Amanda Palmer

[TheStrawberryThief]

I feel like this thread has Unleashed the Neil hate in me tonight.

Someone mentioned about his Doctor Who episode.

He likes to portray himself as a lefty feminist bloke who says things like " I like stories about women who save themselves" , yet he can not write a female character who feels like a genuine women.

A lot of his adult female characters come across as either manic pixie dream girls, potential girlfriend or mean bitches.

 

[TheStrawberryThief]

I hope his 'singing' has improved since that 'evening with' album they did.

Amanda has been doing some promo for a new EP of ' New Zealand survival songs'. I always thought that they split early into covid lockdown, but some of the things she has been saying about the EP seem to suggest that they split just before it started? But I am sure they were acting like they were happily playing house in an Airb&b until they weren't.

Maybe they split and tried to give it another go before it all fell apart fully? Who knows?

One thing that I can never let go of when it comes to her, she wants us all to know she was having such a depressed sad time in New Zealand, a country that quickly and tightly closed its boarders allowing its citizens to spend much less time in lockdown and restrictions that other place. She practically had a normal life compared to most

However, she is still not as a big a Bellend as Neil ' fell out with my wife so abandoned my child on the other side of the world not knowing when I would be allowed back on the country' Gaiman.

No matter what he does or says or creates, I can't go back to seeing him as a harmless quirky writer man.

 

[Limey]

She's been a balls-out grifter since that appalling 'Art of Asking' book (or whatever it was called). Then having a Patreon and acting La Starving Artiste despite being married to a fucking millionaire. She's an example of making a very little talent go a very long way with an immense amount of self belief and confidence, tbqh. She cannot sing and in the end, became little more than a wandering noisy cult of personality with the aforementioned dodgy self-help type book. Spare me the tales of lift hitching and fan floor sleeping when your husband is minted and now so are you.

As for quirky second wife, the moment Gaiman got with her I thought, haha, you found yourself a 15 years younger Poundland Tori Amos since the original you liked so much wasn't free. He's looked like a fucking bag lady midlife crisis wanker ever since he's been with her. Clearly has a boner for eccentric artist women anyway.

Apparently they both slept around as part of their open relationship then had the combined balls to get butthurt about each other or whatever. Pretty immature for a pair of middle aged and above people. He's 60 now and has probably given up and decided to stick around for the kid. Typical older divorced dude with much younger wife and very young child. The classic 'do over family' because you fucked up with the first one. At least Scientology isn't involved this time. Maybe.

I find Gaiman's 'nice' image increasingly likely to be a typical smokescreen for not being quite as nice as you'd want. I always wondered if like Palmer, he shagged fans. Note most of Neil's uberfans are women on the younger side. With a dose of the kind of quirky he obviously finds attractive.

'Poundland Tori Amos'

Bravo

 

[TragicSweetPotatoes]

I'd love a Neil Gaiman thread... I've enjoyed his books but he gives me seriously creepy 'shags his younger female fans' vibe. I think he's forgiven an awful lot or his behaviour is glossed over because he plays the 'eccentric english genius' very well. I have some empathy for AFP even though she seems to be utterly exhausting.

 

[Limey]

View attachment 2591669View attachment 2591670
She's vagueposting about a family emergency, presumably someone elderly is dying in the hospital and she can't help but capitalise off of it with her followers for attention

She's the Jack Monroe of music, or what ever it is she does now.

 

[TheStrawberryThief]

She is being so gross at the moment. Someone is dying and she is posting sad arty looking photos from the hospital on Facebook and trying to make profound and poetic statements to make sure everyone knows that she is experiencing trauma in a unique and beautiful way.

Keep it private and go hug your son. He needs you more than your audience right now.

Not everything needs to be an attempt at a profound statement on life.

 

[Copacapybara]

Yes, aside from Coin Operated Boy, none of her output appeals to me whatsoever.

BUT, I’m so aware of the way motherhood clips women’s wings and Neil, a supposed progressive lefty, has stood back like a Victorian father and allowed AP’s career to nose-dive, while literally leaving the country that his infant son lives in, eschewing all responsibility in favour of his career.

Failed at first hurdle mate.

