Accountability in Music • Page 986

Drop the band names

 

If I had an alt that could post in there, I’d use it. But I’m sure they have karma requirements.

 

I mentioned it in the post on the FauxMoi subreddit today. And someone (who I later found out frequents the BN sub) asked where I got the information. And then I shared the link so some of them have to know by now. (Especially since a few of them are brigading that post and downvoting people.)

I normally don’t post in that sub either, but I saw someone share the Google Drive “evidence” while claiming to be neither “for or against the band.” And I felt compelled to stop them spreading misinformation.

 

I’m sorry I can’t not laugh at this. It sounds like a bad murder podcast sleuth plot point.

 

I don’t understand how you can look at those photos, and God forbid, if you lived through the 2000s and saw the Is Anyone Up photos and think “Yeah, I should support this guy, knowing what I know.”

 

A lot of it seems just to be transcripts of a podcast? And screenshots from like LiveJournal?

It’s both hilarious and depressing that anyone would go through that much work to feel better about liking a band. There’s other great music out there that’s far less complicated to enjoy.

 

I'm close with Emily Driskill, who was one of the two original women to speak out against his abuse. In fact, you can see her in the back of two of the photos from the tourbus shots I posted in my article. There were TWO girls he was abusing on his tourbus at the exact same time.

I have heard stories from women who have reached out to Emily who are not comfortable sharing their stories, and I can only assure everyone that his actions extended into much, much worse territory than what has already been revealed.

The people claiming the "age math" doesn't add up are absolute imbeciles. These girls were all groomed starting at age 15. Sexually explicit favors, albeit virtual, were solicited BEFORE they were 18.

The fact that these stans are defending him based on a lack of a court trial, and a lack of "hard" evidence (despite the Is Anyone Up screenshot, my photographs, Nicole's photographs, etc) have karma coming for them. They will do anything and everything they can to keep Lacey on his pedestal. It's disgusting behavior but shouldn't be entertained any more than it already has been.

 

Unrelated to this, but I’m sure there’s so much stuff on bands that has been lost to time in server mergers and whatnot for Livejournal, Tumblr, MySpace,etc.

I was looking for this one Hellogoodbye post on MySpace or their old site where Forrest profusely apologized for two underage girls that got onstage during their show in Cleveland I was at and flashed the crowd, but then he went on to say two of the guys in Cute Is What We Aim For definitely did or attempted to do unsavory things with them after. It’s just erased from the Internet.

 

Doesn’t the head mod post here? Ask him.

 

I've tried to get into my private Livejournal that had screenshots of our AIM conversations that were absolutely incriminating.

 

The head mod of the subreddit?

 

@Drewski

can you author and submit a pinned post?

 

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I’m around the same age as you and was also a superfan back then. And it’s infuriating for me to see how fans are still idolizing Jesse and his work. (They can never just talk about the music, it always leads to someone minimizing his actions and discounting victims.) So I can’t even imagine how it must feel for you.

Also, this might be glib, but the more details I hear, the more I realize just what an absolute loser Jesse was. When everything came out I had a realization of “oh, that’s why he hates himself.” And that made it pretty easy for me to stop identifying with the music, because I can’t imagine causing that much harm to other people.

 

Sorry, have been doing dinner and a movie with my wife.

I just pushed through the first one I saw. Everything has been on approval only for a few weeks to avoid duplicates; wasn't suppressing it.

 

Honestly, no reason to post to the same subreddit where you were apparently recently looking for tickets to their show? Feels weird to me. That sub is an echo chamber anyway. Just take it down.

 

Just did.

 

I saw one for a couple of minutes but it's been removed.

 

For the better.

 

So, just curious - how do you reconcile all of this? And still support him and the band?

 

I apologize. I'm the one who submitted it to the sub reddit. I also went and saw them in Nashville. Your story hit me different than the others. Likely because of the larger age gap at the time. I think it may affect others differently than the initial stories as well. I respect if you don't want it there but I do think it could possibly do some good there. Thank you for sharing. It hurt me to read.

 

fantastic article, thank you for writing it.
I had experiences similar to yours with a different band and I really appreciate being able to share your words that mirror exactly how I feel about Brand New without having to out myself to friends about why I feel that way and why it's so important to me to make and keep this scene safe

 

sure, Jan

 

Really proud of this thread today for being somewhere that a survivor can share their story without being shouted down. And thankful for @alyana91 for sharing with us.

 

I appreciate you clarifying. Thanks for trying to bump it, but for whatever reason, I just don't feel the same energy about sharing my story there as I have other avenues. The shows were so recently performed and to my knowledge that sub is flooded with apologists. I'm going to sit with what you shared for a bit.

 

There are 62,000 subscribers, 2 million views in the last seven days, and almost 500 different people tried to submit the summer tour announcement within 10 minutes. So yes, that is the reason for the queue at the moment.

No answer I’m going to try and give you will be satisfactory or sufficient, but especially not this one: I simply don’t know.

It has ebbed and flowed from month to month and year to year since 2017. I’ve tried to work it out in full view through public conversations with Nina Corcoran and VICE and sat down with journalist Jenessa Williams for three hours of interviews for her University of Leeds thesis and forthcoming book on #MeToo and music fandom. If I had some of the quotes from the latter available to me, I’d share them because I think it’s the closest I got to trying to figure it out, if that’s ever going to even be possible.

On a personal level, I tried to articulate here in previous years that conversations with my wife, who is a fan of the band and a survivor of the most heinous acts in parallel to this, echoed her support for them despite what transpired. That entire conversation here got ugly all around, and I decided it wasn’t worth trying to rationalize or discuss it in here so I just stayed out of it entirely. I haven’t, to the best of my memory, ever tried to convince someone on this forum or on Reddit or anywhere else that the stance I’ve taken in a given moment is the right one.

And if you were wondering about the moderating position of the Reddit specifically…then the “I don’t know” applies even more. For allowing the dialogue to openly transpire over the years in there I’ve received death threats and endless name calling. I’ve spent countless hours unseen scrubbing the worst comments over the years, but I can’t see or get to every single thing that passes through. I wish I could control the worst impulses of what people say or think but I can’t, and I know that the reputation of the place is not one of clarity and control but chaos and division. The last month has only made it clearer that trying to balance it all is untenable.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going here, and I get that there’s really zero gain for attempting to answer your question. But you asked, and I thought I’d at least make an attempt.