Yea I’m a fan of the Dresden Dolls, I live in New Zealand where she’s been since the beginning of the pandemic. I find her interesting but kinda nuts and very out of touch. She lives on Waiheke Island near Auckland (crowded, touristy, overpriced and only the very rich can afford to live there) but she makes out as it’s this humble, working class island community where everybody is one with the earth blah blah blah sunflower seeds - in reality the average house price on Waiheke Island is $3.5 million. Give up the struggling artist act Amanda lol
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I know one of her assistants (Alex, the one with glasses and dyed hair) in real life, he's an absolute twit
She has always struck me as an Overly Dramatic Theater Kid, shouting "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!!!" She has admitted in interviews that she craves attention.
I mean, c'mon, really? Give me a break.
I mean, c'mon, really? Give me a break.
Tiktok currently going off on Amanda Palmer for her overwrought cover of Surface Pressure from Encanto. A whole new audience said “who is this woman?” and have quickly figured out how problematic she is.
That cover of the Encanto song is woeful! its actually funny. How can someone who literally can not sing become a singer?
AFP just posted on Instagram that it's been the hardest few days of her life and she's moving/travelling. She seems to have quite a few days like this. I wonder what kind of attention-seeking will happen this time?
For better or worse I'm one of her patreons (at this point I just stick around in the lowest tier for the drama), this is her response about the Surface Pressure controversy and everything else that spilled out from it
I need your input. It's....one of those moments. (*Insert Every Single Circus Emoji*)
**I am, as stated above, reading all comments until this line is deleted**.
While I was working through some stuff in my personal life that had absolutely nothing to do with my art, my career, the internet, or anything public-facing, a classic kerfuffle (as we call it around here) blew my way.
Last week, a discussion about Amanda Palmer blew up on Tiktok: first because people didn't like my rendition of "Surface Pressure", then because the cover itself was deemed an appropriation, and within a few days, the conversation had turned to why I was just generally a terrible person (and a racist, and a transphobe, and an ableist, and an antisemite, and a person who doesn't pay her staff, and the list goes on and on, and is a very familiar list at this point).
One thing I truly love about the low-walled garden of the patreon is this: in these odd moments, I can always come here directly, to you, to talk more quietly, away from the loud arena of social media.
And I also realized something over this past week: I've become much more adept than I used to be at handling the collision of personal/family problems and public-facing/internet problems.
If you read "The Art of Asking", you may remember that around 2012 was one of the hardest stretched of my life and career: it was Kickstarter/Crowdfunding kerfuffle year...but it was also Anthony's cancer and chemo. I'll never be able to untangle those two things, the same way I'll never be able to untangle Anthony's death - and the grief I was dealing with - from Ash's birth. They'll always live together as a pair of beautiful, morbid, bittersweet twins.
In 2012, I wound up fighting two fronts at the same time, the very public, and the very personal.
I remember days when I was sitting with Anthony - my very best friend - in the hospital, watching the chemo drip into his body, and meanwhile my phone was buzzing with the alarm of another 1,000 people on twitter telling me that i was a piece of tit who should just kill myself.
I would walk with Anthony from the hospital parking lot to the house and have to step away because my manager was calling, because someone had hacked into my facebook and was posting violent porn.
I would be sitting with Anthony during his bone marrow transplant, in a sterile room, and I would have to be holding, at the same time, the image of a tweet with a thousand likes about how I was a transphobic anti-semite who should be cancelled.
Things happen at the same time, sometimes. Maybe: all the time?
Anyone dealing with a kerfuffle on the internet, or an abortion off the internet, or a cancelation from a friend or family member, or the dirty secret of a partner who has an addiction and is hitting rock bottom in the basement while you try to explain to the family why they haven't shown up for dinner....basically anybody who's ever dealt with LIFE knows that you are never afforded the luxury of having spacious time to grieve, endless time to deal, scads time to stop everything you're doing and tend to a crisis. You juggle. You try. You attempt to keep pace with the world while still keeping pace with yourself.
And good lord, I know how "internet -> real life" bleed works, I've been dealing with it since 2007. Sometimes a pile-on (or kerfuffle, or whatever you wanna call it) will happen on the internet, but you can ignore it. And sometimes, you know it's more serious when you walk into a party, or a cafe, or start getting sympathetic text messages from your friends "because I am seeing what is happening online". That is happening right now, in my life.
