NSFW To what extent have you stopped consuming products made by people who have done or been accused of doing bad things?

[Crazy Jamie]

This is prompted by the new accusations against Neil Gaiman. I didn't realise accusations had been made in July 2024, but these new ones have hit the BBC website. For those who don't know, he's accused of sexual assault by eight women, all of whom it seems did engage in consensual activities to some degree, but apparently he's pushed it further without consent. It's all BDSM etc related. He says it was all consensual.

This has hit me reasonably hard, because I am a big fan of Gaiman's work. I've read a lot of his books, and have the entire Sandman run ready to read on my shelf. Whilst I never need to vet someone's moral character to enjoy work that they've produced, things do take on a different spin when I know that someone has done something that I don't approve of. That's not because I have some sort of rule of only consuming products made by good people, but practically I may well find it difficult to enjoy those products depending on what I know about the person, or may make the conscious decision that I don't wan to. It is a practical rather than a principled thing though.

The big example of this for me from years past was Lost Prophets. I enjoyed their music, but I just haven't been able to listen to them since Ian Watkins was convicted. Again, it's practical. When I listen to one of their songs, I cannot help but think about what he did, possibly because I am hearing his voice, and I simply can't carry on listening. Apparently pretty much everyone else felt the same thing, because the other band members have said that since his conviction the band has effectively ceased to exist. No demand for them. No one wants to play their music. I feel sorry for the other band members, who are entirely innocent, but I get that reaction.

My response has been a bit different to others. I am not happy that Sergei Lukyanenko is a Putin sympathiser, but it hasn't caused me to take the Night Watch series of books off my shelf. I'm not likely to re read them anyway, but it hasn't spoiled the very fond memories of those books that I have. I suppose the biggest scandal last year was Sean Combs, but I never really listened to his music anyway.

How does everyone else react to these things?

 

[Crystal]

I've been hit or miss with some. Jon Schaffer being an idiot somewhat stopped me enjoying Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards for a while. Now not so much. Danny Masterson ruined That 70s Show for me, as well, have a hard time watching it.

The main one I point to is JK Rowling. She stopped me enjoying all of her works. Completely. I can't appreciate any of it. It's all tainted now. Totally.

Plenty of other examples of course, so many prominent figures who aren't who we thought they were.

 

[Mark]

This is prompted by the new accusations against Neil Gaiman. I didn't realise accusations had been made in July 2024, but these new ones have hit the BBC website. For those who don't know, he's accused of sexual assault by eight women, all of whom it seems did engage in consensual activities to some degree, but apparently he's pushed it further without consent. It's all BDSM etc related. He says it was all consensual.

This has hit me reasonably hard, because I am a big fan of Gaiman's work. I've read a lot of his books, and have the entire Sandman run ready to read on my shelf. Whilst I never need to vet someone's moral character to enjoy work that they've produced, things do take on a different spin when I know that someone has done something that I don't approve of. That's not because I have some sort of rule of only consuming products made by good people, but practically I may well find it difficult to enjoy those products depending on what I know about the person, or may make the conscious decision that I don't wan to. It is a practical rather than a principled thing though.

The big example of this for me from years past was Lost Prophets. I enjoyed their music, but I just haven't been able to listen to them since Ian Watkins was convicted. Again, it's practical. When I listen to one of their songs, I cannot help but think about what he did, possibly because I am hearing his voice, and I simply can't carry on listening. Apparently pretty much everyone else felt the same thing, because the other band members have said that since his conviction the band has effectively ceased to exist. No demand for them. No one wants to play their music. I feel sorry for the other band members, who are entirely innocent, but I get that reaction.

My response has been a bit different to others. I am not happy that Sergei Lukyanenko is a Putin sympathiser, but it hasn't caused me to take the Night Watch series of books off my shelf. I'm not likely to re read them anyway, but it hasn't spoiled the very fond memories of those books that I have. I suppose the biggest scandal last year was Sean Combs, but I never really listened to his music anyway.

How does everyone else react to these things?

