It can sometimes be hard to separate the artist from their art. Are there any artists who were bad people but whose work you still enjoy?
Feel free to answer if you’re in the opposite scenario: an artist who you love personally but don’t enjoy their artwork.
Feel free to respond more than just music artists!
Like many mentioned, lots of examples. First one to come to mind for me was Exurb1a. Sarcastic and witty videos about science, philosophy, futurism, etc. I remember one video had a joke about tossing an ex out a window I found uncomfortable, but he also used a bunch of self derogatory humor etc, and his style did include exaggerated characters etc.
Then some convincing evidence came out that he was an abuser and iirc also raped someone. I don’t have the link now and as usual don’t believe stuff a random anonymous person says on the internet, but it was disappointing to say the least.
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I would say Kevin Spacey. The man can act: Usual suspects, Seven, first season of House Of Cards. Shame how he turned out.
Oh, Ayn Rand!
Wait a second, no, I hate her work too.
I’m out of the loop, what did she do?
Idk if its authors count as artists, but I’m a fan of the US Constitution. A lot of its authors were slave holders though, so nearly the worst a person can be.
This is probably a controversial one. As someone who studied modern political history, the U.S. Constitution is - taken completely subjective for its time, authors, situation, etc. - an amazing piece of human achievement. It’s a shame that so many people view it was some static command from the past, rather than the living document that it’s authors intended it to be.
My favourite book is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My edition has a foreword about how Lewis Carroll wasn’t really a pedophile. He just had so many pictures of naked kids, spent so much time with them and wanted to marry the real Alice while she was young solely because he had soooo much love for children. Not in a creepy way at all. No no, not at all creepy.
Okay, so this topic is moderately amusing to me. The truth is we still don’t actually know for sure, but it’s WEIRD.
He had a long and apparently well-documented history (letters he wrote) of multiple relationships with adult women. So much so that his family attempted to cover it all up because, by victorian standards, it was absolutely fucking scandalous. Like, wreck the surname for generations scandalous (which admittedly didn’t take much by victorian standards). This makes it look like he had NO relationships with adult women, because being an oddball that way was LESS of a freakshow publicly than sleeping around was.
The victorians also had this weird thing (by today’s standards) about nude children being the very symbol of innocence. Like, so much so that you’d wonder if they thought the mere sight of naked babies restored an adult’s innocence or something.
And these people had WEIRD hangups about sex.
We’re talking they supposedly covered the legs of tables and chairs in cloth so they would less resemble actual people’s legs, lest someone accidentally think of what’s at the TOP of legs on people. (genitalia! scary!)
The schism with Alice’s family may just have been that SOME people were POSSIBLY gossiping behind closed doors about the man and they refused to be associated with even the POSSIBILITY of scandal, especially if that scandal was that he slept with multiple women. There’s also mention that he was interested in Alice’s older sister, and something about a maid.
The whole thing is just straight up odd, but apparently most of the pedo rumors didn’t start until after his death. I’m not sure what, if anything, that means.
So, who knows. an oddball dude in a SUUUPER sexually repressed society, it honestly could go either way on coin flip odds.
Thanks, didn’t know these things.
I saw Bassnectar perform 24 times. Then we found out he likes to fuck underage girls. That killed all respect I had for him immediately.
Oop. That’s one I didn’t know. That’s gonna recontextualize Beauty Vs Noise for me.
nekozuna, turns out she’s a child predator. yeah i no longer listen to the music since i don’t wanna support her.
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Kanye had some real bangers early in his career. I still listen to them and have them in my playlist.
At a certain point, I acquired some CDs and just ripped the songs. If I’m in a Dropout mood, I’ve got the option to listen without him getting a cent. And I found the CDs secondhand too.
Definitely not shitty-bad, but it seemed like a Seinfeld moment. Looks like he’s still a small artist so I won’t name him here - but a guy I sat next to on a plane turned out to have drawn/designed the shirt I wore that day. We were having a nice chat when the discussion turned to the CCP and his admiration for their authoritative actions.
I definitely Noped out mentally from the conversation, but we still kept talking for a while because… well we were on a plane. Was still a nice guy (to me) - just …interesting… views.
I love Tom Cruise. The man is an amazing, committed actor. He doesn’t need flashy CGI or visual effects and he does insane stunts for our entertainment. Too bad he’s a fucking nutjob.
Except his movies use a lot of flashy CGI and visual effects. Sure, he does his own stunts, but there isn’t any less CGI in his movies than any other.
HP Lovecraft - great writer, horrible racist
Similarly, Orson Scott Card - Ender’s game and its sequel are great, but he’s a raging homophobe.
HPL actually repented his stark conservatism and racism in his later years but yeah.
I didn’t realize this.
I’m convinced that Orson Scott Card suffered a traumatic head injury at some point. I don’t know how you could go from writing something as beautiful and intimate as Ender’s Game to shit like Hidden Empire, which is creepy right wing Christian disaster porn (from what I can remember of that trainwreck).
Yeah, I don’t know how the person who wrote “Speaker for the Dead” could be such a bigot. It doesn’t make sense to me.
This 100%.
My username comes from Enderverse.
Ender’s Shadow was an interesting book. Really made me appreciate Bean more than I did when I read Ender’s Game.
It’s pretty simple: the bugs weren’t gay.
I mean, by present standards, most people historically would have been pretty racist.
Indeed, though Lovecraft has the distinction of being pretty racist even for his time.
He was certainly above that. Hell his story “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” also known as “White Ape”. Is literally a book about the “one drop rule” to the point its actually funny because of how absurd it comes off as. Its so insanely racist, it fucking becomes funny based on the character’s reaction. Its not a great short story but basically he find out his great great great great grandmother was a “white ape” (which is not human per say but lets read between the lines since the white apes come from the congo region), his response to this news was pouring gasoline on himself and burning himself alive. Like yes its fiction but the fact he made a fucking short story where the focal point is discovering that you are mixed race and learning that is so mind breaking, death was the only logical option is god damn hilarious.
I like the music by Demons & Wizards, a metal band, which was formed as a collaboration between Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kürsch (vocals) and Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer (guitar). Their first album from 1999 is legendary imo.
So let’s see what Jon has been up to since… Oh. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55626148
Great fucking band, shitty person lol
I was a huge Iced Earth fan before that day. Fuck that guy.
Asimov, from all accounts, was quite a creep but dammit if his writing isn’t good.