Comment by didgetmaster
2 days ago
Once upon a time, you could enjoy the works of a creative person at face value; mainly because you didn't know much of anything about their personal life.
That seems to have all changed in this age of the Internet; where every aspect of your life is exposed for all the world to judge (at least if you are famous). All your words (written or spoken) are presented as proof positive that you and your works are not to be tolerated; even if they are from your teenage years.
It seems like you cannot say anything these days without offending a large number of people; some of whom will try to lead a boycott against you.
I generally like to enjoy a good book, movie, blog, or comic strip without letting politics get in the way.
Scott Adams intentionally made it his entire online persona. Im all for letting people be people, but if you’re literally going to do everything in your power to prevent me from ignoring it…
> Once upon a time, you could enjoy the works of a creative person at face value; mainly because you didn't know much of anything about their personal life.
This is a strawman and absolutely not backed by historical evidence.
Look into the lives of Caravaggio, Milton, Voltaire, Wilde, Verlaine, Goya, Balzac, Courbet, Rimbaud, Schubert, Manet, Wagner, Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy... and see how their personal lives and/or political views/positions negatively affected their standing despite the huge recognition their creative work had.
> Once upon a time, you could enjoy the works of a creative person at face value; mainly because you didn't know much of anything about their personal life.
Don't let anyone tell you you can't.
> I generally like to enjoy a good book, movie, blog, or comic strip without letting politics get in the way.
It's certainly easier once they're dead. I can't speak for everyone, but part of the issue is that we don't want to financially support anyone who is doing bad stuff, so once they're dead I don't have to worry about funding them.
Hyperbolic example; suppose David Duke wrote a fantasy novel. Let's even assume that this fantasy novel had nothing to do with race or politics and was purely just about elves and gnomes and shit. Let's also assume that the novel is "good" by any objective measure you're like to use.
I would still not want to buy it, because I would be afraid that my money is going to something I don't agree with. David Duke is a known racist, neo-Nazi, and former leader of the KKK, and if I were to give him cash then it's likely that some percentage of this will end up towards a cause that I think is very actively harmful.
Now, if you go too deep with this, then of course you can't ever consume anything; virtually every piece of media involves multiple people, often dozens or even hundreds, many of which are perfectly fine people and some of which are assholes, so unless you want to go live in a Unabomber shack then everything devolves into my favorite Sonic quote [1].
So you draw a line somewhere, and I think people more or less have drawn the line at "authorship".
[1] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev...