With all these creators getting justifiably outed for being awful, I've unfortunately seen a rising sentiment that creatives should not be trusted or taken as role models on the chance one day a skeleton falls out of their closet, and... That's the wrong takeaway I think?

You know me, one should not form parasocial relationships or worship or go to war for your favorite artist, but preemptively cutting yourself off from creators and their work as you wait for them to get busted over something is likewise no way to live.

And to be honest, it's stressful as hell as a creator myself to think about overzealous internet scrutiny. When well-meaning intent to hold individuals accountable that things they really need to be held accountable for become self-deputized mobs of judge, jury and executioner.

If I got the sense my fans were busy sniffing for anything resembling dirt so they could gain massive clout for putting my head on a pile I would just quit because my anxiety would not be able to take it.

The takeaway here is that creators are just human. They are capable of great evil and great good, sometimes both or neither. And it is vital to hold them to standards despite their talent BUT ALSO acknowledge they aren't schrodinger's scumbags.

Discourse sucks and always will suck because rather than carefully working toward a balance everyone just jumps up and down on opposite ends of the scale as hard as they can trying to "win".

I think it's good and just that we are not tolerating misdeeds of art heroes and that we are taking victims more seriously and banishing the protective silence around it all. But if we aren't careful there will be collateral damage, and who will then listen to those victims?