Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

fwiw, she's clarified that it was really about Pitchfork publishing her comments:

hey it’s claire

So I’m pretty new to this whole thing and I apologize if I behaved rashly or offended anyone.

Despite the fact that I can be outspoken, I’m a very private person.

I started that tumblr specifically to have a ‘non-official’ platform to voice my opinions. Obviously this was naive of me and i should have known how it would turn out. but i guess i just grew up on the internet and the internet is where i do things. its been intense to become a part of the content on the internet rather than just a passive observer.

I definitely meant what I said concerning beyonce, psy etc. and I’ve put that post back up (below) because I dont want my words to be taken out of context.

but i couldn’t handle my personal website becoming a content farm. My passive thoughts are not official statements.

i just need to have a normal life right now. I’m trying to write my record and I’ve never tried to make art with so many people watching. I love writing, but this tumblr is making things hard concerning my record.

I’ll start writing here again once I finished. I also just need to fully process having a ‘public life’. I haven’t parsed all this stuff yet and it’s been a real shock to the system.

again, I apologize if I upset anyone or reacted immaturely. I’m simultaneously honoured that something I say could get so much attention. I’m just not quite used to it yet. <3

x

c

also I agree with lex, victim blamers need die in a fire after being shot at and then exterminated

― dry rub come save beef (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, February 7, 2013 1:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

then you'd blame them for bringing the fire on themselves, and then it would be your turn

Haha her hostility to content farming-as-journalism is another pt in her favour

My estimation of Grimes just hot up another 400% I think. This whole thing, as well as bringing up the rockism debate again, is interesting because of the idea of people 'watching' the creative process. With my own fledgling band we are toying with this idea - showing people the inner workings of our songs, often before they're recorded. Beatles Anthology before Love Me Do, of you will. While musicians have always had to cope with intrusion on their private lives, it's now difficult for even the more retiring artists who still want a 'normal' net presence to operate properly. If you use the net for creative inspiration, how do you stop it coming round to bite you in the arse?

Sorry about typos - iPhone shite

Grimes isn't a part of ILX

the word “rockism” is often used as critical shorthand for

Pretty close!

that was a good follow-up post she wrote.

my comment re "thin skinned" is from encounters with Claire irl!

it can be neutral but that phrase is generally seen as a negative and not very complimentary, though

she's had some rough shit in her life iirc + recent rape threats from trolls

but she's probably thin-skinned

I'd just like to add that EG James is one of my favourite musicians online

I just assumer Claire is sensitive/thin-skinned/whatever adjective you want to use for "has feelings", seeing as she's gone from playing to two people at SXSW to being the face of Versace in two years, it'd be a waste of meteoric success if she were aloof

I like how she's handling this, tbh, and deleting her tumblr page seems like an awesome great first step.

Re: blaming the victim, I totally get it. But I hesitate to call her a victim of anything serious (or unique, alas) enough to warrant invoking that word. It reminds me of the hit movie "Twister" - remember that one? - where people with cameras chase tornados, and then get stuck in tornados. Or "Jaws IV: The Revenge," where Mrs. Brody sees the shark, takes a boat out into the open sea to follow it, and then is relentlessly attacked by the shark. The internet is full of twisters and sharks and dicks and trolls. They seem to be attracted to public or semi-public figures like ants (those assholes!) to picnics. I should say that in no way does she seem thin skinned in this affair at all. She's just figuring out how to deal with it. But to claim a public website or whatever is somehow such an essential component of her music making abilities or creativity is to undersell/undervalue those very things. It may be a parallel creative component or outlet or whatever, but she does not need it, so good for her for recognizing that a break is in order.

Still find it hilarious that anyone (and in this case I guess I mean the people saying mean things about her?) would be so reactionary about Grimes liking Psy or Beyonce or Mariah Carey.