I've now been through a dozen of these moments, perhaps more, in the span of my career. I always learn something, I always come out a little more battered but a little more insightful, and I always take a step back and try to figure out myself, my community, the world, my actions, my artwork and my voice.
I've been making art and being a public figure on the internet for SO LONG and been through SO MANY SHITSTORMS that I really am able to be somewhat dispassionate at this point, and a little bit clinical. Not that these things aren't important. But they don't feel like The End of the World anymore. Ten years ago, they did.
I find myself able to look at things like a professor: What happened? Why? More importantly: Why Now? What are people going through that this is the moment they need to say these things to me, and to each other? Especially if these are things being dredged up from the past that have already been addressed: What do I represent to people? How much of it is "me" (do I still have things to learn, to say, to apologize for, to be accountable for?) and how much of it is "them" (can these people not google the blogs I already wrote about this tit?)
I was having such a hard personal week that I simply walked away from TikTok. I couldn't read the abuse, it was too much to look at. It's pretty horrendous stuff to see about yourself.
But also: I cannot walk away. I always want to be real, accountable. Open. Learning.
I've done some dumb things in my career, for sure, and I've spoken and written at length about those things....and still, the level of abuse that's currently getting leveled at me is pretty seismic.
And YET....also.....I've built up a pretty thick skin over the years. I worry about how thick, sometimes. I don't want to become bitter, or hard.
It's only in moments like this that I get to test the new hardness and thickness, to see what penetrates and gets to my heart and what just bounces off as a broken arrow.
I don't ever want to get so hard that I cannot be bent, that I cannot learn, and join with others in an actual conversation. I never want to live in a bleeping echo chamber. That feels like death.
But even the scale of things doesn't matter to me as much as it used to. And I don't know whether that's good or bad, sometimes.
As of a few days ago, my little 15-second "Surface Pressure" clip has now been viewed over 3 million times on TikTok.....but the more than 30,000 comments (THIRTY. THOUSAND.) on that post and my subsequent posts are along the lines of: "hey bestie whats ur favorite slur" and "U R a racist" and so forth. Endlessly. It's....a lot.
It's not a dialogue about whether the "art" is good or bad anymore; it is not even a dialogue.
It's all stemming from the many moments in my past - all of which have been addressed and blogged about at one point or another, SOMEWHERE on the internet - that keep resurfacing without context.
Most centrally (and probably missing from these many little internet spaces) is the post I wrote over a year ago about the lyrics in "Guitar hero" and "duck tha Police" by NWA (a song I covered on ukulele many years ago)...and about why I have, in the case of "Guitar Hero" changed those lyrics, and, in the case of "duck Tha Police", why I would never cover a song like that again: https://blog.amandapalmer.net/racism-words-art-time-progress/.
I could go on and on, and clarify the other 10 things that keep surfacing, but now...I step back, and I wonder. I big-picture wonder. And I wonder what you all might bring to the table, to this discussion.
I mean: if you know me, I've been here so, so, so many times.
I've always weathered this storm. I will easily weather this one.
I wanted to address one issue very directly, and ask about it, after seeing this on the patron FB page..a place I rarely hang, and a place I hope we can sort of import gradually over to the discord when the time is finally ripe (I know I keep promising, but then life keeps biting me in the ass.....but soon).
First of all, I want you to know that I'm really listening here.
HERE, for the time being. I cannot go, at the moment, to TikTok and listen. It is too harsh, and too loud to hear anything.
It honestly never occurred to me that covering "Surface Pressure", or any other song from "Encanto", would be considered in poor taste, or appropriation. The patron who requested it, Kya Farquhar, is half filipino. We never discussed this aspect of the cover when it was requested; and I didn't see a hundred patrons (or even one?) on the webcast that day saying "NO!!! AMANDA!!! NOOOOOO! That's a BAD IDEA!"
But no matter: this is still my responsibility. And just because I, or Kya (or any of the patrons on that webcast when it was requested) didn't "catch" this or necessarily think that the song was or wasn't appropriation, well....that doesn't mean that it isn't. Like many things, it's in the eye - or ear - of the receiver. So it's really more about how the song is affecting people. It's about that. It's not about "what I meant". So I would like to come to YOU. And ask. I ask YOU, my patrons, especially my patrons of color, and super-especially if you're Latinx, maybe even from Colombia: and ask.
Does it feel wrong? Does it not sit well? Please talk to me. Clearly some voices are already speaking. I want to know why, and I want to listen.
