Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets To My Downfall (September 25, 2020) Album • Page 15

We've had this conversation time and time again, and at the risk of getting shit for being a mod, I genuinely do not believe there is a right way to handle this that will make everyone happy. In my personal opinion, I believe these threads should be open for discussion. I believe it is okay to discuss problematic art that has affected you in some way, and I also believe it is IMPORTANT to remind folks about the baggage that sometimes comes with consuming art. If you are able to recognize those two things, well, great. I also understand the frustration that comes with users ignoring that baggage. At the same time, accountability is SO important that I feel aggressively shutting down anyone who has a different perspective on it than you only harms that cause.

Imo, threads like this should remain open for people to have difficult but respectful conversations about the artist at hand. If you're not capable of doing that for whatever reason, you should probably frequent a different thread.

 

Yeah, weighing the options, imo the positive of getting someone to listen to you and understand your point is more important than the negative of dorks continuing to post about the artist. If you shut down the thread, they'll just crawl to another thread to congregate in and you won't have a chance to maybe change someone's mind.

 

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting to lock the thread immediately, or some kind of shut down or anything. It's just that, in this case, it has already reached the point when discussions about his tweets run in circles, and because some still just want to talk about the music, it's leading to (justifiably but it can be exhausting to read) hostile back and forths.

I'm not trying to gotcha anyone, I don't think this current approach is working as well as you all think it is.

 

There is no justifying the hostile back and forths because some users want to discuss the actual music. That shit should be shut down. You can talk about accountability and the music together, which many users here do not seem understand. People will handle it the way they want/think but there is no need for some of the direct responses in this thread.

 

I think this bothsidesism is part of the problem. I don't think the goal in these situations should be to "make everyone happy," it should be to foster a safe and inclusive community (both on here, because there is active power to do so, and hopefully, one day, within the "scene" generally)

 

I was gonna say I don't understand why people bend over backwards to praise a paedo's musical output, but they probably have zero morals to begin with, so it's probably not that hard for them.

 

One start could be to not promote/report on MGK in the news section of this website.

 

The other thing you have to take into account is the possibility that someone on here could have been a victim of the very thing MGK has done and seeing his name pop up on here could be a massive trigger for them.

Personally, I'm all in favour of locking threads like this. There are thousands of other places you can discuss the music of someone as shitty as MGK without having to deal with us miserable fuckers with our "morals".

 

The thing is, when I'm referring to making everyone happy, I'm talking specifically about the users itt that are upset with how these situations are being handled - not users that just want to talk about the music or whatever. It's just the one side I am trying to work with, because we have the same goal. But despite years of discussion, there's still no agreement on how we get there. I don't personally see how keeping threads like this open for important and respectful discussion is unsafe or exclusive, but I am here to listen, because I care about this site and this community and want to do what I can to make it better.

edit: the post above was made as I was typing this, and I can definitely understand how certain problematic artists could be a trigger for some. This opens up a wider conversation, though, as to which artists threads get locked down, who decides and how. This is why I think these ongoing discussions are important to keep having.

 

Maybe changing the thread title so it is specifically about the artist and not the current album would help. That way, someone unfamiliar with the situation won't come in to express how a particular song is bomping and on on repeat while ignoring the overall discussion of the shitty things MGK is accused of.

Just a suggestion, not calling your responses out in particular.

 

I'm not completely convinced this will help (the people who just want to talk about the music are more than likely aware of the context within this thread), but this has been brought up in the past and I'm not opposed to the idea. Again, it just opens a larger conversation w/r/t A) which artists get their thread titles changed and B) whether that actually influences the content of the thread at all.

 

agreed

 

Yeah this conversation has been kicked around for a while now...I don't know. There's bands where I'd absolutely want a disclaimer if we were going to do that, but I don't know where the line is. Nothing, for instance, is a relatively popular band within the scene who had a super shitty transphobic asshole in their band after his outbursts on social media and harassment of (if I'm not mistaken) posters on this site. He's not in the band anymore, but the band worked with him after that shit went down. Should there be a disclaimer on their thread? Should that thread be disrupted at the level as this or TSSF or Pinegrove? Should that thread be locked/not allowed to be created? I don't know.

Personally, I think having that discussion in the thread (or I think we had it in the Emo thread where I clarified the timeline of a few things) is more informative and helpful than simply slapping a "Problematic" label on things.

 

Ultimately, none of us have any power here other than speaking up and out against these artists, labels, etc. Yes it's hard to please everyone, but I think a lot of us would be happy to see some sort of definitive, productive, systematic action taken.

(I want to clarify that I am not targeting you directly, I know you're not the only staff/mod and I appreciate you being in here and listening/responding. It was just your post that had the point that felt most relevant to address.)

 

People have also discussed having the first post/a pinned posted in the thread where the allegations can be discussed. I don't know about that either. We regularly witness people ignoring recent posts on the same page in order to continue to talk about the music, I don't think that or a label will do anything.

