PWR BTTM Response to Allegations • Page 2

Never heard of this band but that was an odd response, though the whole situation seems suspicious

 

does anyone know where the original allegations are? all i see are "I heard from a friend of a friend" etc etc needless to say I understand why victims would distance themselves but I also just can't find firsthand allegations anywhere so it's making it hard to get a grasp of the concrete accusations + parties involved

if this is true this fucking sucks for numerous reasons

 

The word "accusations" in the post is linked.

 

nah yeah this is what i saw, i mean like, firsthand accounts from victims who can talk about what happened

 

From that post: "I have personally seen..."

 

like i assume she's posting about this with their blessing but it would just help to have someone speak clearly about what they experienced.

i realize i had forgotten the original post was firsthand re personally seen, and again, understand why a victim would not feel comfortable coming forward themselves, was just wondering if anyone could speak individually to their experiences themselves.

 

One person said 'I know someone who was raped while they were passed out.'

The first response? 'I won't believe it without proof. Anyone can make up an accusation.'

That's everything anyone needs to know why victims aren't speaking up themselves. And it just couldn't be more common.

 

oh yeah again i totally understand why a victim would not feel comfortable making a personal statement even anonymously. i was just wondering if there was a point zero of that which i had missed because otherwise i wasn't clear on what/if anything changed that cause this to suddenly gain momentum

 

Admittedly, I'm reacting quite a bit to the Facebook thread from their response, which is simply heinous. There's a lot more said there.

 

i believe it. facebook, if for no reason other than how massive it is... is a bit of a cesspit

 

Looks like t-rextasy, who they were touring with, called this situation out on twitter. Their response was less cowardly than pwr bttm's.

 

Fuck that response. They contribute to this shitty unsafe culture where you can do anything without consequences, and where everyone is complicit. They shouldn't be allowed to have a platform now that they got busted.

 

1) For the scene moving forward, if most of us recognize this response as the wrong way to handle allegations like this, what is the right way to do so? What would satisfy most people- suspension of touring, immediate dismissal from the band? I feel like moving forward it'd be easier to call bands out for not really handling this sort of abuse in the scene if we had like a baseline of "this is how we think you should handle this shit" and can call bands/members out for deviating from it.

2) How do we handle stuff like the following? Is it relevant to the discussion at hand - should it be an extension of it, or are we right to be skeptical of this sort of allegation as a "you're just as bad" diversionary tactic? (to be clear, the user below actually does not deny and even is tweeting in support of those making the allegations about PWR BTTM - more a question of how to handle the subsequent accusation against the accuser... do we just RT somebody else??)

 

thread

 

Kind of an empty response

"Oh wait what? Someone got abused by our band member? Well damn be sure to email us describe when it happened cause this is news to us!"

 

Respectfully, it doesn't seem like you would need to tweak the PWR BTTM response much for them to get away with claiming they met the model jes is describing. The bit about needing survivor-initiated processes is really complicated in this context when you consider that the allegations are being made by an individual on behalf of someone else. Like their whole email bit in their original post feels like it's trying to get at that thing already - if we take the survivor initiated thing to heart, should they not have done that?

Like if PWR BTTM had posted those EXACT quotes jes tweets in that thread there instead would we really be satisfied here? I don't think most of the commenters here would. I get that all of those things are what we should strive for in terms of language-choice in handling these situations, but they don't really feel like solutions to hold abusers actually accountable.

 

Looks like you're looking to argue and not actually looking for answers. I gave you one possible answer. Given what seems to be your actual goal, leave me out of it.

 

one of the problems if they said what jes said is that it's been shown already that they knew about the allegations months ago. there is no not knowing the harm of your actions at this point. this was absolutely covered up as long as possible.

 

I personally never saw the appeal of this band's music so I never paid much attention. However what I did read/see about them, they seemed like decent human beings on the surface so even though I didn't like their music all that much, I thought they were good people and had some respect for what they were doing in the scene. But that response does seem a bit empty. I honestly don't know enough about the person(s) involved however, but with the content that various users are presenting, it sure doesn't look good. All I can say at this point is, what a bummer.

 

The people in this band are very eloquent and they have enough social capital to make this look like a good statement, but it truly isn't. I would, first of all, encourage anyone who was a victim of abuse at the hands of this band to absolutely not send anything to that email. The entire thing reads like a legal team trying to get out in front of this and cover their clients. Second, if you are a victim, it is not your responsibility to make contact with your abuser to explain to them how they hurt you. It is so wildly inappropriate of Ben and Liv to feign surprise and then demand emotional labor from the people they've hurt. If my abusive ex-boyfriend told me he had found someone to "mediate" between us, I wouldn't trust that for a second.

The whole situation fucking sucks and I am so unbelievably exhausted with this entire scene. It breaks my heart to find out that a band that painted itself as creating a space for queer artists turned out to be just like every other shitty band. There are multiple people opening themselves up to be a resource to anyone who feels displaced by this- talk to them, not an faceless email account. For instance, Adult Mom, Kississippi, Sadie Dupuis, and Jes Skolnik had really great things to say on this situation.

 

Where do you get that impression? I said we need some sort of standard, you referenced a twitter thread as being a potential standard, and I just pointed out that I don't see a whole lot of difference between the standard described and what this band did..? I'm really just trying to understand the difference. Because I think the standard should probably be much more forceful than that.

 

For example, I don't think it would be absurd for the scene to expect that if any band hears of anything regarding abuse/misconduct by one of their members, they need to immediately publicly acknowledge those accusations for the safety of their fans. Any delay in acknowledging that sort of thing, we can assume the worst justifications on the part of the band for the delay.

Like that doesn't seem unreasonable? I know it doesn't stop abuse from happening in the first place, but it sets a standard that you can't just bury your bullshit like is happening here and let's us get a better feel for what bands actually are committed to a safer scene.

 

just replying to this bc i think it informs a lot of how people are responding to this (for better or worse) - they're arguably the biggest independent modern band whose musical philosophy and fashion identity are overwhelmingly permeated by their queerness. it hits a cross-section of alternative, LGBTQ, and iconography such that a lot of queer kids really really identify with it. which, again, is part of why this is so difficult for folks who are drawn to them and potentially pedestal them.

 

I wish someone would have told me this earlier for my situation. This is such a great quote. Thanks again as usual

 

Literally checked out this record this morning on my way to work because you've been raving about it on Twitter. Was loving it. Typed their name into Google to read more about it and everything on page 1 was referencing this story that broke overnight. I don't think I'll be finishing that record. F*ck that dude.