Controversy

FaceBook Drama

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

​I don’t blame social media for causing so many rifts between friends, or exposing the nastiness that exists between people bickering about issues big and small. Social media isn’t the problem, we as people are the problem. Social media simply exposed the nastier side of the human ego that’s been there from the beginning. 

I’ve lost friends due to arguing about politics, human rights (“social justice”), and even trivial stuff like 90s nostalgia on Facebook. In the past, I’ve been guilty of deleting comments or deleting friends for whenever they’ve pissed me off. 

Now, I don’t want to delete people unless I feel there’s no other option. I now know not everyone will follow the predetermined rules that I set on my posts, and it was wrong of me to censor people by deleting their comments. 

But at the same time, it’s just as wrong to tell people to “stay off the internet” or to harass someone into silence because you disagree with them about something. People complain about a lack of civility online these days, when in truth that civility was never there to begin with (but was always needed). I wish people could find the balance between civil discourse and when to turn the other cheek, but everyone only cares about their own personal biases.  

I’m done with trying to bring a horse to water, not being able to make it drink, and then not being able to ride the horse back because it died of dehydration. If people feel the need to say or post rediculous things on my posts, then I’m just going to ignore them from here on out rather than endlessly argue with them. 

-This subjectively general (yet some how specific) rant has been brought to you by Kevin’s brain and a lack of patience for FaceBook drama-.

-KCard

Game of Thrones 5.6 “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warning and disclaimer: additional trigger warning also has a spoiler inside of it. I take no responsibility for spoiled plot points if you read beyond this point. I will be getting preachy in this review as well about the ending of the episode.*
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Trigger warning: discussions of rape and sexual violence.

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Content warning: swearing

Sorry aboot the seriousness of my warnings up there, I have a bad habit of committing a cardinal sin of social media: I have posted Walking Dead and Game of Thrones spoilers on Facebook. Some of my childhood friends still hold it over my head. I understand they’re angry, but it comes with the territory of me being an entertainment writer.

I enjoyed seeing how most of the events of this episode unfolded. Namely it was nice to see Theon recover his sanity a small bit and for Sansa to finally stand up for herself in that (not too) fanservicey bath scene. I enjoyed seeing the Boltons plot against Stannis, and it was interesting to see how Cersei’s continuing to spin her web of power by getting Ser Loras and Margarey imprisoned. It was funny how quickly the “rescue/kidnapping” subplot in Dorne got resolved (thus paving way to a much greater rebellion subplot). Lastly, I enjoyed seeing Tyrion and Jorrah outsmart their captive slavers (for now).

I didn’t like seeing Loras and Margarey get imprisoned, I hated knowing that Sansa is in grave danger, and I really hated that last scene in the bedroom and here’s why:

I knew bad things would be happening to Sansa because of Ramsay, but I didn’t expect Ramsay to rape Sansa right in front of Theon like that at the end of the episode. I respect the simplistic nature of how evil Ramsay really is, but I heavily despise his character for these stunts that he pulls. At this point even The Joker would take one look at what Ramsay did and say “Damn, that’s fucked up”. The only villain more evil than Ramsay that I’ve encountered is the comic book version of The Governor from The Walking Dead (though they might be equal at this point).

Feminist media is ready to boycott the TV version of Game of Thrones over this mess, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to watch it. I can’t believe that there are people who said that Sansa “deserved it due to her own stupidity”. The only stupidity I see here are the people (mostly men) who constantly support the victim blaming portion of rape culture. This might have been in character for Ramsay and historically accurate of the time period, but it was still in poor taste. I don’t know where things will go from here, but I bet you all the gold that’s owed to the Iron Bank that Jon Snow would go off the deep end about what Ramsay did.

I’m going to keep watching GOT until the series ends, but I’ve pretty much left my hopes of any happy plot resolutions happening behind at the door. This show doesn’t fuck around, even though many of the GOT characters do. And with that, I will post a song made by Iwan Rheon (Ramsay) to erase the bad images left in my head from this episode:

I just found out today Rheon (which ironically rhymes with Theon) is actually a pretty damn good singer song writer. I hate Ramsay, but I still know to separate my emotions on the character from the actor.

-KCard

 

Reaction to “Only” by Nicki Minaj

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Trigger warning: foul language, sexual themes, Nazi imagery*

*Less serious trigger warning: awful music*

So I watched the music video for “Only”, and I’m not highly offended by the Nazi imagery or the fact that Nicki Minaj cited Metalocalypse as an inspiration for the video. What annoys me more is how how stale the beat of the song is, and how vulgar the lyrics are. I’m surprised because I thought most of these rappers did club songs, not stuff this slow and stale. The lyrics in the music video are insanely bland and more screwed up than the video they appear in. I want to say that this is happening because the parties involved only care about money, but I can’t back that claim up. What I can back up is that this song is just an ink blotch on an otherwise strong year for music. It’s just sad that shock value is what sells now.

