XXXTentacion - ?

By sentence 3, he has become the victim of "attempts to silence" (etc.) which was presented as "reporting" just a few beats earlier.

Earlier, I typed up and then deleted a post about how the most "performative" thing going around XXXTentacion was not grief or woke rage, but thirtysomething critics pretending that half-assed music by and for stoned, ignorant teenagers was somehow important and worthwhile. Whiney's piece is Exhibit A.

Nowhere in that piece do I say that XXX is a victim or that his music is good. Feel free to keep projecting things on it though, you self-righteous clods

I'm not feeling self-righteous at all; just gobsmacked

What a happy discussion this will be!

I spent the last thirty minutes trying to articulate my complicated thought pattern with some level of succinctness

Only to be derailed by Whiney's piece

But anyway:

I think the prerogative toward grieving, or celebrating, the murder (or death) of an abusive individual within the black community should be black people's prerogative and theirs alone

I’m just not into the Richie Valens comparison at all.

lotta bad reading going on itt

You don't say his music is good, you just talk (and talk, and talk) about his chart success without any context for how "chart success" is measured now versus how it was measured in the late Seventies or early Eighties (when your examples - the Germs, Tall Dwarfs, etc. - were putting out records). Charting with "album equivalent units" is a qualitatively different thing from getting people to walk into a store and buy a record with your name on it. XXXTentacion charted because stoned, ignorant teenagers were briefly fascinated by him. They'll be briefly fascinated with someone else next week.

d-40 otm throughout this thread

I think the prerogative toward grieving, or celebrating, the murder (or death) of an abusive individual within the black community should be black people's prerogative and theirs alone

― nevertheless, he stopped (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, June 19, 2018 6:17 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

strongly disagree with this. the guy was a public figure and his misdeeds were reflective not of the black community but of our culture of indifference to the mistreatment of women as a whole

his misdeeds were reflective not of our culture of indifference to the mistreatment of women as a whole but reflective of teenagers' culture of indifference to pretty much everything

sure

I mostly agree with deej btw but I personally would not die on this particular hill on this particular day, to put it gently

I think the prerogative toward grieving, or celebrating, the murder (or death) of an abusive individual within the black community should be black people's prerogative and theirs alone

― nevertheless, he stopped (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, June 19, 2018 6:17 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

strongly disagree with this. the guy was a public figure and his misdeeds were reflective not of the black community but of our culture of indifference to the mistreatment of women as a whole

― k3vin k., Tuesday, June 19, 2018 6:50 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, women from all backgrounds, for example, might have thoughts about the situation that deserve to be heard

k3vin

Very specifically, I said that the decision whether to grieve or celebrate the murder (or death) of an abusive individual within the black community should be black people's prerogative and theirs alone

Similarly, I don't think it'd be a good look for non-black men or women to say "yay, that fucker is dead" when OJ dies

I limited the scope of this opinion to "abusive individual within the black community" because I'm really talking about individuals who have committed violence against other individuals. (Not Charles Taylor, i.e.)

I didn't say that non-black people couldn't have opinions about his misdeeds or the culture of indifference that he represented, or put forth constructive ways of correcting that culture

the OJ situation obviously is a special case. granting that in this godforsaken country we inhabit any news story involving a person of color is going to draw out questionable responses from white people, was the discourse around xxx's career sufficiently racially polarized to make that comparison appropriate? I honestly can't say I followed his career very closely

I view people who engage in apologism for this guy the same way I do all the Varg/Burzum stans (and I know there are many of those in this ilx community). Don't any of you twist yourselves in a knot trying to advocate to irredeemable people no matter what kind of point you're trying to score.

advocate *for

“XXXTentacion charted because stoned, ignorant teenagers were briefly fascinated by him.” — someone who dedicated his life writing about bands with names like Bathtub Shitter and Anal Cunt

So you're saying I'm...wrong? Your response feels kinda handwavy.

my response is finger-wavy, bitch

So a terrible person made some popular art and then died, is what happened?

the good thing is the people who demonize him dont have to look at themselves or the artists they've propped up over the years at all

@ k3vin, I think that in the wake of so many high-profile celebrities being outed as abusers, and the collective trauma that survivors have been through over the past eternity of hearing account after account after account, that XXX being gunned-down-in-the-street satisfied a revenge fantasy that many survivors have been privately having against their own abusers. (Not me personally, all I want from my abuser is an apology.) Although it's understandable that non-black people might take to the internet to celebrate his death, and I don't judge people who've done it, I do not think that it is a good idea to use XXX as a proxy for that fantasy. I think it is an accessorization of a black body to mitigate one's own trauma. Despite claims that a celebration of XXX's death might be in solidarity with survivors of his violence, I think the survivor's body and wishes are also being ignored and accessorized with such a celebration. I'm not passing judgement in saying these things, just expressing my own conflicted feelings (and tentative conclusion): I do not think it is my place as a non-black person to make decisions to either grieve or celebrate individuals such as these on the event of their murder, or form (let alone express) opinions when black people choose to either grieve or celebrate on the event of his murder.

