Thursday, March 25, 2010

WTF Amanda Palmer?

I'm wondering how much coverage this will get in my regular blog reading, and I'm wondering if somehoe people might miss it, so I'm posting it here.

Amanda Palmer has apparently been complaining about how Lady Gaga is a sellout, cos she's advertising stuff in her videos (I think).  So she then tweeted this:

ironic product placement is only ok if you take no money & beyond that give all the income to something ironic. like the Klan

Link
Screencap

What the fuckity fuck?  I'm trying to work out if there could possibly be some background to this, or a long conversation that would somehow make the above make sense.  I can't think of anything that wouls ever make the Klan ironic, or make it ok to give money to them.  I gather it is likely Palmer will say the tweet is a joke.  Now, sometimes I am aware that I need jokes explained to me, buut even so, I do not see the humour in that statement.

[EDIT - This got brought up over on Shakesville, a commenter named Tiara the Merch Girl posted the following:
"Just to clarify: she doesn't actually dislike Lady Gaga, and has come out in support of her in the past. I suppose her mention of KKK is a sarcastic portrayal of irony - there was some discussion beforehand about how people are using "irony" to justify everything from racist remarks to poor music."
Yeah, I don't think that makes Palmer's tweet OK either]

Amanda Palmer, whatever you may have meant, you're a fucking idiot.

An LJ'er named sparkymonster has done a pictorial post demonstrating the difference between product placement and murdering black people, and has included some other good links.

(I originally picked this up at the Seeking Avalon blog, thanks for posting this Willow)

9 comments:

notintheface said...

Ironic? More like MORONIC.

Noel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Noel said...

Sorry- i reposted because of the alarming number fo typos in my comment.
I think this was misspoken. Some things are lost in 140 characters or less.
I don't think she meant "okay" as in "this is acceptable". I think she meant it to be "only truly ironic if", irony being that usually artists/performers donate product placement profits to a worthy cause, to donate to the Klan wouldn't be worthy at all. It would also go against the product placement's attempts to associate something positive with their brand, which is why product placements happen in the first place. That's irony.
She wasn't advocating people donate to the Klan, just trying to give an example of a truly ironic product placement. It just wasn't accurately expressed or easy to understand because of the composition and brevity of the message.
What to take away from it?
She's human. She made a mistake due to a failure in communication (which is itself ironic since she does so much communicating in the first place.)
We can hope she'll use better judgement in the future.
I really don't think it's worth everyone flipping out over.

Anonymous said...

Amanda Palmer is a selfish narcissist. What can you expect from a Scientologist? Her fiancee Neil Gaiman just paid the Scientologists $35,000. 00 (Nov 2009 Cornerstone Newsletter). Palmer funds a cult and doesn't give a shit about anyone but herself.

Saranga said...

@ Noel:
I realise this is a late reply, I've been very busy.
I understand about the limitations of tweets. I understand that she wasn't advocating donating money to the Klan. I understand that she's human and makes mistakes.

None of that makes the comments any less ill thought out, stupid, or ill considered. None of that stops it being really offensive.

I think it is worth mentioning. Racism is alive and well the world over, especially in the States, and things should not be left and ignored because, hey she made a mistake and she's only human! That positions Palmer's views/thoughts/experiences as more important than those of people of colour who experience racism every.single.day. Oddly enough, I believe that the world should move towards getting less racist, and one way to do that is to cry bullshit when we see bullshit.

Please do not come onto my blog and insinuate that I am making a fuss over nothing.

yap said...

hi this is george blakeney.and i have often crucified myself in the name of irony.i think the comment was funny as fuck but...amanda is a wee bit racist and she doesn't have any black friends.she has barred me from posting by banning the entire ascot branch from posting on amanda palmer .net...and since racism has less to do with what you say and much more with what you do,the action was pretty fucking racist....(follow me all over google.my email is
flackbag@gmail.com listen at once to when i get in glory by the gospel legends..etctera...i only post in 15 minute bklurts...i don't have a library card omigod this is a terrible exanmple of what i do....go to google amanda palmer kk...and wordpress is featuring a beautiful commentary on this subject...also,amanda racist on google shows far worse racists named amanda...amdada p i only dabbling in race hatred...i forgive her.she needs a black friend...esperanmza...? corrine?

Anonymous said...

It's "hipster racism" - she can say it cuz she's a liberal and therefore couldn't possibly be racist.

Anonymous said...

OMG she has a vagina, burn her! Seriously what the fuck is up with people obsessing with pop stars? Justin Beiber hopes Anne Frank would have been a fan. Big fucking deal. People always get a case of foot in mouth disease, only most of us aren't scrutinized by the entire fucking world for it. Get a fucking life already, jeeze.

Saranga said...

I just deleted a hideously racist post. Blimey, some people are awful.