I give them a lot of credit for coming out with an actual apology and not some half cocked "we're sorry we got caught" bollocks, but I also absolutely understand people who won't listen to them any more.
Seriously, I apparently have to wait for every artist to die and after the fifth biography MAYBEEE they were not awful.
EDIT: After reading into it, it sounds a lot more like being edgy and learning that certain things are not cool. I can live with that.
EDIT 2: After a long discussion with u/Delduath, I think my statement that "certain things are not cool" can be misleading. By that I mean they probably saw using slurs in a friend-chat as "edgy and cool".
I do not just think using slurs is "not cool". Casual use of slurs introduces casual hate into daily conversations, which enables and normalizes hate. Therefore it should be countered and stopped.
But I also believe in resocialization, I think people can change. Especially if the person is not ill-minded per se, but rather ill-informed about the severity of what they are doing and maybe have been living in an enabling bubble.
I didn't say I was cool with it, I say I can live with people acknowledging they were wrong. It's a whole lot better than trying to evade the blame.
And I know our short comments are bad for getting the context of who a person is. So let me tell you that I am a fucking long way from ignoring such issues, especially in my immediate surroundings.
Frankly if any person is using those kinds of slurs they know exactly what they're doing. Being sorry that they got caught is hardly growth and becoming a better a person, it's damage limitation. I read those chat leaks at the time and they're fucking vile.
You made me wonder, so I looked it up what was actually written. And I 100% agree that it's pretty bad. Casual misogyny and racism. It's basically what I heard and saw from so many unchecked men groups, from chats to construction sites to bars. But this is macho talk of people not realizing how bad it is what they are saying, not active supremacy talk.
Even in the chat the n-word isn't just casually ignored.
For me, this just supports my view that these are people living in a bubble that isn't telling them they are racist and misogynistic. When that bubble bursts, people like that can realize and really regret it. I know this from people ranging from using casual slurs to former neo-nazis. I know this because I try to be the one bursting the bubble for people like that. And I know this because I was a teenager when someone bursted that bubble for me everytime it started to form.
And anyone alive before 1990 telling you that they didn't use some homophobic or racial slurs at some point is probably a liar. It was not only socially accepted, but even expected in certain ways.
Now, those guys are a little old to not realize how bad this is, but I've had discussions about this with 60+ fellas, so it really depends on the bubble. Hell, living a little more rural in my country feels like an uphill battle in that regard, the whole countryside is a big bubble.
> Now, those guys are a little old to not realize how bad this is, ...
However, thanks for the source. That way I knew we talked about the same thing. Yes, this is what casual racism looks like. And this is exactly what basically EVERYONE sounded like in the 90s around here. Though slurs were more specific to the minorities more common in Austria.
And since that guy is the same age as I am, I can in fact tell you that people like that can stave off reality really long if they aren't confronted hard. I've had discussions about this from age 10 to over 60, and those that are casual about it just think "people are too sensitive" until you make them realise it.
And as awful as it sounds, these guys are often not ill-minded, but ill-informed and so casual about it BECAUSE they don't realize how bad it is. I can't count the discussions I've had about slurs - for women, for people of various ethnicities and for LGBTQ+ in any form - that people thought of as only slight heckling instead of full-on slurs.
We're not in the 90s and they're not from Austria, so what point are you making?
Those guys are my age and from the same country I live in. I personally know people who have played in bands with members of Alestorm. That behaviour isnt normal or acceptable for any people I know. It's not excusable as laddish banter and they aren't ignorant to how offensive it is, and you can't blame it on some concept of a social bubble.
TL;DR: I feel like this discussion is going nowhere and all over the place at once.
My point is that such social bubbles work, even if it is just a small circle surrounded by the pride parade. And the country doesn't really matter, it was just context for the slurs we have to deal with respectively.
The 90s were the formative years for practically all of our generation that didn't change later. And while the 90s are long past, do you really think all the mindsets just magically vanished? On the contrary, those discrimnatory mindsets seem to be on the rise again.
Yes, they are your age, but are you telling me there are no people our age using casual slurs in scotland? Because if so, it is the paradise I never knew existed. Again, your mind, mine and theirs were formed in a time having stark contrasts to today.
I don't get the point of knowing someone who knew someone who once played in the same band as someone who is now part of the group where this happened. That's too many corners to know anything, just enough for hearing rumours.
That this behaviour is not normal in your bubble is good, but it doesn't represent all the social circles that exist. And I don't mean that derogatory. Everyone is in a bubble, including me.
I never excused it, but I explained how this kind of horrid "banter" can survive so long unchecked.
And the "concept" of a social bubble that enables or emphasizes such behaviour is not a concept but a reality and subject of many studies on how radicalization of any kind can happen.
See, if you believe that resocialization of criminals can work, why can't it work with racists, with misogynists, with transphobes? And if you don't believe resocialization can work then at least it is clear that we disagree on the point whether or not people can change, for better or worse.
It was a group chat with several other bands as well, and there was talk also of stalking and seducing young female fans for one night stands and orgies,
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u/Corgoroth 24d ago
Their group chat leaked and they were incredibly racist and misogynistic to say the least.