And as for me "not addressing" the criticism: let me reassure you about that. I stopped looking at TikTok the minute the comments became 99% abusive and I just couldn't handle the fire. That is, in my humble opinion, always the wisest option for one's mental health when something like this is happening. But it also means I stepped out of the civil side of the conversation as well. I want to have it, and I am going to have it, but not while the tenor over there is so hot that I cannot hear other speak, or be heard. Trying to have nuanced conversations on TikTok while everybody is screaming is the equivalent of trying to hold a conversation in a bar while a brawl is happening. You just have to leave the bar.
Trust me: all of this will be addressed. But in a kind, slow, civil manner. I am also going through my own big, personal problems at the moment. So I beg you, Bernadette (and anyone else who's wondering), I'm mostly staying off social media and away from there, not because I can't engage with the content, but because I need to be with my kid. Trust me, believe me. Priorities.
I wonder, though, with these issues.....if things might also be a little more profound, because unlike 2012, I have my patrons to come to. To ask for feedback, for help, for impressions, ideas.
This is where you come in.
I know that many of you aren't on TikTok but some of you may be. It's mostly a platform for a younger generation, and I know that my patrons tend to skew older (especially because there's a paywall), but I know we have at least ONE patron here under 40 (I'm looking at you, Rae...wait! and Angel). But many of you are parents, and might have teenagers that use TikTok, and may have impressions and so on that you could share.
SO: here is what i would ask, and, as usual, I'll read all the comments here (I'm staying off TikTok and other areas of social media right now for my mental health):
What do you think the best way to address this is, right now?
If you've come across this, what would you want to ask me?
What would you want to know, to discuss? To learn about me?
If you were me, and you saw that there were a lot of new people coming my way - with no context about who I am, what I've done, and what's already been discussed - how would you navigate this?
What I am seeing right now is that there are plenty of places on the internet that have compiled lists of reasons Why You Should Hate Amanda Palmer, but I've never actually compiled a list of central resource that addresses each of the issues.
Is it perhaps time to do that? If I did that, would you help me?
Is it time to write one big essay called "Amanda Palmer clarifies all her kerfuffles, for the TikTok generation and anyone else who is interested"?
Is it time to just get off the internet for a couple months? (it seems very tempting).
What is hardest is this: a text message from a random friend on the island saying "hey, someone was talking at a dinner party last night about how sad it is that you're transphobic."
this is gossip, and it pains me.
it especially pains me when i think about my community. my fans, my patrons who are trans. what do they feel when they hear that? do they question whether or not i love them? do they second-guess everything i've ever said about inclusivity and wonder if i'm secretly a TERF?
the same holds try for the racist stuff and my community who or BiPOC. is it just too scary to hang around me? is it too messy? even if my community know that i've done all sort of things to explain why i've made mistakes, multiple mistakes, that covering an NWA song was a dumb idea, and so forth....i wonder if it makes people of color in my community just look at me, and the charges leveled at me, and say "it's just not worth it. she's too hard to be with."
for the record: i think trans people are beautiful. i support trans rights. i believe that trans rights are human bleeping rights and watching what is currently happening in the states with regards to trans rights is horrifying. i think that racism is a huge bleeping problem - in america and the world over - and i think that privileged white people like me still have a duck ton of things to learn and active work to do to understand what moves we need to make to support progress and create justice. i try to do this work. i'm always trying to figure out how my words, my art, my contribution, can add to progress and cause less suffering. for everybody.
PHEW.
I know that was a lot.
But... it's been a lot.
Talk to me.
**I am, as stated above, reading all comments until this line is deleted**.
While I was working through some stuff in my personal life that had absolutely nothing to do with my art, my career, the internet, or anything public-facing, a classic kerfuffle (as we call it around here) blew my way.
Last week, a discussion about Amanda Palmer blew up on Tiktok: first because people didn't like my rendition of "Surface Pressure", then because the cover itself was deemed an appropriation, and within a few days, the conversation had turned to why I was just generally a terrible person (and a racist, and a transphobe, and an ableist, and an antisemite, and a person who doesn't pay her staff, and the list goes on and on, and is a very familiar list at this point).
One thing I truly love about the low-walled garden of the patreon is this: in these odd moments, I can always come here directly, to you, to talk more quietly, away from the loud arena of social media.
And I also realized something over this past week: I've become much more adept than I used to be at handling the collision of personal/family problems and public-facing/internet problems.
