I used to love Joss Whedon from everything he made. I grew up watching Buffy, and loved Firefly, then Marvel got him for Avengers and I was excited for him to be getting such a big break. He later Agents of Shield which I also loved. But then it came out that he was an abuser. His whole persona of championing strong women was merely a facade to hide this.
Learning that Michelle Trachtenberg (RIP) had a clause in her contract while working in Buffy (2000-3) at age 15 that she was not to ever be in the same room as Whedon alone opened my eyes to just how bad things are. Not just how bad he was, but how well it was known that he was an abuser and no one did anything about it. That’s just how things were.
I have a hard time watching Buffy or any of his works anymore, just knowing now that he was behind these things.
Yeah, it also gives me some closure with firefly being cancelled… like I the fox executive cancelled Firefly because he didn’t like Whedon, now I know why he didn’t like him. Or at least a probable reason.
And it didn’t give him a chance to be weird and creepy with Summer Glau.
Any more than he already had been.
Lest we forget she was introduced to the show naked in a box.
The man was big into the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope.
God, the entirely of Dollhouse was the most problematic thing I’ve ever seen in retrospect (regarding the born sexy yesterday trope) and I can’t believe that past me didn’t see how messed up everything about it was. That the dolls were turned into helpless blanks between jobs and constantly sexualized in that state was so messed up.
JK Rowling
I literally learned to read so I could read Harry Potter books so I didn’t have to wait for bedtime for my dad to read them to me; even though I was a “boy” I badly wanted to be Hermione Granger when I grew up
it’s really heart-breaking that she became so deranged and hateful, a lot of us loved her books growing up
Yeah me too. I literally started to read because I couldn’t wait for mum to start reading and wanted to read past when she stopped.
I was literally sneaking away to read. My parents knew and turned a blind eye, not believing their luck that their son was rebelling by reading haha. I’ll always thank JK for my love of reading. But fuck her politics.
I started reading for the same reason, except it was he Narnia books and my gramma 🫡
I started reading in other languages for her. To which I credit a lot of my English skills. I couldn’t wait for fifth one to be translated so just started reading books in English.
My mom got me onto them though.
I hope for you you bexame what you truely are, stranger
Your hero as a child was the author and not the character?
I mean, it’s not like Harry Potter can turn out to be a terrible person as he is fictional.
Well he did peek in high school and then became a cop so…
Married his friend’s little sister.
Neil Gaiman. I fucking loved Sandman and damn near everything else he wrote. Finding out he’s a total scumbag has basically ruined a lot of very dear memories.
Yeah, this one hurt.
Good Omens too. Can I pretend it was written entirely by Pratchett?
Been looking for this.
Back in the day I scored a ticket to an Amanda Palmer show, was absolutely floored when he showed up mid-act, completely unannounced. He was one of my favourite writers, a friend to Sir Terry Pratchett (RIP) , and on top of that, someone who seemed like a genuine force for good in the world. I remember that show made my year, I felt so incredibly lucky, like finding a bike under the tree when you’re 4.
Then Good Omens happened, then Sandman, and I was just genuinely happy to see him getting the accolades and recognition.
Not mincing words here, once the allegations started floating up, I felt so angry and personally betrayed. For every book or show recommendation, for every conversation where I brought him up as one of my personal heroes. I was almost in mourning, I realise that now, and I’m pretty sure my cynicism levelled up as a direct consequence of that experience.
Fast forward to last week or so, where my RSS feed pings with an article from his blog, the first since the scandal began. He’s pointing to a journalist investigation that seems to say the whole thing was a hatchet job. He tries to explain, and this being Neil, the words line up and do his bidding. And I want to fucking believe him, I do. But I can’t.
The absolute worst thing? In spite of everything, I hope he’s really telling the truth. How does that make any fucking sense?
Read books by Tanith Lee.
Gaiman stole the idea of Death, Evil, and Madness being related from her books.