Taking into consideration that I don’t typically watch that many television shows or read that many books, music is going to be the one for me. Much like your take on Ian Watkins, there are numerous musicians that I just don’t care to hear anything from anymore. Tim Lambesis from As I Lay Dying is the first one that comes to mind… he was convicted of attempting to hire an undercover officer to kill his wife, did his time, reunited the band, chased out every other member (and then some), and now finds himself back at square one. I never believed that he was remorseful for his crimes, and reading about his current issues solidified that for me.

Generally speaking, though, if someone is accused of speaking inappropriately or voicing an unpopular opinion, that isn’t typically enough to turn me away from their material. Comedians especially, considering they can’t possibly hit the mark every time without rubbing someone the wrong way. As soon as someone crosses that threshold into abusing their position to commit crimes against others, or to just be a cunt, that’s when I take issue with them.

 

[shortkut]

I will try to avoid supporting the newer work of people like that, but the older stuff is already out there. They likely already received the maximal benefit from it and they will either make minimal or no royalties from my consumption of their older products

That being said, maybe subconsciously I am avoiding them. I used to love Kevin Spacey and The Usual Suspects was one of my favorite movies. I have had no desire to watch it in a long time

 

[Benzine]

I don't consume Nestle, does that count?

 

[The Flame]

I almost never have a problem separating art from the artist (or whatever they are). If I went through my life giving a shit about keeping tabs on who all is good and bad, I would be exposing myself to more unneeded negativity and would run out of things to enjoy pretty fast. There's always going to be at least one shitty person involved in everything we consume, whether we know about it or not, and if I stop enjoying the things I enjoy because of that, I'm essentially giving that person power of me.

I rarely play Overwatch because the game went to shit, not because some dude at Blizzard was a weirdo or something (and honestly hate that we have to be reminded of it every time we see McCree's new name now). I grew up with Harry Potter and still enjoy the series, but I stopped caring about it after the Deathly Hallows came out not because J.K. Rowling is a dumb asshole on Twitter, but because I heard nothing all that great about Fantastic Beasts, etc. I know Roseanne has gotten in trouble for being racist or something, but have no problem enjoying her old show because it's not something I really think about. I'd imagine the Cosby Show would be kinda weird to watch now because of how bad that whole situation was, but if I wanted to I could probably turn off that part of my brain and enjoy it for what it was and what I remember it being as well. One thing I've always found to be interesting on this topic is that Michael Jackson has been accused of weird stuff for years, and yet I never see anyone who cares about that because he was so iconic and his music was so beloved.

In most cases, when someone is getting cancelled for something, their work is either already past its prime or they stop making things anyone cares about, so it's not something I usually have to worry about. If there's something that I know I shouldn't support, I might avoid it a bit if it's not inconvenient or isn't something I really need, but I know that my support will have such an insignificant effect that it really doesn't matter. Maybe it's just the Christian in me, but I'm also of the rare mind that shitty people are still people who have to live, whether people want them to or not, and everyone makes both big and small mistakes. We all grow up under different influences, hardships, and addictions, and some of those things will shape us into people that society, and often ourselves, don't want us to be. It doesn't excuse the bad things people do, but I feel like the torch and pitchforks mentality everyone tends towards will only deter people from seeking the help they need. And honestly, with how angry everyone is these days, there are so many cases where people lose their careers from being wrongfully accused of something, because of something they did or said that really isn't that big of a deal, or from something they said decades ago.

 

[Fire Queen]

kanye west's graduation came out when i was in high school. 808s and heartbreak was polarizing but it had one of his best songs (Coldest Winter). my beautiful dark twisted fantasy is maybe THE album i was the most hype for pre-release. the G.O.O.D. Fridays, the Runaway music video...and i was bumping that nonstop until Yeezus came out. on some levels i could kind of feel the wheels coming off but me and my best friend were still on board enough to beg my dad to get us tickets to the Yeezus tour. this was 2013. kendrick lamar opened. the show was one of the most technically impressive concerts i have ever been to. at one point a guy dressed as white jesus came out on stage. and then of course Jesus Walks was the next song. at one point snow started falling in the arena as he hung off the side of a mountain that had been raised from below the stage. that was Coldest Winter. if we remove all of my other feelings about it it is definitely the best concert i have ever been to. the life of pablo had some good tracks but this is about the point where i could tell where not only was the music not for me anymore it had perhaps never really been for me. if he'd just kept his mouth shit these last ten years we'd be fine. unfortunately that was not the case. apart from showing my wife kanye albums from when he was at his best, i don't really listen to him anymore. but damned if i don't still remember all the lyrics to almost all of his songs. damned if screaming all the lyrics to Bound 2 (the final song of the yeezus tour) wasn't one of the most cathartic experiences i've ever had.

