Mac Demarco - This Old Dog (May 5, 2017) Album • Page 6

it's definitely a part of it, of course. i would hope that other people would take a stance with mac that is more than at the very least ignoring it, like a lot of people are. the lack of accountability and even basically laughing at the issue makes it worse.

 

Don't see anyone ITT ignoring it. It seems like you and others think anything short of erasing him from existence is ignoring it

 

what accountability has there been? has his career had any noticeable negative impact from this?

do you think that there should be no apology? what about the fact that he even specifically mentioning the incident happening with a shrug like it was funny and there was no big deal?

i don't necessarily think he should be run off the earth but to see him get so huge with nothing but a drop in the bucket of opposition? especially with zero accountability? i think there's a problem there

 

But none of that is a problem with the fans. It's him. He's been asked about it. People in this thread have even said they won't listen to him now because of it. The point being made by Brandon, I believe, is that you're coming after the wrong people if you want a resolution here

 

i'm really not trying to go after anyone here. i believe nobody here has bad intentions at all. i don't see anyone here as one of the people that is being harmful.

it's more that i feel like this is definitely something that should not fall by the wayside and should be discussed, and the only way for there to be any genuine resolution other than mac to just continue on as if this incident never happened is if the chatter never ends

 

So I guess I'm wondering what are you expecting to happen by coming in here asking why nothing has been done? No one here is gonna have an answer or a way to get something done about it.

 

that is true. exceptionally true. but the only way to get anything to happen is get enough rumbling everywhere and to make sure the conversation doesn't just drift away. i had forgotten about this until it came back up in conversation over the last couple days. that shouldn't happen. this should remain in the conscious of people who know and listen to mac, whether they think it's fine or not. and if it's not fine to people, the discussion needs to increase.

 

idk man if you expect people to constantly have all this shit on their minds all the time you're pretty much asking them to be miserable because that's what that does, for me anyway, because it's all extremely depressing and fucked up and if I'm constantly thinking about all the fucked shit all these artists have done all the time I'm gonna be miserable. I get your point but realistically people forget things and naturally try not to dwell on shit that's gonna make them depressed, especially in a case like this where it was brought up directly to mac and he acknowledged it without apologizing or showing any remorse. What more can be done? Unless we can get a ton of publications to report on it then nothing. It sucks. But, again, people can draw their own lines. You can't ask people to undo the connections they've already forged with someone's music before they knew about what happened. You just can't

 

yeah yeah...i totally get that. i understand that completely. it's a complicated situation that everyone handles differently. but, yeah. after seeing the reaction to the PWR BTTM situation and the lack of accountability here (though i know they are different situations but they shouldn't be seen in entirely 100% different lights) it's just disappointing to see the lack of anything in this case. even if this happened quite a long while ago at this point. i'm just frustrated.

 

pwr bttm was an exception to the norm, which is good because it's a model for things should be handled. but it's hard to retroactively go back and treat other cases that have already passed the same way. it'll be more effective to look at pwr bttm for how the next situation should be handled, because you know there's gonna be a next situation which is sad but true

 

edit: it's no one's fault in particular but I think I'm going to leave this thread (or at least take a break) because it's very tough for me figure out what else I can do (aside from speaking about the situation) to be a responsible community member and hold Mac accountable while acknowledging and appreciating that his music literally saved my life

 

Did he do Moonlight on the River? That was the highlight when I saw him this weekend:

 

The way I'm looking at this, I really disagree with this particular take on the situation. I don't think our purpose as fans holding artists accountable necessarily equates to ruining artists' careers. I think we need to take a more nuanced look at what the end goal should be.

The PWR BTTM situation was unique because the band was cavalier about safe spaces and accountability. In betraying that trust, they cannibalized themselves. The Mac situation is so different, both in the fact that what he did is less clearly illegal and reprehensible and that he's more complicit in someone else's behavior, as well as the fact that his fan base is bigger and less insular than the DIY scene that brought PWR BTTM down. I think it's important to bring it up because it absolutely raises questions, but I don't think holding him accountable equates to drawing a line in the sand and continuing to question why his career hasn't taken a downturn.

I remember having a similar discussion about this last year on AP.net when Kanye was tweeting about Bill Cosby. In certain cases, I just need to rectify the fact that I don't need to agree 100% with an artist's beliefs or actions to enjoy their art. I don't think I'd ever be able to listen to PWR BTTM again without thinking about how Ben exploited their platform to assault someone, and I guess I'm not alone in that. With this Mac thing, or even with Kanye's fucked up views, Future's antisemitic lyrics, Quavo's on the record homophobia (which is particularly hard to deal with for me), I've been able to internalize what happened and I don't think campaigning to ruin their careers would do any good for the respective victims. Like Jake said we need to let people draw their own lines.