If you read "The Art of Asking", you may remember that around 2012 was one of the hardest stretched of my life and career: it was Kickstarter/Crowdfunding kerfuffle year...but it was also Anthony's cancer and chemo. I'll never be able to untangle those two things, the same way I'll never be able to untangle Anthony's death - and the grief I was dealing with - from Ash's birth. They'll always live together as a pair of beautiful, morbid, bittersweet twins.
In 2012, I wound up fighting two fronts at the same time, the very public, and the very personal.
I remember days when I was sitting with Anthony - my very best friend - in the hospital, watching the chemo drip into his body, and meanwhile my phone was buzzing with the alarm of another 1,000 people on twitter telling me that i was a piece of tit who should just kill myself.
I would walk with Anthony from the hospital parking lot to the house and have to step away because my manager was calling, because someone had hacked into my facebook and was posting violent porn.
I would be sitting with Anthony during his bone marrow transplant, in a sterile room, and I would have to be holding, at the same time, the image of a tweet with a thousand likes about how I was a transphobic anti-semite who should be cancelled.
Things happen at the same time, sometimes. Maybe: all the time?
Anyone dealing with a kerfuffle on the internet, or an abortion off the internet, or a cancelation from a friend or family member, or the dirty secret of a partner who has an addiction and is hitting rock bottom in the basement while you try to explain to the family why they haven't shown up for dinner....basically anybody who's ever dealt with LIFE knows that you are never afforded the luxury of having spacious time to grieve, endless time to deal, scads time to stop everything you're doing and tend to a crisis. You juggle. You try. You attempt to keep pace with the world while still keeping pace with yourself.
And good lord, I know how "internet -> real life" bleed works, I've been dealing with it since 2007. Sometimes a pile-on (or kerfuffle, or whatever you wanna call it) will happen on the internet, but you can ignore it. And sometimes, you know it's more serious when you walk into a party, or a cafe, or start getting sympathetic text messages from your friends "because I am seeing what is happening online". That is happening right now, in my life.
I've now been through a dozen of these moments, perhaps more, in the span of my career. I always learn something, I always come out a little more battered but a little more insightful, and I always take a step back and try to figure out myself, my community, the world, my actions, my artwork and my voice.
I've been making art and being a public figure on the internet for SO LONG and been through SO MANY SHITSTORMS that I really am able to be somewhat dispassionate at this point, and a little bit clinical. Not that these things aren't important. But they don't feel like The End of the World anymore. Ten years ago, they did.
I find myself able to look at things like a professor: What happened? Why? More importantly: Why Now? What are people going through that this is the moment they need to say these things to me, and to each other? Especially if these are things being dredged up from the past that have already been addressed: What do I represent to people? How much of it is "me" (do I still have things to learn, to say, to apologize for, to be accountable for?) and how much of it is "them" (can these people not google the blogs I already wrote about this tit?)
I was having such a hard personal week that I simply walked away from TikTok. I couldn't read the abuse, it was too much to look at. It's pretty horrendous stuff to see about yourself.
But also: I cannot walk away. I always want to be real, accountable. Open. Learning.
I've done some dumb things in my career, for sure, and I've spoken and written at length about those things....and still, the level of abuse that's currently getting leveled at me is pretty seismic.
And YET....also.....I've built up a pretty thick skin over the years. I worry about how thick, sometimes. I don't want to become bitter, or hard.
It's only in moments like this that I get to test the new hardness and thickness, to see what penetrates and gets to my heart and what just bounces off as a broken arrow.
I don't ever want to get so hard that I cannot be bent, that I cannot learn, and join with others in an actual conversation. I never want to live in a bleeping echo chamber. That feels like death.
But even the scale of things doesn't matter to me as much as it used to. And I don't know whether that's good or bad, sometimes.
As of a few days ago, my little 15-second "Surface Pressure" clip has now been viewed over 3 million times on TikTok.....but the more than 30,000 comments (THIRTY. THOUSAND.) on that post and my subsequent posts are along the lines of: "hey bestie whats ur favorite slur" and "U R a racist" and so forth. Endlessly. It's....a lot.
It's not a dialogue about whether the "art" is good or bad anymore; it is not even a dialogue.
It's all stemming from the many moments in my past - all of which have been addressed and blogged about at one point or another, SOMEWHERE on the internet - that keep resurfacing without context.
Most centrally (and probably missing from these many little internet spaces) is the post I wrote over a year ago about the lyrics in "Guitar hero" and "duck tha Police" by NWA (a song I covered on ukulele many years ago)...and about why I have, in the case of "Guitar Hero" changed those lyrics, and, in the case of "duck Tha Police", why I would never cover a song like that again: https://blog.amandapalmer.net/racism-words-art-time-progress/.
