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 shit 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 shit?)
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 fucking 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 "Fuck 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 "Fuck 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).
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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 fucking rights and watching what is currently happening in the states with regards to trans rights is horrifying. i think that racism is a huge fucking problem - in america and the world over - and i think that privileged white people like me still have a fuck 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.
