#348

Well played. This is how I put an end to all of the arguments at home as it happens. “Yeah sure I might not be pulling my weight with the chores, but on the other hand - Syria.”

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#349

Yeah and anyway I wouldn’t say being aware and open about the bad things we have said in the past is self flagellating, it’s healthy to acknowledge your mistakes and admit they are a part of who you are or were.

Better for me to remember that I said some horrible shit in my youth since I cannot change it either way and it keeps me from hurting others.

5 Likes
#350

yeah; well played yourself. good come back. that’s the whole point. I’ll check out of this now. too much negativity. bye x

#351

I’m sure you meant well but someone in this very thread has mentioned sexual harassment they’ve experienced on this forum, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s too negative, especially if its a question of our entertainment value vs people’s first hand experience of forms of abuse.

Not having a go at you but might be worth a think anyway.

Take care

Ps I don’t do sarcasm so not trying to be cute

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#352

Cabbage were on 6 Music this afternoon with Mark Radcliffe interviewing. Had very mixed thoughts given this thread but the Beeb seemingly loves them. Musically speaking from the name I was expecting them to sound like a mix of The Others / Brother (!) but it was a completely different beast - more of a Eighties Matchbox B-Line disaster sound. Given the utter dearth of British guitar bands making any lasting impact in the last few years you’d ordinarily want them to do well and with regard to the lack of any prosecution their album should have a sensible and balanced review on this site. Whether they deserve to be treated without prejudice or shunned forever…I’m not sure but I know I won’t be able to disassociate them from the allegations either way

#353

Was arguing with someone on twitter about this yesterday who was describing them as being hard done by ever since the controversy which I found strange given that I’ve heard them mentioned on the radio plenty recently and endorsed by some influental names. Not sure how it’s affected sales/attendences/press coverage in the long term otherwise, most of this guy’s examples seemed to be based on things they were nearly dropped from which isn’t a particularly useful barometer. Tbh they’d already put me off ever listening to them long before all this by naming their band fucking Cabbage (not to mention a bit of a weird shit-lad image).

This guy was also doubling down on the insistence that the accusations were some malicious agenda though so fuck that noise.

1 Like
#354

But yeah I mean I’m certainly not against them being covered, interviewed, written about, played etc as long as it’s not mishandled.

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#355

Fwiw one of.my best.mates knows the band and apparently they are so horrified at what happened. Not excusing them but they seem ti actively try to change stuff

#356

Yeah read the original review and recognised the name of the writer but he went all guns blazing as if the band had been fraud victims and not because some poor teenage girl had her gig ruined by some caveman singer. All the more weird given all the recent Jesse Lacey allegations and #metoo movement which suggests that these type of allegations are common in the entertainment industry…I feel for anyone that is falsely accused of sexual misconduct like Conor Oberst, Don Broco and potentially Decapitated (maybe) but that review came across as a vigilante justice retaliative write-up and was crazily wrong.

CABBAGE though. Not as annoying as ‘Portugal-The Man’ when it comes to band names but it’s close

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#357

:joy: this is maybe the best use of a Simpsons frame ever

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#358

no-one lambasted you for previous conduct, far as I can see in this thread. please quote where anyone has done that.

this, added to

is tantamount to saying “you didn’t raise it at the time, I don’t know why are you raising it now.”. comes over as blame-y, to me. again, don’t remember anyone saying they sent you messages, please quote where they did.
why does something need to be ‘helpful’, as you put it? all the inane, repetitive stuff that gets posted on here and people don’t question it (and why should they, if it’s doing no harm?), yet when someone talks about their direct experiences of misogyny on here, they must justify themselves?

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#359

Still remember Vulgar Haiti quite fondly.

#360

As I said above, I was stunned to hear of this experience. I’m not saying it did not happen but to suggest that it is tolerated by me and the community, and that of the millions of posts on these forums over 18 years, pretty typical of how things used to be, is somewhat unfair. That’s all I was saying.

There is absolutely no way to read and moderate every single post on these forums, however as soon as something is escalated to me I have always dealt with it, especially if it was something as abhorrent as what was mentioned above.

#362

#hottake from Debz

6 Likes
#365

I’m really troubled and sorry to hear about your experiences.

However, of the literally millions of posts on these forums, I really do not think it’s fair to say that this abhorrent review was in keeping with the tone of the site and these forums. I think it’s incredibly disparaging to suggest that this is the norm rather than an exception to it.

The writer of the offensive piece is also not a regular user of the forums, so even if this was true it is not because he spends his time on here.

I built this platform and therefore I am in some ways responsible for what it is posted on here. I hope I have made it clear what will and most certainly will not be tolerated.

I’m not asking you to send me examples and I’m certainly not saying I don’t believe you either, but I think given the attention that this controversy has attracted (justifiably) I think it’s somewhat of a stretch to suggest that this is normal behaviour of the community who, as you can see above, would not stand for this victim-shaming and damaging use of a platform to undermine all survivors. If it once was the case, it most certainly, to my mind at least, is not now. And if you see evidence that this continues please highlight it to me, flag the thread or @moderators.

Sean

#367

This is an important conversation to be had and I’m not trying to shut it down.