I could go on and on, and clarify the other 10 things that keep surfacing, but now...I step back, and I wonder. I big-picture wonder. And I wonder what you all might bring to the table, to this discussion.
I mean: if you know me, I've been here so, so, so many times.
I've always weathered this storm. I will easily weather this one.
I wanted to address one issue very directly, and ask about it, after seeing this on the patron FB page..a place I rarely hang, and a place I hope we can sort of import gradually over to the discord when the time is finally ripe (I know I keep promising, but then life keeps biting me in the ass.....but soon).
First of all, I want you to know that I'm really listening here.
HERE, for the time being. I cannot go, at the moment, to TikTok and listen. It is too harsh, and too loud to hear anything.
It honestly never occurred to me that covering "Surface Pressure", or any other song from "Encanto", would be considered in poor taste, or appropriation. The patron who requested it, Kya Farquhar, is half filipino. We never discussed this aspect of the cover when it was requested; and I didn't see a hundred patrons (or even one?) on the webcast that day saying "NO!!! AMANDA!!! NOOOOOO! That's a BAD IDEA!"
But no matter: this is still my responsibility. And just because I, or Kya (or any of the patrons on that webcast when it was requested) didn't "catch" this or necessarily think that the song was or wasn't appropriation, well....that doesn't mean that it isn't. Like many things, it's in the eye - or ear - of the receiver. So it's really more about how the song is affecting people. It's about that. It's not about "what I meant". So I would like to come to YOU. And ask. I ask YOU, my patrons, especially my patrons of color, and super-especially if you're Latinx, maybe even from Colombia: and ask.
Does it feel wrong? Does it not sit well? Please talk to me. Clearly some voices are already speaking. I want to know why, and I want to listen.
And as for me "not addressing" the criticism: let me reassure you about that. I stopped looking at TikTok the minute the comments became 99% abusive and I just couldn't handle the fire. That is, in my humble opinion, always the wisest option for one's mental health when something like this is happening. But it also means I stepped out of the civil side of the conversation as well. I want to have it, and I am going to have it, but not while the tenor over there is so hot that I cannot hear other speak, or be heard. Trying to have nuanced conversations on TikTok while everybody is screaming is the equivalent of trying to hold a conversation in a bar while a brawl is happening. You just have to leave the bar.
Trust me: all of this will be addressed. But in a kind, slow, civil manner. I am also going through my own big, personal problems at the moment. So I beg you, Bernadette (and anyone else who's wondering), I'm mostly staying off social media and away from there, not because I can't engage with the content, but because I need to be with my kid. Trust me, believe me. Priorities.
I wonder, though, with these issues.....if things might also be a little more profound, because unlike 2012, I have my patrons to come to. To ask for feedback, for help, for impressions, ideas.
This is where you come in.
I know that many of you aren't on TikTok but some of you may be. It's mostly a platform for a younger generation, and I know that my patrons tend to skew older (especially because there's a paywall), but I know we have at least ONE patron here under 40 (I'm looking at you, Rae...wait! and Angel). But many of you are parents, and might have teenagers that use TikTok, and may have impressions and so on that you could share.
SO: here is what i would ask, and, as usual, I'll read all the comments here (I'm staying off TikTok and other areas of social media right now for my mental health):
What do you think the best way to address this is, right now?
If you've come across this, what would you want to ask me?
What would you want to know, to discuss? To learn about me?
If you were me, and you saw that there were a lot of new people coming my way - with no context about who I am, what I've done, and what's already been discussed - how would you navigate this?
What I am seeing right now is that there are plenty of places on the internet that have compiled lists of reasons Why You Should Hate Amanda Palmer, but I've never actually compiled a list of central resource that addresses each of the issues.
Is it perhaps time to do that? If I did that, would you help me?
Is it time to write one big essay called "Amanda Palmer clarifies all her kerfuffles, for the TikTok generation and anyone else who is interested"?
Is it time to just get off the internet for a couple months? (it seems very tempting).
