Accountability in Music • Page 317

I believe just about everyone in this thread wants abuses to stop, abusers to not have a platform, victims to be taken care of and receive help and for people to better understand ways for this to not happen again.

 

• I just think it's important to be productive in conversation. And I don't necessarily think that means you CAN'T be angry/heated and post aggressive things, just that there's a time and place for that approach (and we've seen those times and places on this site for sure, don't get me wrong) and using it as a catch-all can do more harm than good. (Plus it's more often than not men like me doing that and we REALLY need to not drown out women so often.)
• I also think this thread shouldn't turn into "Hey check out what problematic artists I listen to" like it did for a moment, even though I'm sure no one intended for it to become that. And I can totally understand seeing that in here and being like "What the fuck is going on?!"

I have other thoughts but don't yet know how to articulate them so I'll leave it at that for now. None of the above is meant to be accusatory because the whole point of this is to converse about how to approach this thread because of how off the rails it got (or other areas of the site got).​

 

Calling it a "messy personal relationship" when we at least had an admission of sexual coercion is minimizing and discrediting it. It's the same line people have used for years to discredit women in abusive relationships, just dismissing it as something between the two people involved, something that should be ignored and left to "work itself out."

Again, nah.

 

again and again, deflection, deflection, deflection, and the debate goes back to civility, and the facts are ignored, refused. How many times do I have to say that ESH messed with more than one person? If you so, so want a discussion, read the skylight thread, this discussion has been had 3 times over, yall just refuse to accept it for some reason, it's like a weird mental block. and you circle and circle back on yourselves because you don't WANT the conversation to advance. It reveals more about your own inner convictions than anything else.

 

These are valid points, and I appreciate them. I apologize if anything I posted came across in this way. I never meant to make this thread about my attachment to problematic artists like BN, but I can see why it would look like that. My goal was to steer the discussion into a place that would evaluate the process of moving on from problematic artists after they have been revealed as such. I used BN as an example because of how much that band and once meant to me (and the scene, generally), and wanted to talk about why it can still be tough for me to think about that situation.

 

You're essentially making yourselves the judges of which abuse is "acceptable" or not, which has no point unless you want to excuse something. The end of this should be that the survivors (SURVIVORSSSSSSSSS, for the hundredth time) don't want ESH to be making music in the scene and there should be no debate about what happened or not because guess what? None of your fucking business. I don't understand what the problem is here.

 

I’m only speaking for myself personally but it rubbed me the wrong way to see what seemed like people patting themselves on the back for “admitting” they listen to problematic artists, when it’s been said MANY times by MANY people who should be listened to (I don’t want to say anyone specifically in case my memory isn’t serving but I want to say it was Anna or Kayla or someone else?), that no one cares what you do in your private time.. why? Because no one fucking knows what you do in your private time!! Literally the only reason any of us know is because you all weirdly feel a reason to admit it in some sort of validating way, when you never needed to validate it to begin with. And in fact by stating it publicly you’re sort of doing the thing people DO say not to do, which is talk about the music.

As someone with a b**** n** tattoo who literally still cries about it ALL the time, I absolutely understand having a complex grieving process with art made by abusers. But that was an extremely weird turn in the conversation, and I’m glad that someone else pointed it out.

ALSO,
I’m usually totally on board with the concept of treating each other nicely and approaching with empathy etc. however it’s a dangerous walk to tone policing. As others have pointed out, having anger is a natural and expected reaction to this topic, so it’s really hard to ask people to be less angry about these things- because they matter.
I remember agreeing with some of the first posts about fostering good discussion but I feel like it devolved into again, self-congratulatory bullshit pretty fast.

As many other users can attest to, I have username-blindness in the sense that I don’t remember who said what 9 times out of 10. I’m not singling out anyone or even having really anyone specific in mind. I’m speaking overall of what I saw in the last few pages.

 

I think that it is incredibly important.




(I also agree the conversation shouldn't have shifted to talking about people's attachments to abusers, but perhaps that was a way for them to process it. I'm not sure)

 

Also a lot of people are sweeping under the rug that there were actual questions of “well wait what can Pinegrove do to convince you they’re better?” ??? Like. That happened. So idk why there’s this weird air of “all that’s been happening is this really great discussion!”
I personally understand why with this situation it seems like a “unique” question but in reality it’s the same question that’s been posed ad nauseam for 300 pages and answered just as many times.

 

I can see now why that discussion looked bad. I wasn’t thinking about it this way. Personally, all I wanted to do was discuss exactly what you mentioned: the grieving process. I wasn’t looking for validation in the sense that I wanted to be told it’s okay to miss BN; instead, the validation I saw and appreciated was the idea that I’m not only the one still working through this issue. And of course I knew that beforehand, but seeing it on this forum and from some users I respect made me feel less stranded in that emotion. I think there can be a way to discuss those lingering emotional attachments to the music without glorifying or pining over the days before the allegations came out. I’ve said it as nauseam, but it genuinely gave me a feeling of catharsis to say those things.

