• xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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    18 hours ago

    There’s effectively a monopoly on stadiums in the US (see Macklemore’s recent failure to secure stadiums for a US leg of his Free Palestine tour). Is there any way for an entertainer to have significant commercial success without getting in bed with a shitty steaming service, distributer or venue?

    No one is innocent under capitalism, if you make money in this environment you have blood on your hands every day.

    Yeah, I know this. But what is your point? Are you saying we should all just starve in the streets on principle? That we should just fuckit and YOLO cuz we can’t be perfect? That I should STFU about my ethical choices because no one can make perfect ethical choices in this late stage capitalist hellscape?

    Maybe we should normalize accepting and maybe even celebrating people’s efforts to be a little better? I love cheese but I can admire someone for being an ethical Vegan.

    • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      I largely agree with much of what you’re saying. I just think people draw lines in odd ways. Bill burrs comedy subverts all of the commerce he supports. He seems to want the same type of people he makes money, to die. But everyone should cancel him over one show? His work is culturally supporting things we believe in. Certainly people should draw lines in the sand, but they should also look at the big picture.

      Are you saying we should all just starve in the streets on principle?

      Obviously the opposite, I’m saying people exist in a world filled to the brim with shitty people and connections to those shitty people are inevitable, especially if you gain success. I could probably find at least one cancelable offense in every famous person you respect, given enough time, probably everyone you know personally as well. We are quick to toss people aside in today’s world without taking the totality of who people are. If the totality of who they are is shitty that’s one thing, but if they are already a reasonably decent person this moral purity test is ridiculous.

      Bill burrs response that he was told he could say what he wants, and it felt like in opportunity to reach an audience living under a strict authority, seems perfectly consistent with the rest of his public persona.

      • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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        17 hours ago

        I dig where you’re coming from. The “subverting the commerce” feels a little like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits but I still adore Rage Against the Machine, so 🤷🏾

        Along with Burr I think Carr, CK and Buress are smart and insightful and I miss their content, but they 100% knew who the show was for and that it’s an attempt to normalize an oppressive authoritarian regime. Performing for a repressed audience and planting seeds of new new ideas or bringing people together or whatever are all nice ideas but it feels like copium to justify the million dollar dirty paycheck. Maybe I’ll get over it eventually? I tend to hold grudges for a long time.

        Side note: I do think it’s hillarious that Jim Jeffries kinda took a similar tack and said in an interview something like “they killed a journalist, so what? We kill journalists too. We killed Epstine” and they dropped him from the festival 😂