There Is No Safe Word: How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades.
(www.vulture.com)
from FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 14 Jan 00:14
https://lemmy.world/post/24247491
from FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 14 Jan 00:14
https://lemmy.world/post/24247491
Warning, this story is really horrific and will be heartbreaking for any fans of his, but Neil Gaiman is a sadistic [not in the BDSM sense] sexual predator with a predilection for very young women.
Paywall bypass: archive.is/dfXCj
#world
threaded - newest
No one should ever be put on a pedestal. We all have our demons. Though many of them are semi innocent or only hurt ourselves. It still sad to hear another celebrity abused their celebrity.
I don’t know about you but none of my demons involve sexual assault.
But that doesn’t take away the fact that someone’s demons could be of this kind. It’s a built-in risk in every human.
I do not disagree with you, but I still think it’s heartbreaking when it turns out that a man who is lauded for his feminism turns out to be a horrific rapist, sadist and predator.
100% it wasn’t my intention to imply otherwise. Just to point out that celebrities are still just people and people have pretty dark sides oftentimes. So many people get lulled into traps thinking that someone famous or well known is safe. They’re just like any of the rest of us.
awful
I have so many of this man’s books on my shelves, a few of them signed. I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t want to throw them away (yet), because the stories are wonderful and I’m still attached to those characters and worlds. but. I don’t to see his name anymore. on anything. I’ve turned them backwards, spine inward and placed others in the gap between other books and the back of the shelf. what a tragic loss caused by a Jekyll\Hyde monster.
Good Omens is one of my most favorite and re-read books and I don’t know how many decades it’ll take before I touch it again.
It can be hard to separate art from artist, but just keep in mind that you’ve already paid for those books. He isn’t getting more money from you just rereading them, and nothing changes if you continue to enjoy the books.
Also he doesn’t get paid if you pirate them. So feel free to pirate them.
At least with Good Omens you can focus on Terry. This is grim.
Side story: I have a number of dear friends who were huge Gaiman fans, so I tried to be one too. And I just could not. I could hardly get through most of his books. I liked the concept of American Gods but didn’t care for the story and Neverwhere was ok, but I didn’t see what my friends kept going on about.
Then I read Good Omens and loved it. Finally! I was enjoying Gaiman.
Years later, my now-partner introduced me to Discworld. Then I reread Good Omens and realized that everything I enjoyed so much in it almost certainly came from Pratchett, not Gaiman. When you know some of each’s writing, some parts start to stand out as one or the other. And I have no doubt what made that book so great (to me, at least) was Sir Terry’s influence.
I’ve thought this. Maybe I just ignored the Gaiman parts because they were boring, but I’ve read it a few times and I honestly can barely think of a part that reminds me of Gaiman’s other writing…
It’s been a while but I think it was some of the individual prose that seemed more like Gaiman, mostly like scene setting/ambiance. I only noticed in on a reread I did shortly after reading one of Gaiman’s. On the other hand, all of the memorable stuff like characters, plot, and humor were all very typical Pratchett.
GNU Terry Pratchett <3
The stories live on their own. They left his mind and are no longer his. They live in your mind now and are yours now.
If it makes you feel better about them being there, tear out or paint over his name on them. And continue enjoying stories that are good.
I believe in death of the author. People throughout history were all sorts of awful, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have some good thoughts too. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
ty for writing this. it actually helped a bit.
I was going to say this is so beyond someone being racist or your favorite musician turning into a conservative shithead… which, it is, but… that helped. thank you.
Part of the problem in Gaiman’s case is that he absolutely does not shy away from sexual violence in his stories. The perpetrator usually gets punished, often ironically, but how can you read about one of his villainous rapist characters and not think about how he’s got experience with what that character is doing?
That’s not a problem with stuff like Good Omens, which is more family fare, or even the stuff he does specifically for kids. It’s a huge problem for stuff like Sandman and American Gods.
Solid analysis.