Absolutely, I do find Palmer annoying but Gaiman to me feels worse because it seems so dishonest. When they split there was a bit of web drama as Gaiman had publicly added a book about living with narcissists to his Goodreads page. He claimed he was hacked, in a sort of amused way, but I’m not totally convinced. It had that typical snideness that comes in when he talks about her.

And all this is stuff that narcissists tend to do, setting up little tricks to control the narrative and playing dumb about it.

He was also pretty underhand with Graham Linehan who he was previously friends with. Yes they disagree on trans politics, but Gaiman posted up something on Twitter implying he was ‘concerned’ for Linehan’s mental health. It was really passive- aggressive and patronising, and obviously designed to cause a pile on while giving himself the kudos for being a ‘caring’ person.

This just seems so weird to me. If you hate someone’s politics say so, cleanly. If you care about them contact them privately. This just seems false and motivated by ego. I think a lot of his actions are motivated by a desire to control and boost his image.

She gave him a bit of a vicarious rock start lifestyle but as soon as her image soured he seems to have got bored, or found that she isn’t useful to him any more.

 

[Nahhh]

Has anyone read about her pretending to be dead and recording her then boyfriend finding her 'body'?

 

[Vanelope]

Her adoption of Māori culture and words seems performative (like the rest of her life). Of course her house guests are part Māori family with two mothers. If they were organic vegans who only wore hemp I would not be surprised. It’s all signposting how alternative and good she, Amanda, is.

 

[Sideboard Bob]

“Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer (born April 30, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and performance artist who was the lead vocalist, pianist, and lyricist of the duo The Dresden Dolls. She performs as a solo artist, and was also one-half of the duo Evelyn Evelyn, and the lead singer and songwriter of Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra.”

A few people were wondering why she doesn’t have a thread, so here we are! Summary thingy taken from Wikipedia.

 

[Vanelope]

I am a huge Terry Pratchett fan (GNU) and read Gaiman later, and I think he has some good stuff, American Gods and The Sandman - the adaptation of the Sandman is very good - but in his books I do sense a slight creepy factor when it comes to how he writes women and sex scenes. Same as Stephen King is kind of creepy about women, also GRR Martin (most fantasy writers slant incel). TP of course avoided all of that by writing three dimensional women who were not defined by that - see Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, Susan etc.

 

[MrsSlocombe]

I intensely dislike both Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman for how they both used my country during the dark days of the pandemic - Neil was in and out of New Zealand a couple of times when ordinary New Zealanders couldn't secure spots in MIQ to be able to come back home. She can also get jumped on for pretending to care about te reo Māori.

 

[Limey]

Has anyone read about her pretending to be dead and recording her then boyfriend finding her 'body'?

Good grief.

I remember when her friend was dying of cancer, and she managed to turn his final days into a massive drama, with her at the centre of it. She's an absolute ghoul.

 

[thegirlscout]

Just in case anyone was wondering what a truly horrible person Amanda Palmer is, here is her blog post about Russell Brand. I'm putting it behind a spoiler with a warning there's a lot of details about assault.

Spoiler: Amanda Palmer & Russell Brands dicey choices

A few words about Russell Brand, and how this all about a lot more than Russell Brand. | Amanda Palmer

Get more from Amanda Palmer on Patreon

www.patreon.com

But this is the nightmare part (her words)

In the case of Russell, he’s been really open about his many dicey life choices, so it would be weird to be “surprised” here.

He's being accused of grooming and raping but that's just run of the mill "dicey" lad behaviour.

I just can't with her.

‘People who have done stupid shit can evolve.’ - I wouldn’t say raping a child is ‘stupid shit’. She’s such a moron

 

[sweetnessfollows]

I think they were two highly narcissistic people who had strong sexual chemistry & both thought they could change the other. When that didn't work, they had a kid thinking a family will unite them and it didn't. Then they probably became cruel to each other - less spite and more revert to form - she seems unable to stop doing events and stuff even when she's writing about how it harms her health and mental wellness, Neil just retreats to fantasy. The stuff during the pandemic was giving life though especially the "Everybody in the NZ coffee shop clapped for me"

I think both of them like the **idea** of parenting but they both seem really self involved. But they are both wealthy enough that there's no reason they have to change because they can afford the extensive childcare help. Their divorce seems unusually quiet given the outspokeness Palmer normally gears for. She writes a lot of vague emotional stuff and I just don't understand her fanbase that seems to feel she is talking to them.