All I really feel is sadness overall!

or we can, you know, not say or think anything at all

go for it

I don't think anyone should be celebrating his death, making snarky comments, etc. On the other hand, I also recoil at how some of the the (non-black) artists in this thread are choosing to publicly grieve/celebrate his life: https://twitter.com/i/events/1008852757883674625

I think he is the first celebrity accused of abuse to die in the MeToo era (not to mention die horribly); so there's not really a template for how to respond and weigh his accomplishments against the accusations. I am trying to keep that in mind. He was also so young, and the alleged abuse so fresh/recent -- those are factors on both sides of the coin.

thirtysomething critics pretending that half-assed music by and for stoned, ignorant teenagers was somehow important and worthwhile

new board description

To be real w unperson, outside of two songs, I don’t really like XXXs music, but it seems absurd to me to treat something this popular and influential with “eh, kids are dumb, this will be over soon” especially after you know — of all people on here — know what the initial reaction to Black Sabbath, Led Zep and Kiss was.

And no, there’s isn’t some 1:1 ratio between popularity and importance, but I think I outlined how XXX did have an impact in his short time here

alfred otm

judging feels so good eh?

i mean, dancing on the grave of a dead person, unbookmarked

it seems absurd to me to treat something this popular and influential with “eh, kids are dumb, this will be over soon” especially after you know — of all people on here — know what the initial reaction to Black Sabbath, Led Zep and Kiss was.

Yes, but - and this is my main point here - I feel like in that piece, you were equating things that are not the same, because Soundcloud and free-tier Spotify streams are not the same as record sales, no matter what Billboard tells us and themselves in a desperate attempt to stave off their own irrelevance. I haven't done a deep dive into the numbers (I'll leave that to Chr1s M0l4nphy), but it looks to me like this guy was "successful" without actually being successful, and whichever major label signed him was throwing its money down a hole, even before this, when it just looked like he was gonna spend his prime creative years in prison.

Nobody I know had ever heard of this guy. Billboard charts don’t mean jack shit anymore.

You wouldn't if you didn't hang out with music critics or anyone under 25.

I mean, women from all backgrounds, for example, might have thoughts about the situation that deserve to be heard

― k3vin k

my thought when reading through billboard's collection of twitter encomiums to the man was "hmmm, i wonder what black women have to say about xxxtentacion upon his passing".

my personal opinions about the man don't, and shouldn't, matter

Yes what *could* be the difference between a chart that gauges how many moms paid to own an Adele album to play in their second minivan’s CD player and how many times something was streamed on SoundCloud by a teenager who can’t afford the monthly $9.99 Spotify charge. What could possibly be the benefit of determining popularity that way?

i mean, dancing on the grave of a dead person, unbookmarked

― lost in sublimation (Ross)

ross i think there's something you should know about this board

Unperson’s analysis of his popularity couldn’t be more wrong

Maybe, but who cares. He's not Tupac. He's not Biggie. He's not even Jam Master Jay. Five years from now he'll be a footnote even among those who are most ardent about un-dirtying his history this week. Let him disappear into the noise and be glad he can no longer beat anyone half to death.

That would’ve been the ideal thing. But he got murdered and now he’s some sort of misunderstood genius and a martyr.

I didn’t wish his death, I actually wish he was alive so he would get fat and fade out like everyone else.

streaming numbers measure the actual time people spend listening to music, and x's streaming numbers were astounding

the argument the press tried to make that his success is completely down to the infamy he attained as a result of his extramusical misdeeds is worth hearing but it is also indisputable that people were hearing the music and they were hearing it a *lot*

seems fully improbable to suggest that a culture so fully soaked and submerged in the dude's work will somehow manage to completely shake out the stain just on the basis of the absence of his body

to have reservations about an artist, especially an artist accused of the things x was accused of, is totally well and good and healthy, but to dismiss the very real and indisputable evidence of his massive popularity doesn't do any favors for the already very difficult conversation surrounding the artist's work and legacy

I'm fine with any and all attempts to bury the guy's legacy before it can really become established in "the canon." If people rediscover him in 25 years, he'll still be a shitstain, but the real damage would have already been mitigated.

no critical conversation is going to or was ever going to have any effect at all on whether or not the dude is remembered or influential or not

pretending otherwise is unhealthy

y'all i think music and young people are going to be ok. sheesh

https://m.imgur.com/fYI8Win