It also helped that he withdrew completely from public life, as opposed to doing the jkrowling thing where she repeatedly announced that anyone supporting her books support her views. Divorcing good omens from him is even easier because Terry Pratchett’s daughter stepped up and took over in his stead, but also because there is acutoff that is immediate instead of something lingeringly tainting every aspect of his stories the way the harry potter books and other media is.
This hits tumblr expecially hard because he’s a regular poster there and his comments are everywhere, but nevertheless he did inspire a lot of young writers and give good advice there, and you cannot argue that those advice did good when they were being offered, while admitting that asking him anything are not advisable now even if he didn’t go full silence.
this aged like milk lol
Time to buy mangas
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author
H. P. Lovecraft was very racist and you can even see his racism in his books, and people still read his books. You need to disconnect the author with the books, although Lovecraft was racist and not a monster like this guy. I even heard he tried to change before he died.
Yeah he was racist, but also a New England resident in like 1910 who married a Jewish woman.
I honestly think that Lovecraft might have suffered from some mental illness, the guy had so many phobias. His childhood wasn’t good either, he was racist because he genuinely thought they will kill him or hurt him.
I read an anecdote where Lovecraft went on some sort of antisemitic rant only to be gently reminded by his wife who he married. I guess he was an equal opportunity bigot.
I mean…yeah it seems like he hated pretty much everyone roughly equally, except the English. Idk how a person can hate the Saxons but like the Anglo Saxons.
Consuming the media is fine; funding the bad people (or their heirs and assigns) is not. Sail the high seas, mateys.
It depends on what the person did. Lovecraft was a racist, but never hurt anyone unlike this guy, so I think it is fine to buy his books.
Also Lovecraft is dead.
I agree, but that’s not what Death of the Author means.
One of my friends owned a synth module and the company owner turned out to be some kind of mysogynist racist asshat (or at best an edgelord indistinguishable from that). He wanted to get rid of it, so he put it up for sale for the market price, with a clear note on it that he’d be donating all of the money to some feminist charity. It sold, someone got the product while knowingly contributing to a good cause, and he got rid of it without it feeling like a waste.
Something like that could be an option?
No clue what he did (have not yet read the article). Haven’t really consumed any of his media. But I did buy a coloring book based on some TV show he did?
Anyway, I bought that book because of how fucking weird it was. I remember thinking at the time the artist behind it seemed like a pretty twisted up dude.
I’m surprised everyone else is surprised, but my perspective is fairly unique - not having experienced/enjoyed any of his art beyond some crazy coloring book without the context to understand the pictures.
This is probably one of those perspectives that’s best kept to yourself - or at least not shouted through a megaphone, as is the effect of posting your thoughts online. Please don’t take my tone as harsh or judgemental there, just friendly advice. I know you mean well, but your unique perspective really doesn’t give you the opportunity to grasp just how much Gaiman seemed to genuinely be a good person. He wrote the kind of stories that were powerful and meaningful to marginalized people in particular. He focused on voices and perspectives rarely given the spotlight at the times when he was writing, and he wrote sensitively and thoughtfully about issues facing women, queer people and people of colour despite being, to my knowledge, none of those things himself.
For a lot of people this is genuinely heart breaking. It’s easy to say that you should never put anyone on a pedestal, but Neil was one of his rare people who really seemed like he deserved the acclaim and the trust that he was given. While I absolutely get that you mean no harm by what you’re saying here, it unfortunately comes across as very smug and self-serving in a situation where a lot of people are dealing with a very real and very justified sense of abject betrayal.
I agree. I am hearing what you’re saying, and I feel the loss of finding this out about him. However I’ve had a similar experience of wanting to like Gaiman because he checked all the right boxes, and just feeling put off by something in his writing. And thinking it was a problem with me. It’s easy for the mind to see this news and say, aha, that’s why I didn’t like him. But that’s the benefit of hindsight. Who knows if things like this, the hidden part of people’s personality, are actually detectable in their writing. Anyone feeling like I do is just trying to make sense of it all the same as everybody else. And it’s important to recognize that he was a role model for so many and did good work with his fiction, and not trying to say it was obvious, because it wasn’t.