 

It’s because important and respectful discussion doesn’t always take place in the threads of problematic artists. You get people calling out the artists, sure, but then you always also get the fan brigade coming in here and dropping totally unnecessary comments about how they’re really loving the music and how they’re happy the record charted high, and completely ignoring the larger context of what’s going on. That is harmful not just to people who may be survivors of the same kind of behavior exhibited by the artist in question, it is also harmful *to the Chorus community itself*. How is this community supposed to be a place of safety and inclusivity when we have people on this site who selfishly want to ignore the heinous shit some of these people have said and done just so they can enjoy their music guilt-free?

Discussion about accountability can and does happen in artist threads, but the same group of people is constantly also having to respond to completely insensitive selfish users who demonstrate a complete lack of anything even remotely resembling empathy, and frankly that is incredibly exhausting and irritating. And that causes the kinds of fights that happened in here over the weekend. Because we’re just so tired of this same thing happening again and again.

Having a mod leave a final comment with a link to the accountability thread, then lock the thread while leaving up the posts about what the artist did, seems like the best way to stop this from continuing to happen to me, but I’m not a mod, so.

 

cool, keep it to yourself though maybe or take the conversation somewhere else idk what to tell you.

 

That's why I honestly believe making use of the lock feature when you sense things are getting awry would be a much less stressful and time wasting path into handling these matters. For both the mods and the participants. It seems like a no brainer to me, and it can even be dealt with on a case by case (hence things getting more complicated in some examples discussed above) manner. It's all about taking control of the discourse back before disruptors make it worse. A mod could close the thread with a "Due to XX circumstances, we decided to lock the thread for the time being... etc." disclaimer. It could be even suggested that the discussion regarding accountability in particular continues on this thread, if people feel like it.

edit: Oop I ended up repeating @Anthony_ 's suggestion.

 

Agree with this, and I believe it's happened before. Again, though, what becomes the line? Should we shut down any thread related to The Wonder Years or Pure Noise Records? I certainly would like to, haha, but I don't think doing that really solves anything.

 

Maybe also create a “Separate The Art From The Artist” thread and let that be the dedicated cesspool where people can talk glowingly about artists like MGK or Pinegrove or Brand New or whoever. Spare everyone else from having to see it.

 

The thing with closing the thread is that people will just go elsewhere to discuss the album and their view on the situation won’t change. I’ve seen it happen before with members on here.

 

Exactly, closing off discussion from the other end (our end, so to speak) doesn't solve the problem, it just pushes those people into other threads. So too does me going into the TSSF thread and talking shit, haha, but at least I can quote people and be like "Hey why are you choosing to ignore these allegations?"

Like I said, nothing comes out of it 90% of the time and the posters who don't give a fuck most likely will still not give a fuck, but that 10%/few posters every few discussions who come out of it with a different viewpoint is enough for me to keep doing it. Shutting down the thread doesn't let that happen.

 

This thread, on the other hand, does suck shit and nothing positive outside of this discussion will come out of it.

 

I mean, I've accepted that it's impossible to change everyone's mind. If, at least, they stop discussing it on this place, I see that as a good thing.

At the end of the day, I'd rather not see MGK being fawned over ever again than knowing the possibility of fans praising him and/or is still there. Closing the thread would solve that problem.

I have no idea... I wish this solution would work for every situation. It seems more obvious in this one because MGK is the direct and sole person responsible for those horrendous tweets.

With the Pure Noise/The Wonder Years case, there's been such a six degrees of separation thing going on regarding JJR that I don't even know how you could properly handle all this.

 

Remember when this site felt like a safe and inclusive place? I sure do... I'm afraid to even ask questions or voice my own opinions anymore. I'm constantly scared of how a couple of you will likely respond to anything I say because I see how you repeatedly treat others on here. So I tend to just stay quiet, for the most part, which sucks. I think some of you (only a couple of you) think you're doing good, but you go about it in a way that is not. Some of you just go into threads to belittle people or argue (not discuss) and that is 100% not constructive.

It's one thing to helpfully spread awareness (which should absolutely be done), but it's another thing to try and police what is and what isn't allowed to be talked about in a thread. If you guys want to straight up cancel an artist, that's absolutely your right. Unfollow or block the thread from showing up if you don't want to support it anymore. Otherwise, have a peaceful and constructive discussion with people in the thread who might not understand what's going on, or might have questions on what they can personally do to be better. Make people feel like they can talk and ask questions. Encourage it.

But I think people also have the right to come into a thread and voice that they like an album, even if you or I don't agree with it. Especially if those people haven't been keeping up with the rest of the conversation. There's been many times on this site where I pop into a thread to make a comment or whatever, and then I get attacked because I didn't read the last couple pages of conversation. I can't be the only other user on here that doesn't read every single post in threads I follow, right?

Anyway, I'm sure something I said will get taken wrong and I'll get my ass handed to me, but whatever. I know how it goes with some of you... I just wish I could ask questions and have an opinion on this site without my anxiety flaring up. And to be clear, I'm not sticking up for MGK or any other problematic people whatsoever so please don't even go there. I just want everyone and myself to be better people, and it's hard to make any kind of progress when you feel like you can't be open and honest.

But thank you to those of you who have always been respectful to me and the other users on this site, and have helped us grow.