i deleted all the drake off my music devices years ago, the rest of the world only just recently caught up to the fact that he's a sex pest creep lol

apart from that it's like. i don't go to chik-fil-a. i follow BDS. i canceled my netflix account after that infamous dave chappelle special. especially if we're talking media it's so easy to find smaller creators who put so much love and time and effort into their work--i would much rather my money go to someone like that rather than a big corporation in the first place, but sometimes that decision gets a little easier with stuff like blizzard. i really wanted to get diablo ii remastered. but i still have the original and that makes it a little easier to stick to my moral convictions.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Neil Gaiman's downfall is insane to witness in real time. Literally, maybe five years ago, I read a really great piece on him, about how he's one of the last bastions of safety in this world of creeps and weirdos hiding behind their fame. I was genuinely shocked when the news about Neil broke, and continued to get worse...and worse....and worse. He played the oldest trick in the book. "I've done a good enough job hiding the fact that I'm a monster -- let's keep that false veil up forever!" In the end, him getting canceled is appropriate and I don't plan on consuming any of his media anymore, as hard as that is. I can't deny the man is talented, but when talent comes at such a sick price, I'm willing to look elsewhere.

My favorite band of all time, Dance Gavin Dance, had a bit of a SA-accusation problem three years ago. The lead singer got a little too comfortable in his role, and after the bassist of the band tragically died, the lead singer ended up hooking up with a few fans in drunken stupors. The issue was that he was accused of sexual assault, so the band made him go to rehab for his alcoholism (that developed even more after death of bassist) and his sexual deviancy. Lead singer responded by posting all screenshots of any communications between the three accusers, and it all turned out to be consensual. Didn't matter though - the damage was done, they let him back for a tour but then parted with him for "creative differences". That action further alienated the fan base because it was seen as "OK so we forgive SA but poppy music sound is where we draw the line?". He still isn't cleared from the accusations despite the three accusers withdrawing their claims. One girl was even exposed to be plotting to hook up with the dead bassists brother and start another round of SA accusations. It was....insanity for a small period of time in my VERY small fandom for my favorite band. The band still has not recovered fully. They elevated their backup vocals to lead, who's already the lead singer of another band that is similar, so I think we're seeing the last of them pretty soon. All that being said, I didn't stop listening to DGD because the lead singer did not sexually assault anyone. He had a hard time after his friend died and acted out by hooking up with legal, consensual adults. Still fuckin canceled.

I agree with cancelation when warranted. But I also can acknowledge that I'm not the arbiter of justice, and it's not up to me to just blindly follow along with who is/was canceled and why. I've made my decisions for people like Gaiman and Rowling, partially based on the public direction, but ultimately from educating myself on how horrid these people actually are.

 

[Ben]

I used to eat at Chick-Fil-A a lot in South Carolina. It's legitimately really fucking delicious. But then after I left Brigette and moved to Maine, and started interacting with people who weren't old white Southerners, I realized that they were a horrible company beyond "just not being open on Sunday." For a while it didn't matter since they weren't that far North enough to be in Maine, but I think they did open a location near my town just before I moved. Now there's one opened just up on the main street from my neighborhood, so I have to pass it all the time. I won't go there, and generally look with disdain at the long lines. Sucks, because NY changed the contract with a lot of their service-stations out West, and they're all Chick-Fil-A now. Some are Burger King, though. All the ones through Mass are McDonalds, except that one fucking service stations that's got a DeAngelo's or Papa Ginos or something.