What is hardest is this: a text message from a random friend on the island saying "hey, someone was talking at a dinner party last night about how sad it is that you're transphobic."
this is gossip, and it pains me.
it especially pains me when i think about my community. my fans, my patrons who are trans. what do they feel when they hear that? do they question whether or not i love them? do they second-guess everything i've ever said about inclusivity and wonder if i'm secretly a TERF?
the same holds try for the racist stuff and my community who or BiPOC. is it just too scary to hang around me? is it too messy? even if my community know that i've done all sort of things to explain why i've made mistakes, multiple mistakes, that covering an NWA song was a dumb idea, and so forth....i wonder if it makes people of color in my community just look at me, and the charges leveled at me, and say "it's just not worth it. she's too hard to be with."
for the record: i think trans people are beautiful. i support trans rights. i believe that trans rights are human bleeping rights and watching what is currently happening in the states with regards to trans rights is horrifying. i think that racism is a huge bleeping problem - in america and the world over - and i think that privileged white people like me still have a duck ton of things to learn and active work to do to understand what moves we need to make to support progress and create justice. i try to do this work. i'm always trying to figure out how my words, my art, my contribution, can add to progress and cause less suffering. for everybody.
PHEW.
I know that was a lot.
But... it's been a lot.
Talk to me.
Amanda Palmer makes me hate the word 'art.'
Why not leave TikTok to the kids? You don't have to be on every platform, does she understand this?
She needs to have some time off. Maybe 20 or 30 years.
And were there any responses from her patreons? Beyond, of course, "ur so great" and "ignore the h8rs". She wonders, "What, me? A racist? How can I be racist if I have a fan who is half-Filipino?" SMDH. The white liberal privilege is strong with this one.
Honestly the responses are thousands of words long, there's over 200 comments so I can't read them all. Most seem to be along the lines of supporting her - a few copy and pastes of the more upvoted comments are here:
Hi Amanda, gender queer POC here (specifically a British Eurasian with a mix of Indian, Burmese & European heritage). I’ve also been a patron for a long while, and I remember our last conversation on race in the community (how this is a white space, why that might be the default, if it’s a safe space for BIPOC). That was an interesting conversation, and it’s nice to see that collectively I think the whole community has learned a lot since then and is gradually increasing racial literacy (so many good folk with open ears and hearts here). Tik Tok seems a brutal place. I can’t answer as to the best way to respond, but I can speak to how you create spaces and interact with issues. You create very safe spaces for LGBTQ+ folk, in my opinion. Yours has been the only gig I’ve ever been to where you’ve talked to a venue about making all bathrooms gender neutral for the show (In Cardiff for TWBNI). That was lovely to see and experience. It was very affirming. I think your literacy on queer issues is high, and that you have a high percentage of queer fans which totally makes sense. I first stumbled upon you from a youtube video posted onto Twitter and what made me sit up and go down a rabbit hole of your music from there was how you showed up, from visible armpit hair, to just being loud and free. I am not trans, but I do still listen to sex changes. I’ve learned so much more about the specificities of trans experiences over the years, as I’m sure you have too. Maybe you wouldn’t write or release that song now. But it was pretty revolutionary at the time to hear anything about that topic at all. I listened to it A LOT at one particular point in my ‘confused’ journey when I was thinking about that topic a lot. But I think the more important thing is that you clearly think a lot about how to make your space safe and inclusive for queer and trans folk. You take actions against the status quo at venues. You employ queer and trans people (loved the series of long essays by Jack). There are a lot of vocal and nuanced conversations and proactive actions here. You don’t have to be here long, or look too hard to see the growth, the listening, and the positive actions. As someone else phrased it above, you have the receipts. You can definitely compile them in some way if it is a valuable and useful resource. With race, I think it’s a bit more complicated. I don’t see you as an overtly racist person. I think it’s clear trolling for people to be screaming that at you when they would be better off focusing their heat on overtly racist right-wing policy makers. However, we swim and grew up in the white-centred, white-biased world. Even people of colour have to spend a lot of time and effort to unlearn it, and it’s a constant practice. Do I think you’re a mean racist? Absolutely not. Do I think you could lean in more to this particular learning journey? Yes, I think so. And I think something has struck a chord with you here to make you curious about how you handled this particular project and what you can learn from it. I’m not a member of the Latinx community, so I can’t comment with authority about the cultural nuances of Encanto. I know that the song resonated with me as a third generation member of my immigrant family. But it also really resonated with me from the parenthood perspective too, and I really enjoyed your cover which brought that to the fore. I can’t especially see the issues with covering this song, but let’s think about this systemically. How much is it a part of your practice to think about cultural sensitivity? Could you do more to lean in to appreciation when you do go near material from other cultures? I think one of the biggest aspects to cultural appropriation is the question of who is getting paid – are people from that culture being consulted or included in the process? I know that in fiction writing it’s best practice to employ sensitivity readers to give feedback. Perhaps that’s something to think about? There must be people in the Diversity and Inclusion industry that would be happy to consult with your team on how to improve your systems here and make sure you don’t miss red flags, that you do due diligence, check for what you don’t know. Put it on a tick list as a question to ask for every project. I think that by the sounds of it, you could make some valuable changes. I haven’t seen as much evidence of learning about race issues as I would like to see as a member of your community. I remember that nuanced conversation we had two years ago. I remember one IG takeover with Melz from Black University, and the promise that you would do that sort of thing more often. