When Your Hero Is A Monster

That's because we act as if celebrities are the perfect friends or familie we never had in real life. It's better not to know anything about the personal lives of writers, musicians, etc .

54:07 there's A LOT of this in comments ironically

Says it would be good to know what "parasocial" means.
Starts using the term without explaining what it means.

Terry Pratchett has been my only hero for many years.

GNU Terry Pratchett.

So the part in sandman with the guy who kidnaps the muse and uses her (powers) for his own gain. That was a self reflection. How unfortunate.

Neil they / them-in….yeah, I'll see myself out.

Not to be parasocial or anything, but Neil looks so good dressed as Neil

I’m a big reader and I can’t “separate art from artist”. This has nothing to do with celebrity worship (which indeed is a huge problem IMHO and I’d highly recommend seeking help in general) but with knowing that in the bookshelf are works written by people who have core human values that are aligned with my own. So in the effort to decolonize and deshittify my shelf I got rid of a lot of stuff including JKR and Gaiman. Some Roald Dahl except for my now adult son’s faves. I am keeping David Foster Wallace though because there is a difference IMHO between systemic sexual assault, disgusting transphobia leveraged through a huge platform and a empathic individual who poured his troubled soul into important work. Not trying to justify abuse. Just trying to acknowledge gray areas.

For anyone who cares anyway, no! Opera is not bougie. Or, at least, it shouldn't be…

A silly little comment in the margin by an anarchist madly passionate about opera.

Liked this video quite a bit, I think you covered the topic quite well and really enjoyed your analysis of the parasocial phenomenon in regards to celebrity culture, how that translates to literature and the whole critique you've pointed to Gaiman about him becoming a brand. Also reminding people that they ought to revisit Barthes' The Death of Author with a slightly different lens and that, at least in the context of YT video essays, we haven't really been that good to that text. The whole bit with Death was just great and one of my favorite things you've done!
Which brings me to one of the things I've been thinking about in the last several years regarding all the allegations, what if this trend from the YT left to engage in infantile idealization with their favorite authors, be they video essayists, novelists, film directors, video game creators, musicians, etc., is misguided due to one of the reasons you mention in your essay, that of celebrity culture and how it has lead many to question and ruminate their relation to their favorite pieces of media that have forever changed them and brought many joys to their life? If this brief period has taught me something, is that I should appreciate the works I love and cherish, have an immense respect for on their own ground and for their own merit, not because I attribute it all to the author in question and tend to equate everything with them. Because I do hold a stance that whenever someone has managed to create a truly great work of art, it usually transcends them and goes over and beyond the person of the author, it takes a life of its own and what you get out of it isn't necessarily just due to what the author presented you with in the overall text, but is a journey of self-discovery in a way and this dynamic more functions through what you put in and then through the process of engaging with the text get out. It's as much telling about you as it is indicative about the work overall.
So to close my comment, appreciate the video and that Pynchon joke was killer!

yes. heroes is a dumb concept from thousands of years ago when they're tryna justify why we should do what they say because killing was very labor intensive

I tried very hard to understand this article. It may be that I did not understand it properly, but what I walked away with was a sense of (to use a simile) you are dismissive of the James Webb Telescope because of its reach and the broad range it can now discern, and would prefer to return to everyone using small backyard telescopes, as if this would lead to a greater sense of vision. Less access to the scope of something doth not good creation shape. But more importantly, what I am also trying to understand is the suspension of Neil Gaiman's right to innocence until proven in a court of law. He has (as far as I have checked) been accused by multiple people, which my sense of the law of averages suggests that there is (in my opinion) likelihood that if charged, he may well be found guilty of some offences. However, do you desire to live in a society where that is just assumed? That you feel repulsed by Neil Gaiman (1) is your right; you may well feel he is guilty without him being convicted as such, but would you want the same position presented against someone you are ideologically in favour of? Would you want the Tories to simply sway the court of public opinion against someone fighting to protect valuable rights in the labour movement, and be happy when they were successful, without any legal proceedings giving them cause? I hope in my heart that you would not want this to be so. And thus, I would call on you to examine whether you are being consistent.