I asked for Sandman two Christmases ago, before everything came out. Im still glad I read it, it’s good, but I wish I would’ve gotten used copies so at least he didn’t make money off it
Used to love watching the Cosby show and watching his stand up specials…
When I was a kid I had one of his stand up specials on cassette and I regularly listened to it to fall asleep.
Fatherhood was a great book, and I say this as someone that won’t be having any kids.
He had that bit about being in trouble so much as a little kid he didnt know his name was bill, he thought it was Jesus Christ. Too bad hes a predator of the highest degree.
It’s worse for GenX, we watched Fat Albert and learned about things like drugs and prejudice from it. The Cosby Show happened during my cynical, anti-wholesomeness teen years so I didn’t watch that so much.
This is where it’s hard. I still enjoy his work even knowing he was a scumbag.
Hulk Hogan. I was such a huge Hulkamaniac as a kid, brother.
Same. I remember thinking he was such a hero when I was like 8. What a douche canoe.
I hate to link to the evil empire, but there was a great breakdown series (warts and all) about the guy published there after he passed. I wasn’t a fan of pro wrestling in the slightest, but found it pretty fascinating:
I heard that his lawsuit against Gawker (which destroyed the company) was actually paid for by Peter Thiel
I used to think Musk was ok.
I didn’t know anything about him other than he was investing in EV’s which I felt the world desperately needed, at a time when it felt like big oil was squashing the uptake.
Same, I thought he was out to try and save the world from climate change. For me the illusion shattered when he tried to kill California HSR because he would make less in cars. It was never about the environment, it was about being “cool” and then cornering the market.
Yeah for me it was the Thai kid submarine fiasco. He offered a dumb idea in a life threatening situation and when it was rejected by professional underwater cave diver rescue guy Musk accused the guy of being a pedo.
That one was full mask off. Couldn’t be explained by someone trolling. Couldn’t even be explained by a profit motive. Just an attention seeking child.
The way he smeared that teacher reputation… Disgusting.Talk about projecting…
If HSR isn’t “high-speed rail”, it may be fun to once-again dereference your initialisms on first use.
I feel like I was fortunate that as soon as I came to understand there was alot of buzz about this guy I wanted to understand why, did some research, and found out that he got lucky twice with corporate mergers making him alot of money.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros. I had a period where I appreciated people who played the system to get rich. Before I understood the system itself is the problem.
Bill Gates
I remember him as being a scumbag going back to the 80’s. Ripping off the Mac GUI, and then going on to bully, absorb and run out of business countless smaller enterprises through strong-arm legal / financial tactics.
Amazing how many things the Simpsons got right, yet it didn’t matter.
What I find most interesting is that Warren Buffet has come right out said it’s weird that society will reward people into being billionaires and has publicly stated that there’s is for sure a class war going on and billionaires are winning.
I think it’s nice he’s giving most of his fortune away but disappointing he hasn’t called for the system that made his fortune to be dismantled.
because he benefited from that system that gave billionaires that advantage, of courses hes not go to bite the hand that feeds him.
Of all the wealthy people I’ve ever read about, Buffet seems to actually care about money the least. Like’s he’s in love with the process in the way that an autistic person loves their hyper focus but if he lost everything, it wouldn’t faze him.
i never saw them as rolemodels, its not really somehting that ever connected with me at all, with gates he always seem too snobby and gave off a faek vibe, now we know why.
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Damn this was so sad. What kind of a bummer must your childhood have been if Warren Buffett was your hero?
Kevin Sorbo as Hercules©®™.
And I used to listen to the lost profits as a teenager. ultra sigh
Bah this one hurt… He didn’t just go a bit cookie… Went full nuts
Lucy Lawless on the other hand is a fantastic lady and I love how she calls out Kevin Sorbo
I saw a guy at a music festival a few years ago that had a HUGE lostprophets tattoo across his upper back. Poor guy.
Rest in piss, Ian Watkins
Just saw he got stabbed.
Oh no.