One of the best things I read about her was the trans "journalist" she hired for her tour that she ended up throwing under the bus in her debacle with Laura Snapes. It was a long form entry about how it's all a performance and that writer had the true measure of her.

A little snark aside - during the pandemic she was a favorite time waster of mine and when Neil was in NZ and then fleeing, the nanny kept an instagram. So Neil flees, Palmer is wackadoo and the nanny is stuck there for a while. Time marches on and the nanny is writing about depression and returning to her home. She wrote some public stuff about being so thankful for all the help and people in NZ goes through extra effort to talk about how Neil helped her out with not one reference to Amanda Palmer.

That is the tea I want. That nanny probably Saw Stuff.

 

[Dustye]

Amanda has nearly single-handedly made me hate the word 'art', the phrase 'make art'. Can't quite put my finger on why, maybe because her 'art' is such self-indulgent rubbish this days. Or maybe because I'm knackered from working in a normo job and dealing with a toddler and wish I lived in NZ making 'art' instead

 

[brianbutterfield]

the nanny kept an instagram. So Neil flees, Palmer is wackadoo and the nanny is stuck there for a while. Time marches on and the nanny is writing about depression and returning to her home. She wrote some public stuff about being so thankful for all the help and people in NZ goes through extra effort to talk about how Neil helped her out with not one reference to Amanda Palmer.

That is the tea I want. That nanny probably Saw Stuff.
[/QUOTE]


Interesting re the nanny. I followed her too.

If I were to guess (as an ex nanny myself) I’d imagine Ash is the product of a very unstructured, unboundaried, rootless existence which will result in behavioural issues and parents who back him up rather than work with the nanny to contain him.

Men like Neil would be very invested in younger, cooler women liking him, so I imagine the grooming was rife. He would have been thinking of the nanny’s opinion of him and adjusting his behaviour based on this.

I remember a post where AP was so proud that Ash refused to walk to school in shoes, so didn’t.

Go to any music festival in the UK over the summer and you get loads of white middle class hippies ‘parenting’ their darling Oaks, Storms, Leafs and Blazes in this way, and it’s supremely Irritating and usually ultimately damaging/neglectful to their children.
---

I have enjoyed a lot of his books and comics, and I do enjoy some of her music ( although I much prefer her older stuff). I just don't really like them as people anymore.

What I find really obnoxious is the way Amanda acts like she is the first women to ever experience a common female experience and is now an authority on it.

There’s a cringey mc cringe podcast where AP interviews russell brand and the way she tells stories is presumptuous that the listener is hanging on every word when they’re not.

 

[sirbenfro]

They've clearly been separated since he abandoned her and their son in the early days of the pandemic. At least they are finally making it clear on their social channels what's going on - as Amanda is a chronic oversharer of all things in her life, its clear that Neil hasn't been a part of her life (besides somewhat absent coparenting) for a few years now.

 

[Dustye]

She's written a piece about her experience at TED talks, it's an awful lot of words saying not a whole lot...

What it feels like to get divorced—and possibly remarried—at TED 2023

An offering from your emotional-reporter-at-large.

amandapalmer.substack.com

You can really see that 2010s school of word salad writing coming through. Jack Monroe, Laurie Penny haven't grown out of it either.

 

[TheStrawberryThief]

Over on Facebook Amanda has just posted it being her 48th birthday. She says she that as a gift she wants her fans to honour her work by becoming a patreon. She has has 18,000 now and she really really wants 20,000. You can sign up for free, or even for as little as 1 dollar....

So effectively she wants $2000 dollars extra income a month for her birthday.

Whilst I am resurrecting the thread, just thought I would mention something that I think of from time to time.

Amanda is not alone in doing this, but I feel that sometimes artists/writers will keep picking away at traumatic events in their life as fuel for art, instead of moving on and finding peace. It can produce brilliant material, but I don't know how good it is for someone to have to keep going on stage and rehashing their drama/personal struggles/trauma for material.

There will be healthy ways to do it, but I get the impression from her posts that she is regularly crying on stage over what she is singing or what someone has said and I just don't feel like that is a good way to live.

Regardless of all this, I am still hopeful for new Dresden Dolls music coming at some point. I want to hear a return to her old spirit, rather than the sad meandering over long songs she did on her last album