I stopped reading the Harry Potter books after Goblet of Fire, I think. Just because I stopped giving a shit, probably compounded by people calling me Harry Potter when I moved here from England. I wasn't reading them by the time the "Snape Killed Dumbledore" thing went around, and that was definitely old-GW times. The times when you'd actually go to a GameStop for a midnight release. So to that end, I don't personally have to give a shit about hating J.K. Rowling and not wanting to consume her stuff, but the problem is my kids enjoy it. It's real hard to tell them that they've got to ignore and not consume anything like that, especially when it's now so much bigger than just her. I'll definitely try to minimize how much of that IP they're exposed to if I can, though, and my older son knows how J.K. Rowling is a shit who hates trans people. He's no fan of her.

I try not to buy Nestle products, or Kellogs. Hard though because those fucks don't always put their actual brand on the box, so I have to remember who the fuck makes Eggos and not buy those. I have semi-personal beef with Nestle though, because I have experienced literal springs in Maine from the amount of groundwater they had. I used to collect empty milk jugs, etc. of spring water straight out of the ground, at a community stop on the way to my ex's mom's house up North. Pretty common a number of people would just be lining up with jugs waiting their turn to fill up. Then Nestle rolled in to Poland and started bottling the spring water, and ran a lot of those community resources dry. A couple years ago they had some drougts to where her parents well was running dry and they were rationing their water usage. So yeah, it's great fucking water, but I wish they'd left it in Maine.

 

[Crystal]

and my older son knows how J.K. Rowling is a shit who hates trans people. He's no fan of her.

 

[shortkut]

my older son knows how J.K. Rowling is a shit who hates trans people. He's no fan of her.

I wonder what her opinion would have been transgender individuals were instead called “polyjuice people”. Maybe she would have understood it better

 

[Crystal]

I wonder what her opinion would have been transgender individuals were instead called “polyjuice people”. Maybe she would have understood it better

I don't know that I want to be a polyjuice person...

 

[Ben]

Quagmire enters an open relationship with his wife. Polygoose person.

 

[shortkut]

I don't know that I want to be a polyjuice person...

I hope my attempt at a Harry Potter joke didn’t come across as offensive

 

[Mark]

I try not to buy Nestle products, or Kellogs. Hard though because those fucks don't always put their actual brand on the box, so I have to remember who the fuck makes Eggos and not buy those. I have semi-personal beef with Nestle though, because I have experienced literal springs in Maine from the amount of groundwater they had. I used to collect empty milk jugs, etc. of spring water straight out of the ground, at a community stop on the way to my ex's mom's house up North. Pretty common a number of people would just be lining up with jugs waiting their turn to fill up. Then Nestle rolled in to Poland and started bottling the spring water, and ran a lot of those community resources dry. A couple years ago they had some drougts to where her parents well was running dry and they were rationing their water usage. So yeah, it's great fucking water, but I wish they'd left it in Maine.

Oh, there’s a nice little infographic for that:



This is why we should have an infographic thread. Those things are cool.

 

[dimmerwit]

Chick-Fil-A are opening here this year. I have no doubt it will be crazy popular even though their values are probably even less popular here.

Then Nestle rolled in to Poland and started bottling the spring water, and ran a lot of those community resources dry. A couple years ago they had some drougts to where her parents well was running dry and they were rationing their water usage. So yeah, it's great fucking water, but I wish they'd left it in Maine.

Not gonna lie, this one took me a while!

 

[Raine]

Joanne owns Harry Potter outright, and you will struggle to find an appropriately comparable comparison. The vast, overwhelming majority of attempts will just make you sound uninformed and stupid at best. It is literally impossible to interact with that IP in any way, shape or form without sponsoring trans genocide because Joanne is not (just) an “asshole on Twitter.” She actually engages with, speaks with and holds enormous sway over and with elected government entities. She donates portions of her wealth to anti-trans lobbying, organizations and movements. She was personally called to speak with the Labor party last year, and obviously she was quite “in” with the Tories as well.