Anyways
a few chiro strokes, he turned into a nutty right winger, who was jealous of XENA. he even managed to ruin his own show, andromeda.
Is that the band who’s lead singer got sent to prison in Norway or Denmark for being a pedophile?
“being a pedophile” is somehow putting it lightly. He was raping actual
toddlersinfants.
I wouldn’t say horrible, but the shine definitely faded off Will Smith.
He’s made some poor choices over the years.
My buddy worked in an area that Will Smith occasionally worked.
At every opportunity, will Smith would go out of his way to meet the people around where he was working, talk with them, get selfies, etc, when there was absolutely no need to do it. This was even later in his career when he was really well-known: he’d be walking down a hallway chatting about electrical stuff with a maintenance guy for no reason. I do believe will smith would also return a shopping cart if tested.
The thing where he assaulted someone else on live TV was either out of character, or every appearance from the years before was out of character; exclusively so.
I refuse to believe Will Smith is irredeemable yet.
Being all wrapped up with another person emotionally and romantically can sometimes push us to do things otherwise out of character. I think it’s pretty easy to see and understand in that particular case.
He laughed at Chris Rock’s joke until he saw Jada’s reaction. Not in any way excusable for him to assault him, but it’s easy to see what the actual reason for it was.
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To me, Smith will always be a rapper first. He was right: parents just don’t understand.
My mother. Turns out she’s a narcissistic, fascist Trump-loving Norwegian, who’s only been to the USA twice. Last time we spoke, she defended the killing of Good and Pretti, stating that innocent lives can be taken in order to get the Somali fraud.
I don’t talk to her anymore.
Why the fuck does a Norwegian care about fraud in the US?
The million dollar question I cannot answer…
That is not good. I am sad to hear MAGA is alive and well in Norway. :-(
I rarely spoke to her because of her views, but the statement that killing innocent people can be justified? Fuck that.
Oh, and she supports Putin to remove all the Nazis in Ukraine.
And by “Nazis” she probably means their Jewish president
Sorry to hear about yours (and the others in here), mine too, she used to be a clever, kind lady - or I thought she was - now I reflect and realize she fed me poison, abused me, and has no perspective outside of her own shallow little life. I couldn’t get her into therapy, and when she started pushing fundraisers for the Good’s murderer, I cut her out for good. In response she told me she “won’t let” my adult brothers speak to me anymore - yeah that’s what I’m talking about, mom. FFS
Honestly, same. She’s not as radical as yours, but I had this idea that my mum was clever, sensible, and capable of critical thought. She used to read a lot, made better political arguments compared to my dad, and somehow managed to raise her children into smart individuals. The combination of me growing up, her getting addicted to Facebook, and the pandemic warped my perception of who my mum really was. She forms emotionally-driven opinions, she jumps to conclusions, she’s gullible, and she’s close-minded.
I don’t think she would ever justify killing someone, but she’s suddenly anti-vax, she’s anti-choice and would vote for anyone who vows to maintain that culture, she’s obsessed with drag queens and transgender people, and she gets her news from Facebook. All of her comments involve the phrase, “I’ve seen the comments on Facebook.”
In 2024, I decided to cut contact with her because she kept spreading misinformation and sharing petition links to ban gender-affirming care. And in addition to that, she was preaching about the Olympic ceremony being blasphemous and “woke.” My reason for going no-contact with her was that I couldn’t bring myself to maintain a relationship with someone who made other people’s lives dangerous. Everyone took her side and accused me of causing a drift and being immature because I couldn’t handle other people’s opinions, apparently.
I ended up talking to her again after a couple of months because I visited my family and I couldn’t avoid her. She was going through a tough time and she was crying so I gave in. I still have a relationship with her but only because I actively choose to live as if I don’t know those details about my mum. She’s otherwise a good person; she donates to charity and she cares about democracy, the environment, and her children. But whenever I remember the kind opinions that she has, I get angry all over again. It sucks because she was indeed more sensible, but her brain got rotten by social media…
As a teenager I loved to read Lovecraft. It was a way to learn English as a nice side effect because it isn’t my native language but that also obscured the appalling racism from me which lead to disappointment when I found out later.
