Your opinion on continuing to listen to disgraced musicians and TV stars

[neurotix]

This is a big topic considering all of the allegations currently about P.Diddy.

 

I am on the fence about "cancel culture" which I generally disagree with, so I wanted people's opinion on this.

 

I grew up listening to Puff Daddy "No Way Out", in the early 2000s R.Kelly had a ton of club hits like Feelin on your Booty, Ignition, etc. and I grew up with that too. I also was a fan of the metal band lostprophets and if you read about the lead singer, what he did is just sick and evil. I also watched "The Cosby Show" and I grew up listening to Michael Jackson. Young Jeezy was one of the original Trap artists and I was into him too, until I found out he beat his son regularly and beat him up (I was physically abused as a child.) so I deleted all the Young Jeezy I had.

 

I have to answer the question for myself: can I in clear conscience continue listening to these music artists or watch Cosby Show? So far I've been avoiding it, but I really like all these acts too.

 

Let's try not to make this too political, but I am basically asking for help so I can make a clear decision on whether or not I will continue to listen to these artists and similar artists going forward or not.

 

Thanks for any replies.

Edited September 30 by neurotix

[Alex]

Separate the art from the artist.

 

While what those human beings did is deplorable, the music/art that they created is "static" so to say and your opinion/enjoyment of it shouldn't be changed by what they did or did not do.

[UltraMega]

I don't really care if people still enjoy entertainment made by people who have done bad things. I enjoy a few Michael Jackson songs. 

 

For me personally there are times when it's just awkward. I was never a fan of P Diddy, but if I were I would imagine it would just feel kinda awkward to listen to his music at this point, and I probably wouldn't for that reason. Not because of any pressure to cancel anything, just it being awkward. It's a case by case thing for me. 

[damric]

I dig some Ted Nugent riffs, but not his ideology.

[Snakecharmed]

How you feel about each artist's situation versus their body of work is entirely up to you.

 

I've never truly had to deal with this because I don't especially care for any of the acts that have been mentioned in this thread. In some cases, I dislike some of the artists you mentioned like Diddy and Cosby for their role in their respective industry and never cared for their artistic work in the first place. However, a lot of people don't care about this seeing as how Chris Brown's fan base didn't crater after what he did to Rihanna.

 

I have only one Michael Jackson song in my playlist of nearly 4000 songs, and I hardly ever hear it anymore because the odds are against it being played, and it's nowhere close to one of my favorites anyway. I have no desire to play it on repeat or otherwise feature it more prominently than it is. That leads me to the next point.

 

There are too many artists and acts out there to explore, so unless one of them has performed an all-time favorite song or something like that, they're naturally going to fall out of favor over time anyway. If bad news about them comes out later, I'll be less inclined to revisit the old catalog, but I'll have already moved on to a new artist who conveniently doesn't have that baggage and we can either start the cycle all over again, or more likely not, because most people aren't garbage humans like Diddy, Cosby, or Ian Watkins.

 

There are only two celebrities I can think of where this internal dilemma ever remotely crossed my mind. The first was Aziz Ansari, but even then, I wasn't a massive fan of his, and nonetheless, the scrutiny he faced was the Weekly World News of the #MeToo movement, written by a total hack of a reporter with no journalistic integrity. Aziz was an awkward date, not a Louis CK, and nowhere in the same universe as a Harvey Weinstein.

 

The second is Will Smith. Before the slap though, he did enough other crap over the years to make me lose respect for him. While I don't actively seek old episodes of Fresh Prince, there are some iconic moments from that show that don't go away even though I think he's been a spineless tool in the years after The Pursuit of Happyness and I Am Legend. How often do I go out of my way to re-watch old TV shows and movies though? Practically never, so it's a moot point.

 

There's too much media out there to roll with any particular entertainer for life. I've dropped bands for lesser, non-felonious reasons, and each time I ended up discovering something I enjoy more that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise because there's a finite amount of time in life to enjoy a virtually infinite catalog of entertainment. It doesn't have to be an active endeavor to seek out a replacement for your listening or watching time either. It just happens.

Edited October 1 by Snakecharmed