Further, Joanne is the actual face of the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist/Gender Critical "movement," which is comprised of actual Nazi-type individuals and organizations that literally call for the brutalization, rape and murder of trans women. She actively files SLAPP-esque lawsuits against UK journalists that say negative things about her, she loooves doing that to just random ordinary citizens on Twitter that happen to do the same while living in the UK, she routinely sends her cult of loyal and devout followers out to harass trans women. She's not as bad as LibsOfTikTok on that specific front, but she's far from innocent either.

My point is this. If you don't care about trans people, that's fine. But to reduce and downplay the damage caused, to rationalize why it’s okay because X, Y and Z? That’s offensive. Play with your little TERF wizards and be happy. Nobody cares. Just don’t make a big fucking deal about playing up how much you totally don’t like Joanne but the IP is so precious and must be appreciated and accessible on its own. It’s beneath you.

Or maybe it’s not; nothing exists in a bubble. Maybe at least wait until Drumpf is in office and doing his thing before touting out the same tired rhetoric in an at best tangentially related thread through?

 

[Crystal]

I hope my attempt at a Harry Potter joke didn’t come across as offensive

Relax, it takes a lot more to offend me than a joke, lol.

Raine makes valid points, though. Can't prop up anything that bitch does. She is pure evil.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

I generally don't care. Tom Cruise being a Scientologist doesn't stop me from enjoying his movies.

Will say I don't care for Tim Allen's newer shit, though, and Home Improvement is suuuuuuper outdated.

View attachment 26286

Somehow this is missing P&G.

And Luxottica.

Warby Parker is still independent, though... for now. Though WP uses the same factories to produce their glasses as Luxottica.

WAS going to say Maui Jim is too, but they were bought by a French company ccalled Kering in 2022. At least it's not Luxottica...

 

[Raine]

Beyond the Joanne thing, I don't maintain a list of offensive topics. I just remember an insanely long list of stuff that I find reprehensible and refuse to support. This ends up covering an enormous breadth of subjects and topics, but because it is literally impossible to stay on top of all of the things I enjoy - much less the things I have a passing interest in but have yet to try out - there is zero downside, in my mind, to not completely jettison the trashbags. Some things off the top of my head:

- Crystal mentioned Jon Schaffer, and that's on my list. Dude's like a founding member of the Oathkeepers or some shit on top of Jan6 nonsense, and I have straight-up noped out of bands for infinitely less. So Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards got axed, and Kansi Kursch 1) being extremely slow to issue a statement and 2) much later going on about how Schaffer totally deserves a second chance got me to pull the plug on Blind Guardian too. Lotta good music there, but, fuck them.

- Shinedown, 3 Doors Down, Nickelback (yes I unironically liked them), Disturbed, Linkin Park and Smash Mouth all immediately come to mind for additional music groups I've disavowed and deleted in recent years.

- On the "content creator" side of things, I ain't got no time for ProJared (/the entirety of Normal Boots) after his creepy ass website came to light wherein he posted pictures of his female fans in various states of undress. AngryJoe way back in the day was a doofus, but sort of endearing in an "eh I'll put it on for background noise" kind of way. Between going all-in with the chuddery, especially circa Last of Us II, and all of the other extremely dumb and offensive takes? Nahhh, fuck off. GirlfriendReviews showed a lot of really nasty entitlement and peddled in transphobia circa Hogwarts Legacy, so fuck them too. I'm sure there are others I can't be bothered to recall.

- Video game studios and publishers are no exception. I will literally never entertain touching anything to do with Embracer Group/THQ Nordic. Fuckers did an AMA on goddamn 8-Chan roundabouts the time of the Christchurch shootings, because... reasons, I guess. If you don't know what 8-Chan is/was it's the place the degenerates too bad for 4-Chan ended up; child pornography and all that totally wonderful stuff. Nobody was ever held accountable in any way, shape or form. No firings. Nothing. And to add further insult, THQ/Embracer later picked up Warhorse Studio - creators of Kingdom Come: Deliverance - helmed by one Daniel Vavra. Whom, amongst a litany of other charges, is staunchly pro-GamerGate and super, super fucking racist.

- Actually let's double back a moment and retroactively say fuck you to TotalBiscuit too even though I never partook of his content. Another GamerGate supporter, hope he's resting comfortably in hell.

