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?
Anti-Flag.
Absolutely sucks who Justin Sane turned out to be, but the music the group made together are still absolute bangers.
There is a line, I don’t have to love and agree with them on everything to enjoy an actor, but I refuse to support predators. Things like David Harbor cheating on his wife or the things people slammed Paul Reubens for I could really care less about, and I don’t give a fuck about their politics so long as they aren’t doing shit like J.K. Rowling and actively trying to ruin lives, however people like Diddy, Gaiman (whom I had personally loved for years), or Jared Leto can fuck off and die.
Louis CK. He was my favorite comedian, but the first special after ‘cancellation’ had all the hallmarks of a washed up has been with grievances. But he’s been back to his old form lately, and I still consider him the best comic of his generation.
Removed by mod
Neil Gaiman. I’m afraid there won’t be a third season of Good Omens.
Borns made some of the best indie pop on the radio, got in trouble for grooming, disappeared. One of the most heartbreaking losses musically for us. Then years later tried a comeback but seems to be an unrepentant whiny bitch now, the song he released was so bad. It seems to have broken him.
I still think his early stuff is so good.
Ender’s Game is a great book, and I did keep my Neil Gaiman books, the ones I already have.
I think in general (obviously there are exceptions) broken people make the greatest art, it’s hard to have that drive when you don’t have some sadness inside you, dissatisfaction, some missing part you are trying to fill. And with old guys (not Garrett Borns) they did grow up in a different time - I don’t think that excuses them, but it does explain it. My mom thought Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 14 year old cousin was scandalous but wouldn’t have thought it criminal or really wrong.
It’s a struggle sometimes, but I think it’s the only real control we have.
It’s a case by case basis for me. Some actor being in a movie I like isn’t a big deal to me, but when someone has like huge creative control over something it’s like a visceral repulsion to me. I don’t want to take a piece of media into my experience with the subtext that the author touches kids or something. It’s not even just that I know these people do bad things, it’s that personal views shape how people make stories etc, and I’m not fond of putting that into my psyche. If they do some fucked up shit in the book, I want to be able to know it’s because this character is evil, not because the author is saying this is a normal healthy thing to do.
RHCP sucks because I think it’s pretty good music, and I was really into them when I was a teen, but given everything I know about them now it makes it impossible to enjoy their stuff now.
it will be hard pressed for me to enjoy something if the artist/actor got cancelled.
asian ytubers i used to enjoy, i think thier content is funny, but after they became covid denying, magaty, women hating(whole drama that started all this), they were dropped like a rock by most of thier fans, only the aprasocial groupies, and incels are left, the last time i visited the sub.
R. Kelly’s music slaps.
Also he wrote & produced for damn near the whole industry, so the tree of artists you would have to dodge to not listen to his work is staggering.
Al Franken
It always gets me that Matthew Broderick killed two people in a car crash and got off with a $100 fine. I love Ferris Bueller’s day off, and I think he’s really talented, but like this happened just after that movie, and he just did not seem to be held to account for it.
This is going to get buried, but I miss Bill Cosby, or rather my mental model of him before all that nastiness came out.
Doug TenNapel.
Dude is a level 10 bastard. But Earthworm Jim was very influential to me as a kid.
The characters and the sense of humor; It just spoke to me in a weird and powerful way.
The games, the comics, even the short lived cartoon show was not too shabby.
Ga-roovy!
Ricky Gervais and Norm MacDonald engage/ed in transbaiting. Which is not cool, okay, or acceptable. But they are geniuses I can’t turn my back on.
The weird thing is that Kanye’s continual digging through the bedrock has made his art that much more poignant to me. Man went and made himself a Greek tragedy. “Run Away” indeed.