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate but it would be nice to see a little more interaction with these issues. Racism is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) issue of our times. We are a left leaning community who loves to learn. Can we learn more about this together please? I’d love to see more of those conversations here. What antiracist reading or learning are you doing at the moment? What’s coming up for you, what are you thinking about? I personally love Layla Saad’s book Me and White Supremacy. The journaling prompts that go with the book are phenomenal and it really helped me see my own internal racism and reflect deeply on harms I have unknowingly perpetuated in the past. I’d be interested in hearing more about the specificities in Aotearoa. I’d be interested in hearing more about or being pointed to more indigenous musicians, writers etc that you are learning about or interacting with. One last thing to end my very long comment. I’ve written to you before about the ongoing Coup, war and humanitarian crisis happening in Myanmar. I remember you writing back to me, and it means a lot to me and to all people in Myanmar each time another person in the world knows a bit more about what is going on. On your recent post about the war in Ukraine I wrote a long response about how it feels for the whole world to be raising money for refugees in Ukraine while ignoring how people are suffering in identical or worse situations in non-white countries. The white-centred, racially biased media are a lot to blame for this. I had several really lovely replies to what I wrote. I hope that more people get curious about their behaviour around Ukraine and how it differs from other conflicts. Why this one and not that one? Why is it that everyone I know is desperate to provide every resource they can spare for Ukrainian refugees, but doesn’t have the time of day to sign a petition to their governments to sanction the junta in Myanmar? I got asked when I bought a burrito yesterday if I wanted to add a £1 donation to Ukraine. It honestly baffles me the level of solidarity and performative action happening for Ukraine while several other conflicts and crises are ignored. It would make a world of difference to Burmese people just to get more awareness of what they are going through, and the creativity and resilience they are showing in the face of their troubles. Financial donations make an even bigger difference, because they are over a year into a disastrous coup which is performing a scorched earth policy. Internally displaced people in Myanmar are starving or dying for lack of basic medicines as their fight for democracy gets completely ignored by the world. This is white bias in action. This is unintentional harm and pain caused by systemic white-centering. To close up my comment – I don’t think you’ve committed a massive faux-pas here. As someone else said, this may not have come up at all if the video wasn’t posted to Tik Tok specifically. But if this is a learning moment, a growth moment, I would really welcome that. Every single time any person (but particularly a white person) becomes more committed to learning about racism and untangling their own relationships with it more deeply, the world becomes a better place. And that’s something this community has always really cared about. It’s why we love it so much and we continue to stay here/come back.
I'm an indigenous woman of colour. A middle sister. A granddaughter of a woman who had to flee her village with her young children (one of them my mother) when it was overrun by murderous armed forces, and my mother was raised in a cave for years before they were able to return. I bear obvious similarities to the character of Luisa. And yet I don't think I hold any more ownership over the song than anyone else does, except for maybe Lin-Manuel Miranda. I think the cultural appropriation criticism is disingenuous. There are several other covers of this exact song, plus others from Encanto, on TikTok and I haven't seen any of them accused of cultural appropriation. The song was specifically written to be universally relatable, so I believe it can be universally covered. Thank you for creating this cover version, Amanda. I truly love it. And I love you so much. xoxo
Honestly, reading these comments, I'm really uncomfortable. People questioning whether cultural appropriation is real, people complaining about "cancel culture", people who were not impacted saying that you did nothing wrong... Cultural appropriation is real. Cancel culture isn't. There's this narrative that The Public decides who to 'cancel' and that person is immediately ostracized from society, but that's not the case. Donald Trump still has a following of millions. Heck, people still listen to Chris Brown. Marilyn Manson has tons of fans despite all of the women he abused. What's different now compared to before is that it's so easy to look someone up online and learn about their past actions. Just because a lot of people criticize someone's actions doesn't mean that they're shipped off to a deserted island and forgotten forever. It's much easier now to hold people accountable and tell them "that's not ok". I'm also seeing a few people here talking about "echo chambers" on TikTok. Echo chambers aren't great, but that's honestly what you have here. I know you want to do right by your patrons, but this is a community who has opted into your message. They're obviously going to be more willing to tell you that you're doing nothing wrong. If you want to know how you can do better, look outside of your fans. You have a self- selected group here and they're never going to be impartial. Doing the work means listening to people who aren't our fans. People who don't agree with us, maybe even people who hate us. Sometimes those people are great educators. I think it would be a good idea to put all of the previous kerfuffles into a blog in one place and make sure that for each one you have all of the elements of an apology: 1. Expression of regret 2. Explanation of what went wrong 3. Acknowledgement of responsibility 4. Declaration of repentance 5. Offer of repair 6. Request for forgiveness And accept that impact matters, intent doesn't. Some people will not be able to ever support you because of the mistakes you've made in the past. And that's ok. That's their boundary to put in place. There's nothing wrong with that.