That’s a good point. Not to be rude but most people are not good writers. Well-meaning attempts to rationalize for oneself can easily deform into reading like “smug” attempts to incorporate hindsight into somehow prophetic vibes. I try to give people a bit of grace because the consciousness to (attempt to) perceive how your text might be read by others is not a trait oft emphasized.
This comment didn’t need to be made.
You really, really should use this as an example for yourself in the future to read the room. That means read the article before making a thoughtless comment on something you obviously didn’t fully grasp.
As if the comment section is some sacred place where only somber reflection can occur.
I genuinely liked the other person’s thoughtful response.
You just seem bitter.
You apparently still haven’t read the article. Given the reactions to your comment, you may want to go see why the comments are “sombre”, as you put it.
It’s behind a paywall for me. Did you read it?
I did. It’s a culture vulture article, you just need to use an incognito tab.
As unpleasant as the content is, just read the article. And remember that lots of folks have trusted Neil Gaiman for a long time (I’m 50) to tell stories they connect with, especially in the 90s when there were fewer writers to do so.
archive.is/J31rj
You may have liked the thoughtful response but you clearly didn’t heed any of it.
Every comment after the first has been a response to someone else’s comment to me. You’re saying I didn’t heed any of that comment because I … responded to other comments?
I… don’t understand why you felt the need to share this. You didn’t read the article and aren’t familiar with his work? What is it that you are contributing? What are you saying that others should hear?
Respectfully, it sounds like you are talking to hear yourself talk. Not every memory or thought I’d worth sharing, in fact, most are better left unsaid.
Especially when it’s about coloring books in a thread about systemic and repeated rape.
I found it interesting to think about his darker side hidden in plain view all along. Didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would be offensive.
It’s clearly a bad faith statement to characterize my comment as being about “coloring books” in a thread about “systemic and repeated rape”.
Read the comments. People are upset they don’t get to like one of their favorite authors anymore. That’s what the thread is about.
You evoked rape to strengthen your argument? That’s fucking gross.
It’s literally what the article is about. Which would’ve been a faster read than you arguing with pointing at your out of place comment. Not informing yourself is a very odd thing to get defensive over.
Cool. This is about a rapist who enjoys inflicting pain on very young women, but I’m glad you enjoyed the coloring book of someone else’s art based on his stories.
(He’s a writer, not an artist.)
We have to remember that Bill Cosby was praised for decades because he genuinely made the world a better place while being an utter sack of shit.
I’ve never heard it articulated quite like this before, but you phrase it well.
Men like this absolutely deserve to be condemned and shunned for what they have done, but that doesn’t also erase the good that they did before – nor does it preclude them from ever doing good again.
At the same time, any good they do does not erase or counterbalance the harm. Jimmy Savile, the UK’s worst celebrity paedophile who abused hundreds of children, conspicuously did a lot for charities throughout his career. He said that he knew God would look at all the good he had done and it would make up for the bad things. There was a calculus in which he only had to do more good each time he did bad, and it would cancel it out. It’s a twisted view. Harm is harm and is not changed by any independent “good” act a person does. But apparent goodness can change its significance in the light of the harm that accompanies it.
Savile’s apparent selfless good acts were actually a calculated attempt to win license to do harm, and a psychological coping mechanism to allow him to believe in his own basic goodness before God. Plus the reputation for selfless goodness served as a smokescreen to prevent people seeing clearly what was really going on, and to win the support and protection of powerful people. Seen this way, while the charitable works may have had some helpful effects, these were not genuinely good actions but in large part self-serving and an integral part of the dynamics of this man’s abuse.
I think the same applies to men like Cosby and Gaiman: the overt charity or the overt feminism changes its meaning when you see how it serves them psychologically and reputationally, amd how it may be a functional part of the whole abusive operation.
