CHRIS BROWN

they're not back together afaik, doesn't he have another girlfriend

Like that would stop him.

I'm not mad at Rihanna personally, I'm just frustrated that she lives in a world such that people are making her do things like work with Chris Brown.

idk whether this "she's gone back to him" line is true or not but whether or not it is it's 100% ok to be pissed off @ Rihanna about the whole deal imo & it weirds me out that people are taking this libertarian "people have the right to fuck themselves up & nobody should be mad"/"it's her life" line. my mom went back to her abuser time & again & it 1) fucked up me and my sister for life 2) fucked her up for life & 3) impacted every family member in our orbit very negatively: everybody involved deserved better except the abuser so fuck any "adults get to make their own choices" stuff on this, people have a responsibility to take care of themselves and not be assholes to themselves + it's otm to say that the example set by Chris Brown getting any kind of a pass is a poor one

It's not really, as I understand it, a case of "she's going back to her abuser" as one of "huge amounts of money and music biz power are being thrown at the message that you can forgive the guy that beat you and sing a song together" which is pretty fucking bad in its own right.

wait, libertarian? is the alternative getting the govt to regulate who rihanna can hang out with? in that case i guess i'm a p hardcore libertarian. imo this is about people shaming a woman for making choices dude.

the second part of what you say can certainly apply to people who actually know rihanna and what's going on in her life and love her. but masses of people on the internet who only know the details that seep through from press releases and gossip sites, that's just public shaming that she doesn't deserve.

wait, libertarian? is the alternative getting the govt to regulate who rihanna can hang out with? in that case i guess i'm a p hardcore libertarian.

i tried to find a jpg of milton friedman doing a facepalm but

imo this is about people shaming a woman for making choices dude.

I can't.

i wasn't being serious i just take some serious offense at having that word used to describe something i said xpost

well i thought aero was describing the general sense of the thread and not you specifically, but all right

imo this is about people shaming a woman for making choices dude.

lol no, Nicole otm

I think, as a society, if we are more concerned about preserving the appearance of personal agency than we are in putting out the message that associating with people who beat you up isn't a good idea, we have very wrong priorities.

lex, Matt DC, DJP all OTM. Greatly disappointed in Rhianna, but everyone else who's making money by perpetuating CB's career is a vile human being.

I'm not even disappointed in Rihanna really; I wonder how much choice she actually has in this matter.

Like, if a controlling narrative MUST be put out there, it's probably better for everyone in the long run if it's "be wary of people who beat you up" rather than "true romance overcomes all".

wait, what does Rihanna not have a choice in here? what do you think she's being told or forced to do?

That was poorly phrased but I can't reword to better express what I'm thinking.

what does Team Breezy think about this?

what really makes me think rihanna is trolling for publicity is the fact that this collab is a fucking sex jam on which CB sings about blowing out her candles and wanting her in the worst way - like it's not EVEN a doomed-romance thing, she's not trying to make a "teachable moment" about domestic abuse out of this (as she did in 2009), it's just something designed to outrage and scandalise

(I only ask because I know that most people who had Rihanna's back when everything went down are going to be dismayed/disappointed/disgusted by this turn of events, and I def got the impression that Chris Brown's army of fans had necessarily vilified her for multiple reasons. I feel like this is something that will alienate many fans and win her none, and I'm kinda concerned about her career/self-sabotaging at this point...) xp

i dunno in a way i respect that they're just doing the same kind of filthy club song they always do seperately instead of some kind of sappy cathartic ballad that they both lack the vocal ability or apparent emotional intelligence to pull off (xpost)

anyway blame your boy terius for bringing out the stupid "birthday"/"worst way" rhyme again

Good discussion about two of the dullest people on earth.

some kind of sappy cathartic ballad that they both lack the vocal ability or apparent emotional intelligence to pull off

"cold case love" and "russian roulette" were awesome :(

her label and management were completely dead set against this - it's why she put it putt out on a zshare link on twitter rather than them giving it a proper release on iTunes. She probably sees it as some great act of rebellion, with her and Chris star-crossed lovers battling against all odds, ugh.

oof.

well yeah, it's career suicide xp

her and Chris star-crossed lovers battling

wrong metaphor, no?

Rated R wasn't what i had in mind with "sappy cathartic ballad"

mmm the last time i thought "this is career suicide" was when chris brown beat rihanna's face to a pulp so i'm not rushing to make any predictions here

i don't really get why anyone thinks this is going to seriously hurt Rihanna. y'all know how many #1s she's had in the past couple years, right?

because it's going to alienate many longtime fans?

the success of her music is SO completely divorced from whether people think she's a good or smart person or a role model or whatever

like this kind of thing would alienate Kelly Clarkson's fanbase, not Rihanna's

yeah her celebrity is going to pull through this fine I think.

they are both going to come out of this with careers booming

at the risk of being repetitive:

I had never even heard of him prior to this beatdown thing and this has been such a media feeding-frenzy that of COURSE he is gonna have a comeback. Don't you guys pay any attention at all to how media narratives work? It goes - rise to stardom>>triumph>>fall from grace>>redemption/comeback

― One of the Most High Profile Comedy Directors of the 90s (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, March 6, 2009 12:49 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just because something happened and someone somewhere predicted it doesn't make it TOTALLY OBVIOUS AND PREDICTABLE

apparently CB missed out the "redemption" stage of that

Maybe for him redemption = sulking.

shakey that narrative is almost wholly about booze and drugs.

like, the fact that you hadn't even heard of Chris Brown before 2009 speaks to how tonedeaf you are to the whole cultural context of this whole thing and that your 'vindicated' accurate prediction was just a blind chicken finding a kernel of corn (xpost)

corn is delicious

apparently CB missed out the "redemption" stage of that

he's in it right now, I'd say it probably started with that awful "Man in the Mirror" performance

shakey that narrative is almost wholly about booze and drugs.

eh I can think of some other non-booze-n-drugs examples (Polanski, Rob Lowe) but you do have the "almost" qualifier in there so yeah okay

man i really hope Charlie Sheen sings "Man In The Mirror" on BET in a couple years

just because something happened and someone somewhere predicted it doesn't make it TOTALLY OBVIOUS AND PREDICTABLE

what makes it totally predictable is the amount of money involved. industry wasn't gonna just let a cash-cow like this go down the drain without milking it.

ah yes, that massive unstoppable cash cow you hadn't even heard of at that point

there's lots of cash cows I don't pay attention to

for a short while it actually seemed somewhat like the industry was thinking about "replacing" him, if that's possible. they let jason derulo et al out of the gate not too long after the incident, no?

i thought it was gonna be trey songz

who even upped his game musically!