Accountability in Music • Page 698

Talk to anyone you know irl and they sadly won’t know a thing about the Jared Leto allegations. A lot of collaborations between artists and tour supports are often chosen by a band’s management, based on what they think will sell or fit with their vibe. With bigger artists, their social profiles are run by social media teams so I don’t doubt at all that they’re out of the loop from the stuff that’s posted in this thread. Unless you stumble upon an allegation on Twitter, know someone who’s come forward, it’s a superstar with allegations against them, or you frequent a thread like this, you won’t hear anything about Jack Barakat or Jared Leto. I get a “who?” anytime I try to open discussions irl!

 

It does bum me out that so many people simply don’t know about the stories we’ve read here, but accountability is more complicated than we realise

 

Sure, I accept everything you've said here, but just running with the Hayley example (not singling her out at all, just the one that's been brought up), she's not just any randomer off the street, Leto is her peer. And additionally, she is a huge music fan herself. It's in both her personal and professional interest to pay attention to the music community she's a part of. It's the suggestion that these artists are completely shielded from news like this that I don't fully buy in to. For the beyonces and taylors of the world I'm sure that level of insulation does exist, and I'm not suggesting that Hayley Williams would be aware of every allegation against some random emerging band with 1000 followers, but it just doesn't seem plausible that some of this stuff doesn't filter through. Like, I'm a teacher, and I hear scandals about other teachers in other schools that I've never been to or heard of before, this kind of thing has a way of travelling through the grapevine. Perhaps not an ideal comparison, but my point stands.

 

If I was famous I would never be online anywhere. Especially on any site related to my “fame” with a comment section.

 

This may be totally off base, but I’d imagine there’s also some leftover resistance to tabloid/gossip culture involved. Especially for some older actors whose names were randomly dragged through the mud by Us Weekly or whatever. I’m not condoning it or saying it’s right or wrong or whatever, I just think it’s a possible factor.

 

i feel like, as is often the case, we're getting into territory where we're worrying way more about the people who didnt actually do any abusing than, you know, the people that did. not that there's no accountability to be had but i rarely think the focus should shift so far off of what matters, which is the person doing the abusing. like speculating who mightve known what about who just feels irrelevant when someone like jared leto is still making movies and touring and shit regardless of if hayley williams knew about the allegations? like its not her fault lol

 

I agree with the spirit of this post but in reality this is a small thread on a small forum where everyone knows Leto is trash and has no means to do anything about it besides pile on more, which is behavior that people also drop in to criticize. Imo let people focus on two things at once, doesn’t mean they’re equating them. Hayley is not an abuser but she did advocate for one on her radio show and it’s okay for people to question that

 

i agree you can focus on two things at once i just think you need to keep some perspective about it which does not always happen, usually because we feel like we have more control over guilt by association situations but again how important is it to go after hayley for that vs the multitude of other ways the industry as a whole has normalized jared leto's presence in the media, to the point where i firmly believe hayley doesnt know theres anything up with him. good PR will make your peers not be aware of allegations against you. sorry but its just true.

 

I guess it just doesn’t feel like anyone is losing perspective in the discussion happening? Maybe someone will prove me wrong but I don’t think anyone is equating Hayley Williams to Jared Leto or denying the industry’s acceptance of him at large. It more just seems like someone, or a couple of people, wanted to have a conversation regarding the responsibility we should expect those with platforms to hold themselves to. Seems pretty appropriate for the thread, regardless of the extent anyone thinks Hayley knows about Jared

 

im not saying it reached that point but it often winds up there. for example tons of people, not on this website we are generally pretty level headed about this stuff, but out on social media when the arcade fire stuff went down everyone got mad at feist for not immediately dropping and it's like....feist didn't sexually assault anyone here people lets get some perspective. and like i said i get it because it feels like you have more control over that sort of thing than making any kind of headway with the actual abusers since they often dont actually give a shit, but thats what makes them abusers i guess

 

Well sure yeah, I get that. If the conversation had started at Jared Leto and shifted focus onto Hayley Williams I’d be echoing every word you’ve posted, but that not really what happened there haha. It just feels like a separate conversation entirely which imo is okay

