People are rightly taking issue with this particular graf from the Billboard piece on the PWR BTTM guy. I think it's important to understand how reputational economies function very differently in art networks with different emphases on economic and cultural authority

PWR BTTM had precious little economic power but TONS of symbolic and cultural power. To "make it" in indie rock has always required converting (sub)cultural capital into a sustainable living, and their NPR/Pitchfork raves were pushing them toward that level

Without significant capital investment, cultural capital is what these bands live on. Compare that to Chris Brown and Robin Thicke, the only two musicians mentioned in that quote, who are embedded in the most capital-intensive sector of the music biz

Brown and Thicke are buffered on all sides by powerful people who want them to succeed purely as a monetary investment, and they both have a relatively long track record of financial/chart success that to execs outweighs the terrible things they've done off-record

Brown/Thicke have also been groomed for decades by industry professionals, and their image and reputation is something that is much more easily shifted with the tides of consumerist pop culture, where memory is short. Look how long R. Kelly stuck around!

PWR BTTM, while on the verge of critical acclaim in 2017, were still deeply indebted to the subcultural capital of their fan/supporter networks, which are driven not by money but by a belief that art and commerce emerge from and are vehicles for a righteous politics

Crucially, PWR BTTM's network is also one in which survivor accounts of abuse, even anonymous ones, are believed and circulated as warnings of further harm to other members of the network, with no supercilious/lawyerly hemming and hawing about "due process," etc

That's the network that brought PWR BTTM into being, that helped it reach the level of Cool New Band, and that pulled every single plug out of every single outlet once its trust was violated. That's how it works.

Each time a new public figure faces social media retribution, I have to remind myself that they made the choice to enter a profession in which their value is rooted in a fragile dialogue between their public image, their work, the "media" and their consuming public

That profession can be insanely lucrative in a very short time ($-wise) and can also give them the kind of public adulation that a microscopic fraction of humans can ever enjoy. But that privilege is always contingent on maintaining goodwill with a public. That's the deal.