- Dave Chapelle's shit is literally unwatchable. No, not just because he's a massive transphobe. Actually not even primarily that. More that he made his entire schtick speaking to power about the very types of people that he now looks down upon, going out of his way to pseudo-NIMBY low-income/affordable housing and shit. Forever fuck Netflix for championing him during all of that.

- Obviously fuck Spotify, and Amazon (plus now the Washington Post via Bezos), and Facebook, and Twitter, and Reddit. Just a neverending sea of rancid dogshit nobody should willingly subject themselves or others too, but y'know.

- I'm not invested enough in movies, television and comics to care. If I know somebody involved is a problem, it's the easiest thing in the world to scrub it from whatever shortlist I have.

- Super special shoutout to Atlus. I've never 180'd so hard on something. The fact that it's not even just Katsura Hashino (P3~5, Metaphor) that's garbage, but also one of the new heads in Kazuhisa Wada basically mansplaining his own internal misogyny is fuuucking wild. There's no hope in me left for those guys, and that sucks - because I was a fan before even Persona 3 came around. But, again, plenty of other stuff to enjoy that isn't just going to piss me off and prematurely age me.


Joanne's the only one I nag people about. For obvious reasons.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

IMO, life is too damn short to care about shit like this. Everyone sucks. America chose to give the worst President we've had since Nixon a second term. I'm just going to do what I want and stay in my lane.

I will say that the Completionist and his family actively robbed people by pretending to be receiving donations and sending that money to benefit dementia research. I already didn't care about his stuff, but I don't see a reason to go to someone who does that kind of stuff. Youtubers are much easier to avoid, books and authors too. Movies and TV shows have a lot of other people involved that worked hard and have no other connection to the likes of Tom Cruise and Kevin Spacey.

 

[MC74]

Joanne owns Harry Potter outright, and you will struggle to find an appropriately comparable comparison. The vast, overwhelming majority of attempts will just make you sound uninformed and stupid at best. It is literally impossible to interact with that IP in any way, shape or form without sponsoring trans genocide because Joanne is not (just) an “asshole on Twitter.” She actually engages with, speaks with and holds enormous sway over and with elected government entities. She donates portions of her wealth to anti-trans lobbying, organizations and movements. She was personally called to speak with the Labor party last year, and obviously she was quite “in” with the Tories as well.

Further, Joanne is the actual face of the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist/Gender Critical "movement," which is comprised of actual Nazi-type individuals and organizations that literally call for the brutalization, rape and murder of trans women. She actively files SLAPP-esque lawsuits against UK journalists that say negative things about her, she loooves doing that to just random ordinary citizens on Twitter that happen to do the same while living in the UK, she routinely sends her cult of loyal and devout followers out to harass trans women. She's not as bad as LibsOfTikTok on that specific front, but she's far from innocent either.

My point is this. If you don't care about trans people, that's fine. But to reduce and downplay the damage caused, to rationalize why it’s okay because X, Y and Z? That’s offensive. Play with your little TERF wizards and be happy. Nobody cares. Just don’t make a big fucking deal about playing up how much you totally don’t like Joanne but the IP is so precious and must be appreciated and accessible on its own. It’s beneath you.

Or maybe it’s not; nothing exists in a bubble. Maybe at least wait until Drumpf is in office and doing his thing before touting out the same tired rhetoric in an at best tangentially related thread through?

I've seen this from a few content creators trying to argue separating the art from the artist, but when you consider who that artist is and what she represents, anyone who makes that lazy argument absolutely is downplaying the damage caused by people like her.

Sadly, the climate has gotten so bad with not just trans people, but bad enough with LGBTQ+ folk too that a lot of corporations (as you'd expect because that's how rainbow capitalism works) have decided to completely drop their support for the community.

 

[Fire Queen]

it's a lot harder to separate the art from the artist when the artist is still actively making money off of the art

 

[MC74]

it's a lot harder to separate the art from the artist when the artist is still actively making money off of the art

That, and knowing where she donates a lot of money to. By supporting her work, you are helping funnel that money towards those anti-LGBTQ+ causes. That's something else to think about.