Here’s the video, which relates to the trigger warnings above.

Please keep in mind I will not approve of any racist or otherwise hateful comments about the musicians in this song, it’s important to separate the person from the art work. All trash talking and/or defending should be purely about the video and the song. Thank you.

-Tatteybye

RE: F-Bombs for Feminism

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Warning: Discussions of Feminism and foul language*

I took the three minutes out of my life to watch the F-Bombs for Feminism video, and I get where the makers of the video were coming from. I support what the messages the video talks about. It’s taking a bat to a misogynistic bees nest and stopped sugar coating what Feminism is fighting for, and why so many women feel righteous fury (being judged on their appearance, the wage gap, and rape culture). Also, the swearing doesn’t really affect me as I’ve seen so many worse things on the internet (just drop a line to 4chan.org to see jokes about rape, 9/11, and the holocaust to see what I mean). I do feel though that the product placement of the T-shirts and the subliminal advertising were unethical (mentioned previously on my re-blog) since I don’t see equality as something that’s great to make money on. So my understanding has increased, but my opinion remains unchanged. If you disagree then I won’t argue with you over that, but please don’t judge me for making choices and having opposing viewpoints from yours.

And in case anyone else hasn’t watched the video yet, here it is:

-Tatteybye

Stop Blaming the Victim!

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Trigger warning for discussions of Feminism, rape, pornography, and victim blaming*

So nude celebrity photos were leaked to the internet and Cee Lo Green made comments about date rape before deleting his Twitter? Well then, September is already off to an incredibly screwy start.

For those who haven’t guessed by now, I’m a Liberal Feminist from Massachusetts who is easily pissed off by ignorant and hateful statements. Ignorance is in the eye of the beholder (much like beauty), so I’m not ranting about Conservatives here. What I am ranting about is how people always to pit blame on the victim in our culture. For example: “How much was she drinking that night before she passed out? Well, she shouldn’t have worn that dress!” Or what I’ve been reading lately, “Jennifer Lawrence should have known better than upload those photos to iCloud!”

The action of any crime is always the fault of the perpetrator, not the victim! Even if those ladies shouldn’t have taken and uploaded the photos to an online server, how could they have known that they would have been hacked? How is their fault they were hacked? It isn’t, and never was. People are just dodging the issue that what happened to these women is an immoral invasion of privacy and prime example of female objectification.

Just to clarify, I don’t oppose the porn industry or pornographic material. However, I do see how dehumanizing it is to know that once a private image of a person is out on the web it’s basically just fodder for lustful eyes who treat the image as either a trophy or a tissue. Regardless of whether or not those photos shouldn’t have been taken in the first place, it’s just stupid that this had to happen and that people blame the actresses.

Feel free to state your thoughts in the comment section in a civil manner, just keep in mind I won’t tolerate people starting flame wars on my blog.

-Tatteybye

 

Note to Self

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

Be sure to proofread to a higher quality from now on. Whenever I read some of my older posts, the spelling and grammar errors there make me cringe. At the same time, being a great writer and a good editor aren’t the same thing. Writers are like drivers, where editors are like mechanics. Accidents happen since we are all only human, but auto accidents are also much more fatal than spelling errors (duh). Since there are bigger problems in my life, I think will cut myself a little slack for my laziness on proofreading.

-Tatteybye

Why I’m Tired of Controversy Surrounding Musicians

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

Happy New Year everybody!

2013 never failed to be a miserable year that struck so many dissonant chords with so many people, that I’m surprised there wasn’t some sort of social uprising. We had Robin Thicke trolling women, the whole VMA fiasco, Phil Robertson comparing homosexuality to bestiality, and right at the last-minute we had Beyonce angering the families of the Challenger Tragedy.

Now, I don’t think Beyoncé is a horrible person. I think Beyoncé is a human being who happens to be a wonderful vocalist and a human being capable of making mistakes. Beyoncé may or may not apologize on this whole event, but it’s too early to say so. My problem is not that Beyoncé is a bad person, but the fact that the sampling on “XO” was done in poor taste and was really random (why would the Challenger disaster be relevant to a song in 2013??)

Overall, I’m just tired of musicians making mistakes, the media covering those mistakes to death, and the media (Liberal or Conservative) and said musician making a lot of money in the process as that is what the music industry has stooped too these days for profit in the age of uncreativity and music piracy. I doubt that Beyoncé did this as a publicity stunt, but people will be talking about this event for a while.

Again, I don’t think badly of Beyoncé or the people angered; I just wish peace of mind to the families of the Challenger disaster and a speedy resolution to this whole event that everyone can be happy with.

So let’s start 2014 on a positive high note, shall we?

-Tatteybye