BUT in fairness I did just look back through this and noticed it started with that All Time Low post, which quickly turned into criticism of Avril, which yeah is fucked up. I must have missed those posts yesterday, or just glanced over them. We’re all good now, I see why you jumped in when you did — I’m a little sensitive to how the post policing in this thread can feel a little damned if you do damned if you don’t at times but I’m on your page now

 

yeah thats exactly the kind of thing im talking about haha but i totally get that feeling, a lot of this is hard to navigate and im not coming at anyone in particular just pointing out something i think is worth being mindful of because like in the case of Avril or feist you end up with women getting a lot of the scrutiny stemming from the actions of a man which feels wrong. on the flip side of that i said something in the arcade fire thread about regine also needing to be held accountable because her alignment with the abuser is a huge problem and she put out her own statement defending him. thats a whole other conversation and an example of when it is fair to side eye those surrounding the abuser

 

Yeah I think it's a complicated scenario too because while ppl do struggle with whether to support abusers or what that looks like person to person, generally ppl know those abusers suck and expect them to behave sucky. Whereas people who are known for more positive things, people expect "better" of them and so it's that feeling of disappointment when they support an abuser (unknowingly or not) which I think can sometimes derail things because it's easy to feel more disappointed or upset by someone we think highly of. Which absolutely doesn't mean they deserve more of the flak, but I can see how the conversation often goes that way. Which is a very tricky thing because then it ends up with women often getting more vocal criticism than the abuser. Which is often how abusers get away with stuff because the public gets desensitized to it after a while

 

It's a really good conversation to have and always makes me happy when these conversations can be had in this thread specifically without things getting heated. We're all on the same team here, just have different paths that often reach the same conclusion

 

Avril and ATL have the same manager and they opened for her earlier this year.

Sorry to send a novel but where else could I? I have a hard time believing in the 2 prominent allegations. I sat with that major notes app allegation for days waiting for anything else to support that this was this band's reality - another person with a similar experience, any verifiable human to corroborate, Jack getting booted, the proof mentioned in the text, openers not just dropping from the tour but denouncing ATL - anything we typically see with these things. I follow both accountability threads closely and appreciate the conversations that happen so much! I very much want to know who sucks and is dangerous and most of the time if not for these threads I would barely know the biggest stories. With that, this one feels weird? Admittedly, maybe that's the attention I've paid through hard fought bias, but I was prepared to toss this band, expecting the same cycle we're unfortunately used to seeing. But the conversation diverted to stories about behavior that should've been addressed before getting to this point. I'm genuinely surprised that MeToo hadn't sparked this particular convo about ATL sooner considering the raunchy front they always had. I understand it's easy to paint Jack as an abuser in conjunction with an obnoxious and inappropriate personality towards fans of all ages and every person who was uncomfortable then or understood later that shit wasn't okay deserves the accountability they want. But people want this revisionist damnation of stupid behavior and inappropriate comments and it loses the nuance that this band could have that persona but hopefully not also be monsters. The Blink-182 of it all. Most of this scene wasn't batting an eye when this was happening in real time, in public, and it feels disingenuous to pitchfork it with the same fervor as a horrifying allegation.

Obviously the way they've handled everything has been garbage and I got nothing there. Yike.

 

Remember this band full of abusers and apologists? Looks like they want everyone to forget that happened.

 

Me in the comments

 

The band deleted all posts about the show happening, so maybe enough people called them out that they cancelled?

 

Maybe the venue canceled it too, would be smart

 

it's easy for victims to believe the encounter was consensual and something they initiated and their fault for a long time. that's how grooming works. it's not easy for a victim to reach a point where they realize what happened to them was wrong and to abandon all connections to their abuser, especially when those connections include a community and very real friendships based upon mutual love of a band. add on the fact that they threatened to sue accusers and everyone gets really quiet really quick.

I was a fan from 2008-2017 and based on my own experiences in atl thc and interactions I've seen at meet and greets, I believe the allegations 100%. I'm not interested in getting sued like the girl who got in trouble for counting allegations on tumblr so that's all I'll say about that. what you choose to believe is entirely up to you.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCir...ige_makes_tiktok_with_boyfriend_ronnie_radke/

 

Wow

 

Truly a day for the history books