Congratulations on discovering the morose whining of Morrissey. He’s a run-of-the-mill self-important right wing douchebag. But as someone who has been listening to the same songs for 30 years (including lots of Morrissey), i went almost my whole life having no info on who the guy is as a person, which is true of all the musicians and other popular artists whose work i consume. i’ve just never really been interested in that stuff.

then as i was spending more time in online leftist spaces, i started finding myself under attack for mentioning my enjoyment of particular songs or movies due to an artist’s demonstrated lack of character and/or crap right wing political beliefs. these artists’ stated beliefs/actions are not good and they do matter, and while thoughtful discussions around “death of the artist” and what not are warranted (and desperately needed), that is not what’s happening most of the time. what i see is pretty much just replication of neoliberal individualism.

People compete for social status by calling out others as a means of establishing their ideological superiority. it severely undermines solidarity and only serves to reward those neoliberal individualist tendencies that we really need to be focused on unlearning - and that can only happen when we embrace nuance and acknowledge that this is a complex issue, people are complex, art is complex, and so is the social context that shapes our character, values, and principles. for example, how many of us have taken into consideration the ways consumerism has shaped our understanding of what it means to be “political?”

that’s just my .02 cents or .72 cents or whatever lol

He’s written a song about how some women’s mother are bigger than others?

He’s a right wing piece of trash?

He’s a self hating gay man that’s full of mysogeny?