Matt Bernstein in a recent video (it’s long) discusses men who act as outspoken self-avowed feminists but then abuse their power to treat women terribly. The feminism may be genuine, but it may also be their smokescreen, or a mix of each, and when a man is very loud about being a feminist you have to look carefully to see which is the case. Some are genuine, but you have to ask. Maybe Gaiman was doing the feminist smokescreen, or maybe he’s just so messed up that these two sides of his life - the feminism and the abuse - just didn’t really encounter each other.
This explains so much. Read a book written by his very young wife. Now I get it and how fucked up he is.
It sounds like (at best) some of Gaiman’s victims consented to some form of foreplay or sex and then rapidly found themselves on the receiving end of some brutal BDSM without consenting to it. If I were a woman reading this I would find it hard to ever trust any man, going into sex, even if I wanted to have sex with him. When the world’s most harmless-seeming man can suddenly become a punishing torturer in the sack, how can you ever know that a guy is safe until after the fact? Jesus.
This is why women choose the bear…
Well, guess I’ll never be getting around to finishing ocean at the end of the lane now, just sickening. And I like his narration so much too, and now it’s just all ruined.
Disgusting
Great book no reason not to enjoy it just because he’s a pos
For me, nah. I’d have trouble separating the artist in this instance, it’s just so fresh. Maybe in a few decades. Regardless, there’s more great media than I could consume in a lifetime, so no loss
When the initial allegations came out I was shocked. A week later I was having breakfast with a good friend of mine and his wife. The wife worked in the comic book industry and we’d talked about Gaiman before. I brought up the allegations and she told me that no one who rubbed elbowed with his circle were shocked. Apparently he already had something of a reputation.
This is what gets me every time. Once this goes public everyone starts saying, ah yeah, no wonder, they had a reputation already, I knew they were sketchy and so on. So where the fuck where you (not you Hasherm0n, the people bringing this up) all this time? This could have ended so much earlier if people would speak up and make it more public.
Speaking out against the rich and powerful often does not work out well for the person who does it. They would be fighting a very rich and very successful man with a legion of extremely devoted fans. Women who have been direct victims of powerful men have spoken out about it and been destroyed for it (see Anita Hill).
Or all the countless women and Harvey Weinstein before the 2017 NY Times piece.
There is a big difference between knowing a persons reputation and knowing their actions. Sometimes a person with a bad rep does small things you pick up on that reinforces the feeling. But you still don’t actually know enough to accuse them.
It’s a big deal accusing a powerful person. They are usually going to deny it and people are going to ask for proof. If all you have is rumors and a feeling it only hurts you.
It took several women coming forward with what happened to them to get the public on their side. Imagine trying to accuse him when all you had was rumors.
Terry Crews is a former NFL player and all around “dude I would not want to mess with”
Even still he was hesitant to tell anyone he was abused, what does that tell you about the system
Giving off bad vibes isn’t a crime.
That’s the logic of a witch hunt. I mean, obviously there are behaviors so suspicious you’d feel almost complicit not to report them. But a lot of the times all we have are the subtle impressions built up by our unconscious brain and it’s not until the answer is shown that it all clicks into place and what once was hidden is now so obvious.
I met him very briefly in 1995, same San Diego comic con trip when I met Stan Lee, James Robinson, Wade Von Grawbadger, Will Eisner, and Shannon Wheeler.
I didn’t get the creepy vibe from him then, but then again it would have been 25 years before these allegations, at a convention, and I’m not a vulnerable woman.
God, barf.
I was one of those sad goth kids clinging to the dresden dolls through my turbulent adolescence. After palmer met this nutsack her whole vibe changed. I mourned the loss of an era and ultimately left it all behind. I can’t even begin to fathom what kind of… Mind-shattering nightmare that would be, someone you connected with on that level, being the intersection in your life between “the before times” and one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone. Fuck.
Having read the whole article, I’m not entirely sure Amanda Palmer comes out smelling of roses either - the way the last few paragraphs are written make me feel she’s covering up for him, and those lyrics read like she’s got it in for her.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I have not read anything from Gaiman, but I can see that lots of People really liked his books and the Person he showed the world.
