Don't you folks see? It's about ethics in music journalism!
Look- right or wrong, that article is garbage. It's laced with inaccuracies, mischaractizations, cherry picked anecdotals and it's basked in juvenile pathos.
With that being said, and the article being a poorly researched op-ed masked as investigative journalism, it seems that excelsiorlef brought up some things that show that Anthony is not entirely disagreeable about everything.
You can come in and argue that the article is garbage, but being garbage and insufficient in it's burden of proof, doesn't mean that there cannot be some truth to pull out of it. So don't shitpost on the mere fact that people piss on that article, which clearly between the lines tries to derive a smearing campaign by the biased manner of which it presents the content to the reader.
This discussion reminds me of previous discussions we've had about collective blame, guilt by association, fanatism, dangerous platforms, free speech and about how hate is spread, how hate is dispelled.
This discussion has been going on and one with many subjects; South Park, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, Hitchens, Fallon, and so on and so on.
It's the same claims about normalizations and legitimizations, it's still the same accusations of labeling or condemning people for having a different idea about how to progress.
His stinkepieces reveal someting about his beliefs I think;
Paul Joseph Watson Rant < If you look at the comments it's one of his most down voted videos. Without checking for causation and correlation you could argue that there might be a not-(insignificant) statistical overlap of alt-right advocates who watch him?
But at the same time, it seems indefensible for the article to not take this rant into the article. It's such an omission that it frankly invalidates the credibility of that article in it's entirety.
It's clear that Anthony goes fucking hard on the alt right, using many of the same talking points many of us here have. If you had only seen this video and nothing else, you'd think he would be an average GAF member.
Yes it's true, the article doesn't directly claim he is alt-right, but it certainly insinuates it all over.
excelsiorlef, is correct I think in that, Anthony probably agrees with The Amazing Atheist and SOA and Hyde to a point. I get the impression that Anthony is not down wit radical feminists, trigger warnings, safe spaces and that sort of stuff. Which I mean, is a mainstream left-wing position to take. Most Democrats are not down with that. GAF is a very far-left leaning place and not really indicative of the larger world.
I don't believe in the guilt-by-association as a constant, but I do think Anthony has some blind spots.
The article completely missed the point of what he was saying about the mainstream left appropriating memes. He was critizing the mainstreams left reactionary response to everything the alt-right does. If the alt-right decides it wants to co-opt LGBT and BLM symbols tomorrow, the left will just piss its pants and bend over backwards giving up their symbols and acting like a PR machine.
That is a complex issue, because obviously, there is also an element of wanting to inform people of changes in language and symbolism. But it's a never ending battle of whos and whats.
So if Anthony believes that the Democrats are dumb for being a PR hype machine and announcing the alt-right to the world; being counter-productive as in, you block Milo from speaking his garbage in front of 150 disinterested people who will have forgotten about it the morning after, instead that speech block puts him in front of the largest network in the country, the same night, allowng him to connect to millions of conservatives who feel bullied by left wing ideas.
Followed by pointless double downing and refusal to own up to obvious miscommunication and failure to manipulate the right.
The article was disingenious in the way it misrepresented the TP meme. The article was soo poorly researched it didn't get that the videos were making fun of; not black rappers, but fans of hiphop. And FYI- GAF HOP makes many of the same stereotypical jokes about hopsin and j-cole fans. The article doesn't point out that he also eggs on white artists (just as much). It's not a stretch to call the article a poorly researched hitpiece.
But. Again- A shitty article does not make it exempt from looking at the needle drop critically. The tweets excelsiorlef posted with Anthony being cozy with the guys he interviewed? It demonstrates that these guys get into liberal recruitment because they argue from a place of common ground.
Trevor Noah is alt right for what he said about antifa, Stewart is a piece of shit for disliking Hillary, Colbert is just another white useless person taking apart in the genocide. It's the same fucking shit all over.
People on the far left are cannibalizing everyone else, because if you step outside the purity circle, you're called alt right and punched and thrown for the fucking wolves. And then a guy like the amazing atheist comes along, and he fights for a place where you can agree on.
The far regressive left-does everything in its power to bleed the base dry.
It's a toxic witch hunt that just helps the alt right, and then you bitch and moan about the world going conservative. It's going conservative partially because of this shit. People are not going to be able to live up to all of this. Be it women issue, abortion, bathroom bills, civil rights- On something, people are going to have blind spots. People are not monolithic entities, so you have biases in all people and all people will have blind spots, biases.
They are going to have ignorant holes. Anthony is clearly biased, and he has his blinds spot. Just like everyone else who is being demonized has.
But this collective blame game is just hurting the process.
He can be articulate and have some well mannered rants as well;
About Azelia Banks and the difference treatment of genders and mental illness
A rebuttal to a reporter asking how the LGBT can "handle" a guy like Tyler the Creator being gay
Arguing why it's not far to say alt-rock is alt right
Clearly Fantano is not someone who champions far-right people or ideas. Whatever number of his courtship who listens to him might be, it's despite the vast vast majority of his political beliefs.
TL;DR - excelsiorlef has a point that he failed to condemn the entirety of the values of those people he interviewed. It's also reasonable to assume that Anthony is someone who like the previous people/shows/podcasts mentioned is someone who beliefs that the truth will find its way out there, and that there is not as much harm in that.
At the same time, some posters here engaging in disingenuous dogpiling, passive aggressive threats, drive by shitposts to deliver a deflective pointless post while refusing to even watch the rebuttal of that one sided article. Posts that completely take the article as gospel. An article that completely fals the parameters of investigative reporting; that uses intellectually anecdotals, miscategorized proofs, sticks the events together to make the subject of the article looks worse, fails to argue or self-vet ones own biases. It has all the red flags a poor piece.
