Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Chet isn't the only faker. His feminist critics are too

Aussie performer Chet Faker's stage name is a play on the real name of the iconic tragic jazz great and is therefore meant to make him seem post-modernist and ironic and all. But frankly I think it's accurate in a WYSIWYG kinda way -- at least as it pertains to his political beliefs. He resembles so many sneering hipsters in the arts world these days in that he presents a right-on facade to stay in the good books with the meeja. To be fair, he doesn't really have that much of a choice, as a recent Twitter ruckus illustrates.

See, feminist journo Erin Riley, who spends most of her waking hours looking for things to be, er, lefteously indignant about, discovered that the private school "Chet" attended had produced an inordinate number of Triple J Hottest 1000 winners. This fun fact involved obvious white male privilege and gender disparity and was therefore gold for an SJW hoping to lift her profile. She must have been delighted when a twitstorm ensued after he fired back at her with tweets implying that he wasn't that privileged after all. She earned some free publicity for herself and got to play the victim, the twin goals of most feminist behaviour these days.

She also had a clear win before all her adoring frightbat fans because the eeevil white male backed down after his initial self-defence and offered the usual boilerplate BS about equality, etc. Seems pretty clear he was only saying it to put out the social media fire that resulted form his initial reaction.

Riley's response to the muso eating crow was interesting:

Ms Riley retweeted the apology on Wednesday morning.

She told Daily Mail Australia that his tweets were 'very gracious'.

'I was impressed by his willingness to admit his mistake. That being said, the torrent of abuse and vitriol that came from other people - which was clearly in no way his fault - at a simple fact was very concerning.'

Eh? So he's not to blame for the reaction of others. That's a direct contradiction of the usual PC line, which is to sheet home as much blame to influencers as possible. She might have to swot up on her tactics.

Also, was it really a "torrent of abuse and vitriol"? Maybe she got some snark in e-mails. But if you search her name and handle on Twitter there seems to be little if any of negative reaction to her. Try both kinds, and you'll see what I mean. Not saying that she didn't receive any at all. But her choice of words seems to be hugely OTT by any rational measure.

Also, on the subject of private school, did Erin attend one herself? She has a very entitled air about her. I suspect it's likely, although I'm happy to be corrected on this.

Seems to me both the muso and the, er, critic in this case should check their privilege -- not to mention ease up on the fakery.

No comments:

Post a Comment