To Tango with a Monster

Recently, I stumbled onto allegations made to a youtuber with enough evi- dence that convinced me of the allegations. This awkward state of suspense ended when I finally came to terms with the consequences of these allegations. This youtuber meant a lot to me. Discovering, discussing and delving into the videos they produced that, at the time, I thought were fantastic. Without going into detail, they had a bigger impact on my youth than I care to admit, or at least, they presented ideas in a way which was easily digestible but gave a new line of thinking. Unfortunately, I have aged. I have more responsibilities than I realised and want to uphold myself to standards that I have grown up to expect from myself. To view the world and act as morally as I see fit. Which, while sounds grandiose and a pretentious, just means trying to make this place slightly better. There is the conflict. Millions of people will have experienced this. The person you looked up to doesn’t meet your own moral standards. It sucks. There is no two ways around it. My results actions being that I will stop supporting them. Now, this rant could end here but for my own sake, I will go a little deeper into the reasons why.

Separating art from the artist

While there have been many debates around this topic and whether completely removing the artists intentions is a good thing, it is not something that I can possibly do. No matter the context, if someone tells me before reading a piece of text about the writer’s views or actions, it will influence the way I interpret the text, despite what they write about (unless extreme circumstance). However, I too have bias’ and views on the world which the text could resonate with. Thus, the art individuals create has been influence by the creator, but luckily it is the viewer who gets the final say in its interpretation. So growing up with the youtuber, and revisiting all it taught me, I had final say on what these pieces meant to me. So, surprisingly the memories growing up were not in vain and may have done some good in making me the person I am today.

However, with the recent allegations there is now baggage. Sure I could still watch their videos and probably would enjoy them. But if they make a joke or idea that could be interpreted in a way which could confirm their lack of character, then that interpretation will cloud the influence. I can no longer separate the art from the monster no matter how many painting they amaze me with. Then, watching their videos becomes effort. Because I cant enjoy them like I used to, as there is always that doubt that lingers. But, if I enjoy their videos, or at least, a large proportion of them, whats the harm in watching them for my own entertainment?

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Capitalism

Whether I like it or not, our lives mostly revolve around money, and artists are no different. In this age of capitalism, voting with your wallet is just as important as voting in elections. While watching their videos would not sup- port them directly, indirectly via ad revenue, watch time, views and many more all increase their total worth. Giving them views and watch time allows them to do better on the youtube algorithm would not only increase their net worth, but the range of influence they have. Both of these are would do more harm than.

Forgiveness

It was brought up by a friend that accepting flaws in others leads to a more compassionate world. Acknowledging that people make mistakes and helping each other learn from them is a great way to progress. And to an extent this is something that we should strive for, with family members, friends and colleagues. However, for famous individuals, youtuber or other, things are different. Forgiving individuals close to you comes with the assumption that their range of influence is, very roughly, similar to yours. My range of influence for example covers my friend groups and my friends influence back onto me. Again, this is a very rough assumption. But there are measures in place for individuals in my range of influence that I can take to avoid harmful consequences of other actions. This does not occur with famous individuals. The youtuber in question has over 1 million subscribers, which is a incredible amount of influence. Thus voting with my wallet becomes the solution I choose to take.

Ignoring these issues could lead to the normalisation of such abuse and language, which goes against my main philosophy of making the world slightly brighter. This framework for thinking about individuals with high influence gives questions to youtubers like PewDiePie who, while apologised, has used and, to an extent, normalised derogative language.

However, it is important to note that there needs to be a cut off point for this line of thinking. Disagreeing with others is a healthy part of life and does not need to be removed as harshly as I am doing with this youtuber. The extreme cases of hate speech such as abuse, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and racism to name a few are the moral cut off points.

‘To Tango With A Monster’, written by my dearest friend who’s name shall not be mentioned. But they know who they are. Thank you for your thoughts.