If I may speak for myself; I am grieving right now for the fact that a powerful, long-abusing businessman has found the means to escape the consequences for convictions that a jury of his peers found him guilty for, on 34 counts. My sense of the wheel of justices turning in a direction I considered morally right has been suspended, but the fact that it looks likely that it was all for nothing. It has shattered for now my hope that it might have been a precedent set to enable actions against many high-powered people in organisations that ride roughshod over the common rights of citizens on a daily basis, and think anonymity in the public consciousness will always secure them from consequences from their actions that destabilise us and damage the hope for a future based on greater equality. But, do I believe that because of that we should suspend all the systems of law in place and just proceed with liable and slander, assuming guilt because we feel we are righteous in the facts we have anecdotally gathered? Forgive me for being rhetorical but the answer is, definitely not. The right to innocence protects people we despise as much as it does those we care for. I will drop the rhetoric and ask you again to consider; how would you want your right to innocence handled if you or someone you loved and cared about were accused in the court of public opinion of crimes? Thank you in advance for your reply. (My opinion above is offered in peace and with respect.)

(1) I have my own reasons on a personal level for strongly disliking Neil Gaiman. There are to do with what I perceive to be an arrogance in his representation of those greats of literature we draws heavily from, and then sneers at. My dislike of him increased to something akin to contempt when we did an online reading of 'The Raven' and put as much care and attention to it as if we were reading a train timetable. I am admitting to this to demonstrate that I have no desire to defend Gaiman because I like him. I don't. The important point is his right to the presumption of innocence should be extended regardless of my regard, or lack thereof.

Equally, with the importance of respecting peoples' sense of self and the 'labels' they assign which help protect those projections (which I have to assume you respect), do you think it is not a bit hypocritical to label a living human being as a 'monster' and therefore seek to dehumanise him, tearing down his chance to (despite his alleged behaviour) be afforded the dignity and respect of being acknowledged a fellow human?

I must suffer from some forgotten childhood trauma, because I never did have any hero worship. I just see people as more or less flawed. I remember my friend being distraught when things began surfacing about Michael Jackson, while my reaction was more "Well, there you go." My friend instead soon reverted into denial.

Everyone sucks. Everybody. I have done some awful things. So have you. Don’t worship anyone. Enjoy people’s work, their art, etc. I’ve always enjoyed the work of terrible human beings- William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Lou Reed, Lee Ving… and on and on and on. I wouldn’t want to be in the room with any of these people. Fan culture is terrible.

you gonna tell us what he did, because idk, id really c, how is it even on me/ so i swon't order an unused copy of death the high cost of living like i been considering. i'm not a dcetective, da, plaintiff, judge witness. i didn't let him do shit, but what, exactly, are we so worked up over?

I went through a media break up with the Assassin’s creed series a few years ago. And it really has been like a break up, i was in shock when i found out the company making the games had a culture of sweeping SA allegations under the rug, silencing affected workers, promoting the abusers or shuffling the abusers around the company, and even the ceo was in on it. And i just felt so deeply disappointed, angry and sad. So i stopped engaging in the fandom, i got rid of a lot of merch, but ive hesitant to get rid of the games. Theyve been sitting in my shelf untouched for years but i cant get rid of them because theres still a part of me that likes them. I feel like im keeping my exes shirt around.

Never liked the guy.

shit, i had this convo with myself decades ago. bought the thriller cassette at the starvation army and moved on

love the neil gaiman hair, unless you're trying for robert smith or tim burton (they all got the same hair)

About 10 hours after this video came out, an interview with Tori Amos – Gaiman's closest female friend, he is her daughter's godfather and is a huge advocate for abuse survivors (she's a spokesperson for RAINN) – was published. She said when the news broke it was a complete and utter shock and expressed some doubt about the allegations. She's never heard anything but praise about Gaiman in 33 years. One of his accusers claimed that he mentioned Amos and RAINN to her, suggesting that he could get her a job there.

nope, could not handle one more iota of superhero, even if they're gods. the last one i did (besides the many many bat properties i can't help how good they are) was rushdie's djinn kin… and the tick

Look at that. A trance rights advocate turned out to be a creep. Who would have thought?

Can someone explain the subtle dig at "We're In Hell"? I kinda like watching him sometimes but don't know much about him. Did he do something lame?

prime number and simpsons retrospective – this is called "knowing your audience"

I have and I will watch a We're In Hell video.