I mean I know merely posting "people shouldn't be dicks" will not make it so, but...posting "people should just get a thicker skin" is not gonna make that so either. And only one of those things is actually shitty behaviour

― lex pretend, Thursday, February 7, 2013 1:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

lol @ josh being all, i'm not gonna blame the victim *blames victim*

also, i don't know the exact nature of what people have been saying to grimes this week, but if it's even 1/100th of what any woman with a moderate public profile receives as a matter of course NO ONE should be throwing around an adjective like "thin-skinned"

"she's not much of a victim of anything, she's like those people who were killed in tornadoes! not victims of anything, those guys"

also, i don't know the exact nature of what people have been saying to grimes this week, but if it's even 1/100th of what any woman with a moderate public profile receives as a matter of course NO ONE should be throwing around an adjective like "thin-skinned"

― lex pretend, Thursday, February 7, 2013 2:50 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ that's what im saying

josh how grimes handles this is literally irrelevant, she can handle it exactly as she pleases and how she feels would be best for her

yeah see i suspect grimes to get to the point she is at, hugely acclaimed artist, doing it by herself, dealing with people who clearly didn't believe she could do it along the way...i suspect toughness is not her problem. but little things do build up over time and people get pissed and sometimes, amazingly, delete their blogs.

even if she's very easily offended or prone to overreacting in real life, I see absolutely no evidence of that here and I honestly wish I was nearly as contemplative in my reactions and thoughts. and I don't even have anyone hounding me or caring what I think.

not that this isn't part of real life!

really wish I hadn't actually seen her list

josh how grimes handles this is literally irrelevant, she can handle it exactly as she pleases and how she feels would be best for her

No, I insist she take my advice. Do you have a way I can contact her? I know what's best for her.

Seriously, I think this whole thing transcends blame the victim. I feel like we're all victimized by this stuff all the time, in a sense. If someone told me when I was little that one of my favorite artists would not only have a portal that provided a direct link but would actively encourage free (in every sense) communication, I would not have believed you. If someone then said such a thing would be ruined by assholes writing in hateful and hurtful shit just because it's easy and anonymous, young me would have asked why the fuck anyone would do that? It makes me sad. Sort of recalls the ground zero of this sort of thing, of Bob Dylan trying to live a normal public life, and that getting fucked up by psycho fans going through his mail, dropping in on him at home, etc.

it's true. you are actually the victim in this situation.

I think I'm going to blog about it.

Josh I don't agree with what you're saying but I do think you're expressing a globally accepted consensus opinion about people in the public eye, "you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen". I think it's nonsense but here I am also expressing opinions online about public figures

I think it's possible to disagree strongly in the abstract, but reality dictates this shit will never go away. Internet comments are the least of it.

cannot stand the "bad thing [x] will never go away so we should just accept & tolerate it" mindset

yeah, me neither.Lex, let's you and I get together to make sure this kind of thing never happens again.

the best I can do is not do that s*** myself, and teach my kids not to do it either.

Android, taking the first step by censoring my writing.

I mean, that stuff thousands of people have to go through on a daily basis via via the Internet infuriates me, but I honestly don't know what the solution is.

I'm honestly scared s******* at what my daughters will have to go through in just a few years. but short of cutting them off from the internet I'm not sure what I can do.

this situation seems to me an example of somebody making the inevitable just that much easier. unfortunately.

lmao does android actually censor when you type the wort shit

It does! Sometimes. When I do it by voice.

There is the part where she isn't actually sure that blogging is helpful to what she does, it feels like she was thinking about closing the tumblr and that the trolling was the final straw.

5*** 3*** 7*** 1*** exp **/13

omg android is amazing

lex be honest how many people have you sent death threats to for having "Gangnam Style" on their EOY list

all of them, twice -_-

uh not the trolling, but because her posts were being used in a way she didn't intend them to be. which is a perfectly valid reason to delete one's blog imo.

xposts lmao lex

man, if only there was a place on the web where I could interact as just a fellow human being with musicians who have had critically acclaimed work

Wait, are you saying we should invite Grimes to 77

we're... not on 77 right now

* mind blown *

oh man, I don't know why I said that. I hope Grimes googlers don't start coming around and asking questions.

they seem to have calmed down, the Ned googlers haven't tried setting up any shrines for him on ILE for a few years

beyonce posted here as dom passantino for years before she was banned

Been thinking earlier today that Grimes would fit in pretty well here between being amazing.

wkiw claire