Ask Lemmy

I don't have the time or energy to go through the lives of every single person involved with a game/show/movie I want to enjoy to see if anyone involved has problematic views. Like I'm going to see Project Hail Mary this weekend. If someone tells me at some point Ryan Gosling said some dumb shit while drunk or the book the film is based on has racist symbolism, I honestly don't care. I'm watching and judging the film filled with hard work done by tons of different people.

I try to avoid giving them more relevance, but I do occasionally revisit through means that don't give them money. I hate Dave Mustaine's guts, so I have the best three Megadeth albums downloaded (Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?, Rust in Peace, Countdown to Extinction).

Yes. I don't often buy media so I haven't yet tested if I would give them money, but I hope I wouldn't.

generally, no.

and if I do, I make sure not to share/promote it

Yes, I think it's okay to enjoy whatever it is you enjoy so long as doing so doesn't harm others or yourself. I also think it's important to be mindful what it is that makes you feel like there's a moral quandary, and it's also worth considering if the media you're consuming is the work of a group of people or a single individual.

For example, I really enjoy the movie Chinatown, but Roman Polanski is a piece of shit. I don't think his shitness diminishes the quality of the movie because it was acted well by Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway; the writing is incredible as is the cinematography; and credit where credit is due, Polanski directed the movie masterfully. He's still a child rapist piece of shit though.

Usually if the person who made something is a massive piece of shit, that just puts me off it entirely. For example, Rurouni Kenshin might be considered one of the best animes of all time, but I cannot watch it without thinking about the fact that the guy who made it had so much child porn. Sours everything the fucker touched

Like, maybe I could learn to separate the art from the artist, but.. why would I? There's already more art than I could ever consume made by people who don't jerk it to kids

Depends, but generally yes. It's just too hard to screen all creatives for purity, some people are only good at one thing, but so good at that one thing. So if you don't let them do that one thing, it's like there's nothing left of them that is good. I probably won't give them my money, but as far as reading or listening to their stuff, enjoying their art, yeah I can. Can admit they are good in at least one way, if they are.

It varies.

I often give the example of HP Lovecraft. I'm a big fan of his stories and the Cthulhu Mythos. But it remains that he was a huge racist. How do I reconcile the two?

First, an author's works are separate from the author themselves. Second, in Lovecraft's case, he was a product of his time and upbringing. And third, and importantly in his case: he's dead. He has no ability to change beyond his passing in the 1930s. People can and do change all the time. If Lovecraft were around today he might have become to most left-leaning person in the world, but he never had that chance. There were indications, late in life, that he might well have changed.

But, he didn't. It remains that he was a racist in life, that will never change, and because of it there will always be people uncomfortable with his work. That is understandable, and I won't try to convince anyone that they should ignore it.

If I find out about the artist before consuming any of the art, I will generally try to avoid it.

But if I already enjoy something and find out, I'll usually keep enjoying the thing. Occasionally I won't be able to, but I haven't fully figured out where the rules are yet. I think part of it is if the art is directly related to what/how they were a bad person. For example I can still enjoy ruroni kenshin, because it has pretty much nothing to do with what the creator was caught with

Every physician in the world uses Nazi data collected using the corpses of Jews. Most anatomy books uses drawings mad by Nazis. Just the swastikas have been airbrushed out. The data collection was never repeated.

Once I think a creator is a bad person, depending on what they did, I have trouble enjoying their stuff.

There are a ton of comedians, for example, that have done varying degrees of bad things that I just can't listen to anymore. Louis CK, Cosby, any of the podcast bro comedians that got Trump elected, etc are all out. When I hear them perform it is all I can think about.

Same with bands, writers, etc. I just have a nagging feeling in the back of my head reminding me the person is shitty.

It's very difficult for me. But also I realize if you look closely enough at most any artist you can find something disgusting about them, so I don't look into it in the first place. Like I used to love r. Kelly, but after learning about his past with Aaliyah and the whole situation that landed him where he is now, I haven't purposefully listened to his music since.

Idk, maybe I'm a bad person and lazy but I like enjoying things and I have learned over the years that sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.

Yes. It's like eating meat.

In significantly smaller amounts, but yes. No Hitler ate sugar.

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.

Not quite on topic, but I was never able to hate the situation with Werner von Braun. Space technology, both real and imagined, has always been an inspiration for me. It embodies the dream of aspiring to more and greater, can lift us humans above our roots as clever tool using animals. The science and technology is a great investment as it drags every part of society toward a better future (and I know some of y’all will come to bad-mouth this, but se la vie).

Werner von Braun developed rockets for the nazis, and I believe was responsible for the V2s that caused death and destruction in the UK. And it’s a root that has developed in some of the worst of humanity. And the us government brought him over, let him avoid any prosecution, used his work and let him build on it. But the us civilian space program brought us the dream, the challenge, the inspiration with his help. I am fine with that.

My feelings on the situation are pretty much inline with his treatment in “For All Mankind” and I even feel somewhat sad for him.

Yes, I have to admit a lot of the red pill dreck is entertaining in a mean-spirited way. And yes, political muck-raking and conspiracy theories as well. It satisfies some primal part of me I barely understand, and then I get back to reality

As is a lot of ai slop media, if you count that as immoral. It’s usually some space opera, romance or petty revenge fantasy written at middle school level, but I can watch a half hour video that satisfies something in me.

Clearly “professional” media is partly to blame. I still try to stay objectively informed but the ongoing death of journalism makes that harder every day. In my chill out time I try to mind movies and tv shows to entertain me, but cable and streaming companies make it more painful every day." It’s really not worth it.

Certainly I am as well, filling up on the addictive sugar-laced snack foods of media, letting my attention span fade, and immersing myself in some twisted version of reality that can’t be good for anyone’s mental health. But I’m just saying the “healthy snacks” are priced out of reach and getting less and less shelf space

i try my best not to and limit supporting them as much as possible. obviously you can't cut out every single thing unfortunately because capitalism loves exploitation, but i try to redirect my efforts elsewhere. for example, if i like the music of an immoral artist, I'll download the music instead of streaming it, refrain from buying merchandise, stuff like that. my money and time can be going towards someone else who actually deserves it.

i explain it like this: i dont buy from Starbucks because it's not a good company (setting their bad coffee aside). does the lack of profit from just me affect them? probably not much. but that $7 or whatever i spend on a latte could make a huge difference to my local coffee shop. that one view, one stream, one social media post, could go towards someone else

i also don't think it's possible to "separate art from artist." part of what makes art, art, is who made it. who were they? what environment was the art made in? what perspective is the subject being depicted from? the artist is ingrained in each of their creations. songs i used to like, i can no longer listen to after discovering things the artist had done. its just not the same

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.

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.

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 it being the thing they truly want to do, I very quickly lose interest.

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.

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.

Yes, I choose to watch news from all oulets.. for better or worse

No, but plenty of other people would probably claim that many of them are.

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.

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 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.