the only answer to this question can possibly be ‘sometimes’.
ya gotta be able to ‘read the room’ as to its acceptability and appropriateness… or stfu
I too think it depends case by case. I note the severity of the offense and the impact of bringing something up. How ethically strong do I feel about it? Will the individual at least consider my words? Is it an allegation. If so, how confident am I in the allegation to be true?
I do often bring things up though because most people dont know a lot of things
I assume they already know and have made the decision to not let it bother them.
Since he came up in conversation yesterday, I’ll use him as an example: say someone comes up and says how Chris Brown is such a good singer.
If I have any opinion on his actual singing, the conversation can go well even if I think, say, Drake is a better singer. (I did explicitly choose two R&B singers with different controversies.)
But if I say “yeah but did you see the police pictures of what he did to Rihanna’s face?”, then I feel like we’re about to be in a fight. They’re a fan, they probably already know. I just don’t see that conversation going well.
You could say that you don’t like artists who abuse others without directly referring to the specific incident, but if they ask you about who you like, you really have to be careful who you put up on your pedestal, lest they call you out as a hypocrite.
So I let it go.
Now if an American is telling me he likes Chris Brown, he likes Drake, and he supports Elon Musk and Donald Trump, he’s pretty much told me his position on women (and minorities) and I know this is a person to keep at arm’s length. I’ll speak to them, I’ll be polite to them, but I’m not going to introduce them to my younger sister or her 13-year-old daughter (if I had a younger sister, and if she had a 13-year-old daughter). But if they just wanna talk music, sure, we can have that conversation. I’d rather speak with someone who thinks it’s not okay to beat women, who thinks it’s not okay for grown men to have inappropriate relations with young girls, but if we’re just a couple people online separated by a huge distance talking about music? That’s fine.
This approach works for a lot of different topics.
For example, I’m an atheist. If someone I’m talking to is just brings up their faith I’m not going to go out of my way to start an arguement.
But if they’re start being argumentative, like coming up with bad faith arguments to bash gays or atheists, then I’ll push back. Usually gently at first, but if they keep going then the kiddie gloves come off.
Thankfully, most people I interact with (at least irl) know to not be an asshole. I get that not everybody has that luxury though.
Depends on why they like them. If it’s for their craft and that has nothing to do with the problematic past, eh… whatever. If it’s because of their opinions on something and they don’t live up to them e.g somebody likes a boxer for their anti-racism stance but that boxer was a racist, I’ll tell 'em.
I let it be, even if the person is still alive. Anyone can “allege” anything against anyone. Plus, if the friend is a devout follower of someone genuinely controversial, then there’s already a good chance I’m not that close to them and would be cutting them out of my life anyway.
I shut my mouth. Living in the modern world, that might be the last stale nugget of joy they have left.
If we’re talking MJ. Tell them.
We’re not (i was thinking of madonna), but speaking of MJ:
I’m so annoyed that internet discussion seemed to go back and forth on whether his interactions with kids were wrong, before finally settling on the conclusion they were, in the wake of Epstein + the MJ movie being released. People would make up very elaborate explanations for why he was having kids over and why it was okay, and you’d get absolutely piled on for not supporting that explanation.
For me personally my mom already told me he was bad before i started using the internet, so I’ve probably gone through more gaslighting with MJ than over any other issue - kids i went to school with were arguing with me over it at like 9 years old. I didn’t know the full reason yet.
Just such a clear issue
So Madonna isn’t dead
I was trying to look up what the Madonna controversy or allegations are and found this article about allegations of human trafficking and sexual abuse but then I saw this article about Malawi where her previous staff became head of education and this article about her healthy children
If this is the controversy or allegation, I’m not personally convinced as an outsider looking in 🤷♀️. Seems to me that people are bothered by her sexual advocacy including lgbt+ rights and though not saying theres 100% chance of this but I don’t see any evidence of human trafficking or exploitation so far. The wrongful termination suit as well as Malawi’s stance on societal norms just leads me to believe they have agenda against her.
I would legit want to hear how they handle that dissonance. If they’re emotionally intelligent people they’re probably honest with themselves about whatever that bad streak is and probably have something interesting to say about it.
If not, then whatever. Not my job to arbitrate people’s morals or tastes.