Idk I hope that doesn't come off as an attack or something. Not trying to argue, just parsing through my own thoughts. I respect that you're coming in here to spread awareness of something that might have been swept under the rug but I also think we need to be critical about our own purposes and methods.

 

absolutely, i agree. i'm not trying to witchhunt at all but if any positive comes out of this pwr bttm thing (of course not trying to look for any positive amongst the abuse that happened) is that we can at least have these discussions and work on figuring out the best way to handle situations. but i think the important thing is that things aren't swept under the rug and forgotten while doing so.

 

The thing that I've become a bit jaded about is the fact that once the conversation gets down to the "drawing lines" point, no more action or discussion really occurs. I was obviously very aggressive in my stance regarding The Wonder Years and JJR and that whole situation, and literally nothing has changed. Both the abuser and JJR are still prospering in the scene and no one talks about it anymore. I still have a sour taste in my mouth regarding the way TWY handled the situation and basically completely cut ties with Jason and the AP community rather than fostering discussion.

At the same time, things got very, very toxic for a while and I can be the first to admit that the way in which I went about a lot of that discussion was wrong. Personal attacks on individual fans just kinda made people shut down or continue to support the scene out of spite. Individuals do have the right to draw their own lines regarding how they consume art, art vs. artist separation and when and why they would choose to pull support from a band.

I've begun to settle into my own individual boycotts and keeping my mouth shut about things, but I hate when shit like this happens and the artists are generally not affected.

 

I just want to quote this to reiterate how important I think your first point is. It's really difficult when I deal with my rather severe depression and anxiety every day and then come around here and feel persecuted because I can't handle carrying this additional shit around with me 24/7.

 

yeah, harry is playing some hardcore fest in belgium or something and JJR is playing fest
that's why i think these discussions just can't end. even if people draw their lines, the longer time goes on without mention, the more likely it is that things will fade away and people will forget.

 

there's also a big difference in the JJR situation in that he wasn't actually in TWY

I don't know if TWY are big enough for this to be the case, but he is/was probably considered an employee of TWY and firing someone based off a tweet could open up a can of worms of issues.


I think that's something that also needs to be understood. Expecting every band or label someone was ever associated with to cut all ties and release a damning statement overnight is unrealistic (and I know it's been said plenty, but tbh I think it is completely true that while I understand why the reaction to PWR BTTM was as quick as it was, there are plenty of problematic issues involved with that) and that there are often legal reasons as to why they can't do that, and, while I'm sure everyone will angrily throw statistics at me, just the chance that a tweet is lying is enough that a label would be stupid to take action before having all the information possible.

 

TWY are far less culpable than say FYS who continued (and still do?) employ JJR but no one with status in the scene really tried holding them accountable and I'm not sure why. Personally, I think there's only so much fans can do. It starts with fans spreading awareness, but like I said, the pwr bttm situation turned out how it did because once the fans brought the allegations to light and circulated it, the people surrounding the band jumped ship quickly. I'm sure FYS knew about the allegations against JJR, TWY did, but FYS kept him around and TWY, while they jumped ship, did it so quietly no one who wasn't in tune knew why. The discussions are important to get the information out there but if the bands, labels, other prominent people surrounding the abusers don't take action there's no much else that can be done. Yeah you can stop buying or supporting but history shows there will always be people left to support the band. Even pwr bttm has ardent defenders and the main reason they won't be making money is because again the label took action.

 

the labels will do things if enough outrage is had. i'm not truly sure the JJR thing really had that much traction outside of like AP and the small portion of more socially conscious fans. and i don't think it's entirely just people not caring, i think a ton of people simply didn't know.

 

Well that kind of speaks to why the pwr bttm situation turned out the way it did, because the scene they were involved in is very tight knit and in tune with these issues and won't tolerate things like this. Bands with more crossover have more fans that won't care and won't even know

 

absolutely, i agree with that. i know you have also said that the pwr bttm situation will likely be the exception instead of the rule going forward, as sad as that is

i'm however not content with just letting that be a fact, however unrealistic it may be. the least i can do is continue spreading awareness hoping that maybe a difference can be made

 

I'm all for spreading awareness for sure and I don't think anything should be buried. It's just that when the question of accountability comes up I'm not sure what is expected of the people who make the choice to keep listening to an artist , or even those that don't. It'd be nice if labels and management, those who can actually hold those accountable, had easier access to communication with fans when these things do happen. But the bigger an artist gets the more unrealistic that becomes.

 

Saw him play solo last night and it was really good! Dude is hilarious.

Also, was not aware of some of the stuff covered over the last few pages...