Lovecraft deserves some redemption. First of all he wasn’t especially racist, just the “normal” amount for his time (take with a grain of salt please!). More importantly he significantly mellowed out in his later years primarily due to exposure to talented black writers which made him realize the error of his ways.
But yeah, I wouldn’t ask him to name my void cat.
Lovecraft was especially racist by the standards of his time, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1897rk2/was_lovecraft_racist_even_by_the_standards_of_his/
No, he was really really racist for the time. But he did get better at the end.
I had heard Dr. Fu Manchu referenced places when reading as a teen so I ended up finding the books. I was jaw in the floor shocked by the casual racism when I read them.
This cereal was popular in the 1960s. They even had a kids’ cartoon with the little ‘Chinese’ boy ‘So-Hi.’
Rice Crinkles cereal
Other people have already confirmed he was a racist, but think Clinical Xenophobe is a more apt distinction. He was a unconformable around minorities, but he was also unconformable about the ocean and the color violet. And he wrote about his discomfort. He didn’t write political manifests. This isn’t a case of separating the art from the artist, but seeing the art to see the broken person behind it.
Wayne Gretzky.
I honestly know nothing about him beyond that he was _really _ good at hockey. What’s the 2 second break down?
Gretzky was a Canadian icon. A source of national pride. But when Trump was threatening to annex Canada it came out that Gretzky was a MAGA guy. This caused a widespread sense of betrayal among the Canadian public.
turned conservative
He’s from Alberta, he didn’t turn, just stopped hiding it.
Except he’s not.
My bad, I was a kid during his Oilers days and I mean, look at him…
oh god please no
Nobody mentioned God?
I was raised Christian. Never deeply religious, but had all the bible study stuff, religious school, etc. Religion was comforting.
Then I got older and started seeing the fanboys for who they were. Hypocrites of the highest order. Assholes that armored themselves with being “Christians”. Trying to game the system or to buy their way into heaven, making it transactional. Heaven also seems like a shitty place; an existence locked into worshipping a deity while in a drugged out euphoria and never being able to learn, grow, and experience things again. A “Matrix”-like place. A God that is psychotic, manipulative, and a classic narcissistic abuser. Jesus would probably be a cool guy, but nobody actually gives a fuck about him. A book full of contradictions and other awful things that are constantly rationalized and massaged to mean whatever the needs of the individual might be. Just generally how awful any religion is, how it’s used to control people, do shitty things, and consolidate power and money.
Yeah, if you’re formerly religious, you get it. I’m an scientific atheist now.
Ironically, thanks to modern “christians”, I’ve found myself citing scripture to shitty people who claim to be religious to point out their hypocrisy, idolatry or whatever, and occasionally listening to religious people who point out how awful and un-christian these people are.
Jesus would probably be a cool guy
I’m an atheist but I fucking love Jesus. As an idea he represents so much good in humanity; selfless love, mercy, helping those in need, humility, even self-sacrifice for greater good. If you take him away from all the crap christianity has accumulated, there’s so much you can learn from his example. He’s even imperfect, just like all humans are
Not only that but “what would Jesus do” has a valid answer of “flip tables and chase money lenders with a whip”. The ideal of “love one another” is always welcome as well.
If the Christian god was a person and he moved next door, i would move out of town. Can’t trust that bastard.
Same here. He could do ANYTHING, start a time loop until everyone makes the right choice, NOT create life you know will be damned.
But no, he tortures us to make us break, then punishes us FOREVER for it.
Also, all the animals who don’t go anywhere, and can’t sin, but suffer anyway.
I don’t want to hear the justifications, they are all bullshit.
Sounds like we had a similar upbringing. Do you still find yourself humming the old hymns sometimes? Like I’ll be doing the dishes and suddenly I’m whistling Love Lifted Me.
