI had a similar issue, but on a way smaller scale. Their drummer was scamming old folks out of some money. They pulled their hit song from streaming. Pulled the video. They immediately replaced the drummer, and re-recorded the song. At first I was pissed, I kept an archived copy to listen to. Then the new version came out. It sounds the same to me, but I respect them for doing the work to make a more ethical version. Says a lot for them. I think the difference may be, the drummer wasn't a songwriter, where the Lostprophets singer may have been, so he can't be cut out of the songs he made. I could only be okay with it if his share went entirely to victims, and not his family.

If someone didn’t then, idk…

They would only read the passages of the Bible about Jesus or something

I don't generally seek out information about the people that make media I enjoy but if I happen to find out because they are so stupid that I can't avoid it then I will avoid their content if it is something that I find abhorrent.

Like, i don't feel the need to vet a band but if I find out they are fucking horrible people despite making music that I liked I generally won't enjoy listening to them anymore. There is so much good shit out there that its really not hard to find stuff that isn't made by overt assholes.

I really don't. I feel like what I consume and enjoy is a reflection of me.

Possibly controversial take: I get super turned-off by any content creator who seems to be in it mainly for money.

There are lots of people out there who decided they want to be a youtuber as their profession - and best of luck to them! - but I feel quite safe in saying that almost every youtuber I truly love began their channel not because they wanted to make money, but because they had something to share. They had a passion, or burning thoughts, or knowledge that was too good to keep to themselves, and youtube was a way to voice it.

And they might be profitable now, but that's not why they started.

So yeah. As soon as I get a smell that the content someone makes or the way they act or the things they say are dictated primarily by dollar signs, rather than by being the thing they truly want to do, I very quickly lose interest.

I can usually separate art from the artist, given that the media in question doesn't reflect their opinions/isn't influenced by their actions.

It depends. The artist being a bad person doesn't automatically make the art bad. But I also don’t want to support bad people. So, relevant questions to me are: Is the artist still alive? Do they profit from my consuming their work? Do I promote them perhaps indirectly? The answers will be different for e.g. Lovecraft vs. Rowling, or rereading a book I already own vs. convincing my book club to buy new copies.

I struggle with it and am hypocritical about that.

Roman Polanski was convicted of a terrible crime, but I appreciate his work.

Weinstein’s production company made many of my favorite movies.

Kevin Spacey played some of my favorite characters.

EDIT:

And then there is Bill Cosby and OJ Simpson. I love the Naked Gun Movies and both are pure gold on screen.

Bill Cosby’s Chicken Heart routine is so fucking funny it was making me laugh my ass off until the mid 2010s.. Now I when I ever I see the album it just makes me sad….

Most people, even those who scream the loudest about human rights, tend to wear sweatshop clothes made by kids who occasionally burn to death because it's slightly cheaper to not have fire escapes.

Not enjoying an artist who in most cases isn't even profiting off of my enjoyment just seems silly. I prefer to focus my efforts on the actual harms to which I, like so many of us, really do contribute.

It depends on what it is. I generally don't expect an artist/creator to be what I'd consider a good role model.

Some examples:

Dave Grohl (lead singer/guitarist of Foo Fighters) announced he fathered a child outside of his marriage. I consider this morally wrong, but it has no impact on my enjoyment of the music.

J.K. Rowling being an outspoken transphobe has had an impact on my ability to enjoy Harry Potter. Not that I was ever a super fan, but I enjoyed the movies well enough. But discrimination against an entire group of people is too significant to me to keep the art separate from the artist.

I try to at least not give those people money.

Depends...

TV Shows? Yea sure, they are only one role out of a big set of casts, and it's also the product of writers and film directors...

Movies where its centered around that actor's character? Slightly gonna less fun to watch... depending on the nature of their crime.

Books? Well the entire thing is the the work of that one person so its gonna be much harder to "separate art from artist" but at least you dont have to hear their voice and personality like...

oh... which brings us to Youtube videos....

Yea... no... this is where the separate art from artist doesn't work... their voice and personality is probably reflecting their character...

Like... I watched PewDiePie's intro and I already cringe so hard so I never got into it...

Then later I tried it again, watching the PUBG videos... didn't even need to looked up the deleted bridge incident... he constantly makes uncomfortable jokes

Same with another gameplay channel doing challenge runs in Resident Evil, not even gonna name them since its a tiny ass channel but dude keeps making "women bad" jokes and then he showed the maga hat on a shelf and claimed its just meming... yeahhh... nope out of there real quick

yes, or I'd consume nearly nothing.

it also scales, some shitier then others and of course you have to draw the line somewhere

I was enjoying Sandman until shit went down with the author and it really left a bad taste in my mouth, just kind of dropped it instinctively

Sure, why not? Its not like I'm paying for it.

There’s plenty of good stuff made by decent people out there, I’m fine with dropping someone awful. I also like to think it helps me avoid picking up bad behaviors or internalizing shitty ideas.

“Howl” is an incredible poem about the American condition that resonates even more strongly today. Allen Ginsberg, however, was a straight up pedo and wasn’t even that secretive about it.

So much of my early creative development was influenced by Beat literature, and Ginsberg’s work was a huge part of that. I have a hard time reconciling my fondness for his poetry and my intense disgust for his sexual vices.

yes and so does everyone. you literally cannot avoid it, stop caring. you will drive yourself insane.

It's almost impossible to do with music.

Anti-Flag was one of my favorite bands ever. I am so pissed off at Justin Sane for taking that music away from me, and from all of us. Especially now, when that kind of message is so necessary.

edit: I also loathe him for the things he did that made it impossible for me to continue to support his work.

Depends. If the person is causing harm towards large groups of people or minorities at large by me supporting them, then I drop them. It's why I hate Harry Potter now. But, regardless, most of the media I consume that isn't games is usually not acquired by, erm, legal means, so I'm not technically giving them any money.

Some of the bands I like are comprised of literal murderers

We all listened to and loved Bill Cosby comedy records as kids, we would listen to them constantly. Needless to say, we don't really bring them out anymore. It's a shame. Other artists, I suppose, I love Michael Jackson's music but I still have no idea what's actually happened with him, I think I would listen to it regardless though. I still watch Weinstein movies because I don't think he really had a lot to do with the creative process making those movies. Otherwise I'm not sure, not mindlfully at least.

I've been let down by shock revelations about content creators so many times I'm starting to think they're awful people by default.

There's a reason they say you shouldn't meet your heroes.

I'm still a Rammstein fan so... yep, sadly.