 

This is very very true. I definitely don't feel like a person who should be determining people's reactions, and you're right that it's a dangerous walk and I'm really not sure how to approach that aspect. It's one of those things where I wish people on the receiving end could like, read something and take a walk and think about it instead of immediately getting defensive because I do think when someone shows a HINT of "I want to be better" the process becomes cleaner SO fast, but that's all probably a pipe dream.

I get that. I also don't think this is the place for it though (personally). Maybe others feel different but that doesn't seem to be the case, I do think that's just something that has to be confronted privately or with close friends rather than something that's like publicly posted? Idk.

re: @ImAMetaphor as well since you mentioned it in the last post you made to me as well, sorry forgot to quote haha

 

I get that too, but again this was NOT the only discussion within the past few pages.

Honestly I think what you said earlier is the best idea but that’s just me. I think this thread should be to talk about accusations and how the person is being held accountable. There should be a separate thread for people processing grief. I believe that has its place- I do. But I don’t think it’s here.

 

Yeah totally. But at the same time this website has a very specific fan base with certain bands that most of us don’t probably have irl to relate to.

 

Maybe like, idk, in the artists’ threads instead of allowing discussion there that ignores accountability and instead reverts to things like album rankings or arguing about music videos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

That's true, OR where interacting with other people from that fanbase often results in like...enablers, for lack of better word.

 

Welllllp. There it is!

Yeahhhh this too!!

I mean I genuinely trust this community to hold people to higher accountability standards (overall) so that’s why I think it’s good to have a safe space where that can take place. If that makes sense.

 

I could definitely be better about sitting with posts for a while before responding. We probably all could. I get anxious and emotional very quickly, and I know that about myself, but it can be hard to check myself on it in the moment.

Yeah. I think there’s a lot of validity in that, and I know several people have expressed that feeling. It might do some good to discuss what that could look like in practice. To respond to the last part of Fucking Dustin’s post, I do value being able to talk about it on occasion on this website because most of my IRL friends can’t relate or don’t even know about the situation. Since a lot of us experienced that situation together here, I think discussing it amongst ourselves (those who are interested) can be helpful for some. For others, I understand wanting to avoid it entirely. It’s very messy and I think everyone can probably operate with as much as grace as possible while we figure this out for our community.

 

It's a bummer to see this thread turn positive and insightful for a brief period of time and then devolve back into snark and defensiveness. I don't have much more to add than that at the moment, but yeah. Growing pains as a site, I guess, but I think that we can work through a lot of this without making people (who are attempting to confront their own guilt and feelings about problematic artists) feel shitty. I've had countless civil discussions with people on both sides of this coin and feel that a large majority of the site is on the same page. Call me out for tone policing or whatever, but I think that we can handle this without what happened earlier today.

 

I honestly still do not understand the full scope of allegations against ESH.

Willing to make myself a target here, as it seems just saying that last time made people angry. But if a person comes in good faith to the accountability thread, lays out what they know, asks for a way to learn more, and doesn't come away with new information (beyond "there's more that hasn't been said")... well, it's not a very effective way to learn about which artists to stay away from and why.

 

Ha, sorry to disappoint you I guess. Maybe it's because you aren't a part of the conversation taking place in the supporter's forum, but a lot of people working through their feelings about this matter are survivors or close with survivors who are super uncomfortable with the language being used in here to speak about people. I am not speaking about the same people that you are speaking about. You know as much as I do that I use very direct and blunt language to deal with them. I'm speaking about the people in here who are trying their best to work their way through complex issues.

 

I am

 

jk ant knows more about me than most folks on this site.

 

Like, I get all of what @dylan said, but I don't think that the posters who came in here necessarily deserved to be talked to in the way that I and others talk to the shitheads in other threads who are being actively antagonistic or willfully ignorant regarding situations with accountability. I know that you're all attempting to do the right thing and a lot of you are as frustrated as I am to see so many people get away with the shit that they do, but I also think that you need to understand that there is a large portion of this site, including survivors, who are feeling completely alienated and alone because of the language we (I'm including myself here because I know 100% I use it as well) are using in these situations. They don't know what to do in terms of speaking about situations and they are afraid to post anything that may be taken in the slightest way wrong because then it becomes a dogpile.

Again, I am fully aware that this is coming across as "tone policing" and I know that I've made the same arguments that @leerkat and @dylan and @Mary V have made in this thread. I just think that we are reaching a pretty toxic point with members of this site who don't deserve to feel that way. Everyone, for the most part, is trying to figure it out.

 

This kind of post really rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I’m taking it entirely wrong but it makes me feel really shitty to think there’s always two sets of conversations going on, one that you can only see if you pay money. I don’t have a problem with supporter forums in general don’t get me wrong but this kind of post now makes me feel like oh okay so I have to pay money to go see if I’m one of the users apparently being thrown around as “toxic” and shit. Like. What? I’m a survivor, does the way I respond not count because it doesn’t align with the way other survivors are supposedly acting? Like sorry I really just don’t know how to take this post and it makes me feel like shit.

 

I absolutely didn't mean it that way and I apologize. There are, unfortunately, two sets of discussions going on and one is behind a paywall. I don't know what to do in terms of opening up that avenue for other users and I didn't want it to come across in that way. I'm merely saying that there are users on this site who do not feel comfortable engaging in conversation in here because of the language being used.