Meanwhile, I am aware that people are continuing to shame me and this website publicly, and often refuse to engage in any dialogue about it. People who were quick to suggest boycotting the site did not react at all to my apology. We don’t live in an era of retractions and “we” are quick to turn outrage into oblivion.

I have spent the entirety of my adult life building this website from nothing - often at great personal expense. I have never knowingly abused my platform and I have always put equality and to some extents positive discrimation to the fore of my activities.

The site was launched with an incredibly diverse range of voices and has always continued from this foundation. There have always been a lot of women involved in the writing team, in fact there are often far more women than men regularly contributing. As they’re on average our best writers (percentage wise 99 out of 100 submissions to write for the site are from average men who can barely use apostrophes), usually given the big exclusives or regular roles (like Wendy Roby doing the singles column for years). I used BSKYB’s money to launch not just The Quietus but also The Lipster with Jude Rogers, which was the first music blog edited and written entirely by women. I also ran a record label that was - because they were by far the best applicants - staffed 80% by women (who’ve all gone on to run labels like Matador or work with Liam Gallagher, Florence, and Justin Beiber). I’ve released records that shockingly no one else in the UK industry wanted to release by the likes of Martha Wainwright, Metric, Emmy The Great, and Bat for Lashes. I’ve also dedicated a great deal of my time to managing The Anchoress and George Pringle (the only other artists I’ve managed is Ed Harcourt and briefly Juanita Stein). I’ve also curated/promoted festival line ups that have either been gender balanced (who else would have Laura Marling play her first festival slot opening for Gallows!?) or in some cases all women, since the very early days of DiS (our launch party was headlined by Twist). That’s not to mention that as a site we have always been aware of presenting the balanced world we want to see, and I’ve championed and celebrated everyone from Electrelane (our first album of the year) to EMA, Sharon Van Etten, St Vincent, Marissa Nadler, Etc Etc.

Of course, this is what every publication should be doing (many of my digital peers are great at giving a platform to a diverse range of voices and not celebrating the dead-eyed masculine culture that came before us) but I am well aware that it can easily be undone by the worst examples. I just felt it was important to outline who I am and what I have tried to represent and that this is far from typical let alone tolerable.

#369

I am partially loathe to write this, because a) I think you’re a good person with good intentions for the site - as you’ve just outlined in your further post - and b) it is about collective responsibility rather than piling on you, especially given the toll of the last few days.

However, there is an inconsistency when it comes to content on the old forum. You’ve spoken about the new forum with conviction; with assurance that harmful content isn’t tolerated and is suitably flagged when it appears. You hold this conviction…despite posting more infrequently than before (a positive thing).

As for the old forum…there are still some terrible threads you can find on Google (other search engines available). Add to that individual comments, PMs, the general culture of “irked?” etc. and it wasn’t always a welcoming place…if I look back personally, I did more to uphold that than bring it down. As a more prominent poster then…I guess I would expect you to have more idea what’s going on (given your confidence in the platform now). I’m not trying to place responsibility onto you. Sometimes I just think, when reading what posters like DB say…it would be more beneficial to accept how it used to be and our part in it…as opposed to almost airbrushing the past as a forgotten evil (this was the point I was trying to make upthread).

1 Like
#370

Aye. Just to back this Sean; DiS the public facing brand/company I think have more or less always upheld your ideals.

The community/forums definitely haven’t in the past - see the fuss about the MP Jared last year for just one of many examples; no-one called him out at the time, rather people joined in - but I think we’re hugely more self aware now and that kind of thing wouldn’t be tolerated at all. That’s not to say we’re perfect either, but I would like to think the community at least tries to live up to the standards you set now.

#371

I used to be awful, I cannot read my old posts because I was so ignorant at the time and was completely blinded to the things I was saying ‘in jest’ was very much living up to a stereotype and hurting people. It was an echo chamber and it wasn’t until the likes of @anon82218317 and the Femenist thread (though I never contributed, I read it a lot) showed up and made her voice heard that I started to self-reflect and take real notice of what my longstanding beliefs and opinions were and then quickly had my eyes opened to how sexist the world actually is. And for that I cannot thank them enough, since then I’ve tried to do everything in my power to change from that person and think, for the most part, have been able to do so and am now a better person for it.

It can come across as confrontational and not fair, at the time, but it’s sometimes necessary to be these things to be both these things to bring about change in the attitudes of people and we need to remember that this anger and frustration comes from a very real place and that people aren’t causing conflict ‘just because’. In that regards the boards are better than they’ve ever been, but recent issues have shown that it’s still close to being perfect, there is still a lot of problems, and we need to take this who incident as a chance to grow further as a community and as a result extend these foundations to other communities and life its self.

What I can take away from this all is that we got complacent as a community, a lot of posts which were kind of self-congratulatory recently about how much better we are as people these days (which is true) but I think in doing so we kind of forgot that the issue its self-hasn’t magically gone away.

3 Likes
#372

someone has raised what you acknowledge as abhorrent and they get this response. why are you calling it unfair they haven’t factored in the experience of others? why should that need to be done? I flagged up your language, ‘not sure why this is helpful’ and you appear to be doubling down. please try to imagine how your words make the person feel who spoke out. also, might make it unwelcoming for anyone else who wanted to raise a problem… “how am I being helpful? am I being unfair to other people on here?”. they shouldn’t have to think about these questions, especially if they’ve been put through something traumatic

1 Like