No, not quite, but I definitely get a “trigger” when I hear them.
“Jesus was probably cool, but nobody gives a fuck about him.”
Around here, if I meet someone that talks about God, then maybe they are cool. Maybe not, but they are probably the normal amount of religious. If they talk about Jesus, they are hundred percent batshit. They think trans people and gay people are the same thing, and both are a threat to children, unlike their pastor, who is not allowed to let children sit on his lap anymore because he fell to temptation that one (4!) time(s!).
I reserve ‘cunt’ and ‘dumb bitch’ as especially strong, disrespectful expletives to call a woman.
When I say “Fuck that dumb bitch TERF cunt JK Rowling” it carries the hurt and ire of a broken childhood love of Harry Potter. The series itself was incredibly important to me and provided a world I could escape to when the real world was overwhelming. The hate and bigotry that cunt has shown breaks my heart and sullies too many childhood memories to describe.
I was deeply inspired to pursue engineering after watching the first Falcon 9 boosters land themselves. I was enamored by the idea of using my little blip in humanity’s timeline to assist our expansion to another planet. I wanted to contribute to something important, something that turned many brilliant minds towards an achievement that would eventually benefit the entirety of mankind.
I even hopped on the Tesla train; I recognized the existential threat that carbon emissions bore as well as the damaging, restrictive nature of building a society that scorns public transportation and promotes individual car ownership.
I didn’t worship Elon so much as admired the causes he was advancing. That admiration withered over the years but my dream of contributing to the colonization of Mars helped me push through the ten years it took to earn my four year engineering degree. As details of his derangement came out, as he acquired twitter and more overtly spread his billionaire propaganda, that dream started to fade. The fascist salutes at Trump’s inauguration crushed those dreams and ground them into a dust too fine to even attempt a rebuild.
My jaded ass still wants to benefit humanity so I’ve set my eyes on climate science, even as the country I was born in denies the havoc and damage our relentless consumption has wrought. Not just denial, but outright derision and contempt for the future of our world. Thus I hope to take my dreams elsewhere, hoping to find a culture with a clearer view of the consequences we must face and the changes we must make to preserve our planet.
some people eluded her books as part of her way of expressing her bigotry.
I love watching Harry Potter fans get mad over JK Rowling.
It was always trash and they always had no standards. It’s nice to see that crowd have to separate mediocre art from mediocre artists.
I agree now as an adult that Harry Potter isn’t that great. But I was about 6 or 7 when my mom bought me the first book and we read them together. It was my first book so I had nothing to compare it to. I absolutely loved it and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Those memories are extremely special to me and many other people have similar experiences with it. Now that I’m an adult, I’ve tried to reread them and yes I believe she was very mediocre with her writing, but I was still a massive fan so it still felt awful when she unleashed her bigotry. I don’t understand why any of that is funny or why you think young children should’ve held their first series of books to such a high standard as to what you have today.
She wrote books for children. 500 million+ copies have been sold globally. It’s obviously not trash, and she’s obviously very talented author in that genre. I get that some people have an irrational hatred towards her, but denying reality that strongly is certainly going to cause some psychological damage.
I think your use of the term “irrational” there says something potentially undesirable about you. People hate her for a very good reason, regardless of the contents of her books.
It’s sad if you think that means it’s not trash.
Lots of things are sad, like your having psychological damage.
Lol. Everyone who thinks harry potter is trash has ‘psychological damage.’
You need help.
No worries, I can help myself in this case quite easily by blocking a person who will obviously never contribute anything worth reading. Bye.
I watched The Apprentice when I was a teenager. I seem to have blocked out my memory of how I felt about Trump back then but my aunt says I used to think he was funny. I remember the opening tricked me into believing he was a good businessman (I was a teenager and this was my first introduction to him). I wouldn’t say I viewed him as a hero but I guess I liked him as a celebrity. Now he’s ruined countless lives. It was the birther conspiracies that made me start to dislike him.