I understand the bandwidth issue. Life is hard in general. I know you've been going through some tit (tm). And having to be accountable makes it really bleeping hard. Its scary to have to admit you were wrong and have hurt people, whether or not it is intentional. But when you do it, do it fully and wholeheartedly. Leave no doubt. In terms of where you fucked up, I meant in general. Not so much this cover (I can't speak to that, as a white person). But your past. Evelyn Evelyn comes to mind, as it is kind of an insensitive thing - and the time you laughed about disabled feminists coming at you for it. Ableism is very real, and we are seeing it live (ex. "oh, it's just disabled people dying from Covid, who cares!"). Using the n-word, which you covered (but it's behind a paywall). The bad blood between you and former employees. tit like that. There are small apologies scattered across time and space on the net. You really have to look for them, which shouldn't be a thing. The onus is on you to clearly address and apologize for it. That's also why I'd be interested in you talking to higher-profile types from tiktok or other platforms that hate you so you could hash it out and learn. It won't be fun or easy, but it might go a long way in building good will and healing the past for a better future. As I said earlier, you are part of my DNA. I used to shave off my brows and draw them on like you. I occasionally get told I look like you (I don't generally see it, but it's flattering nonetheless). Hell, I am in one of your music videos! My past and your art are definitely linked. You also gave me the courage to want to pursue performing/singing, so you're also linked to my future too. I'd rather be proud of that than have to give caveats of "well I know she's kinda crappy but...." I have had to have hard talks with friends over difficult subjects like this. I've been in your shoes as well. I just want to be as honest as possible with you because I feel like you deserve the truth.
First off, I love you. I know that you've already addressed everything in the past, but you've got an entire generation of kids who would benefit so much from your art if they gave it a chance. I think you should make a response video to explain - once again. It is worth it to reach Gen Z. It's one of the worst things, to be misrepresented and to be called all the things you literally very actively work against... The laughing response and sending love isn't being received well, although I do understand why. In the real world - it's the best response. Show love. Show unconditional love. In tiktok land and to this next generation though, it comes off like you're blowing off their concerns. All they know is what they've been presented... and it's been manipulated to make you look like such a terrible person and the antithesis of who you actually are, who we love. Please consider it.
Her fans are as exhausting as she is!
They are definitely A LOT. Thanks for doing this--very interesting to read, and I thought a couple of commenters had some great points.
duck, that’s some very lengthy word-vomit right there!
“ I could go on and on…” Cue another 4000 words
Bless you for sharing this, it looks like the drama is worth the low tier Patreon.
I’m only halfway through reading it, but so far I get the impression that she has the same problem as so many influencers and bloggers that we talk about on Tattle. She takes the internet way to seriously.
Yeah, I've been a fan since 2006 and used to be on a much higher Patreon tier - I do like her music but she's truly insufferable. Since 2017 I've been on the £1 a month basic patreon just to see what drama she gets into next, I don't think she's put out a good song since then (she's been adamant that her most recent album, There Will Be No Intermission, is her greatest work, but in my opinion it's bloody awful)
She takes everything too seriously. One of those people who absolutely adores the sound of her own voice.
She made a comment to someone via one of her Instagram posts that she's got tickets to return to America in June. Bracing myself for the many, many posts about how she's so glad to be home and oh, how her country has changed, etc. I feel very sorry for her poor son, who seems to have settled in New Zealand and made friends, to be ripped away from it all.
Hahahahaha