So I just want to say, I’m really sorry for all of you. Even though Gaiman can rot in Hell, I feel sad for people who just got their favorite Books and stories poisoned.
Why though? He is a sack of shit and can rot in hell for all I care… his art can still be enjoyed. Having him take that way means he has even more power.
I would suggest obtaining it in ways that do not give him new money… Like buying books second hand.
If you can do that more Power to you!
But I can understand that some People now look with diffrent eyes on his work or simply can’t make that cut between Author and his work.
Yeah I can imagine for some people his work is tainted…
That’s the case for me. Same as watching anything with Kevin Spacey in it now. I just can’t separate the man from from his reported actions.
In this specific case, it’s really difficult because, as the article talks about in the beginning, his stories were often viewed as being feminist (and progressive in other ways), but when you re-read them, you can start getting a sense of the monster that was hiding.
I’ve been a fan of his for a very long time - decades. I enjoyed the dark part of the dark humour and the commentaey on humanity.
He has an excellent book called the sleeper and the spindle. It is a beautifully crafted and illustrated book clearly targeted at young women. It feels like art, and I genuinely celebrate it for what it is, a feminist retelling of Cinderella, where the celebrated main character is…how do I put it - both good, and effective. Not empowered, or brave, or glossy, but competent and certain. It is a version of feminism I see in those pragmatic, excellent women who do valuable, notable and productive things.
I don’t see any echoes of a monster any moreso than any fantasy writer who holds up a chipped and scratched mirror to the human condition. And that is the profoundly sad thing here. I believe you can be two things at once and that as a story, without his name attached to it, sleeper and the spindle should be something young people can read and enjoy and make them think a bit differently.
This isn’t a shoulder shrug and wave off of his actions. I can’t forgive him his cruel treatment of vulnerable people who cared for him, trusted him and wanted to please him. It is abhorrent.
What I’m trying to say is mud and gold come from the same hole.
Well for example, all of the sexual (and other) violence in the 24-Hour Diner part of The Sandman takes on a very different connotation now. Because now I know he’s responsible for such things. He was writing from experience.
I dunno, I thought it was pretty fucked up first time around too.
It was fucked up, but within the context of the comic, it was fucked up because a horrific and insane person was doing it.
Now it turns out, Gaiman was also doing it. But he didn’t need magic powers because he had real power.
He did have a Sandman story where a a writer who claimed to be a male feminist is raping a muse to be a good writer. Even the first time I read that years ago seemed a little on the nose, but I thought Gaiman was just making fun of himself in a dark way, and yeah I guess I wasn’t wrong.
They mention that in the article and yeah, upon reflection that’s pretty fucking sick.
Didn’t make it that far, not a fan of detailed rape descriptions
I honestly do not blame you. This goes beyond even (I hate to call it this) common rape. This is absolutely deranged behavior even for a rapist. I read things I cannot unread.
I think it’s not possible to see that far. Ability to write good stories and ability to maintain ethical behaviour, they’re probably unrelated abilities.
For example, Yevgeni Prigozhin actually wrote decent children’s stories, but alas, his personal ethics didn’t prevent becoming Putin’s accomplice with a private military company.
if you want to spend time re-reading those books, might I suggest spending that time finding new authors that are more deserving of your time and attention? Yes the books were pretty great; yes this situation is awful.
Just, find new good books.
I mentioned this above, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anything feminist (or even particularly progressive or political at all) in Gaiman’s writing. But maybe there’s things I missed… Do you know of any examples of him presenting something clearly feminist?
Edit: I see someone post an example below, it’s not something I’ve read.
This is way worse than the J.K. Rowling turned TERF bit. These are actual crimes committed against women.
I legit really enjoyed many of his works, Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett, is an all time classic, and I used to be proud of the fact that I actually met the man, as did one of my oldest friends as well as my brother in law.
Now it’s all like “What the fuck?”
That must be creepy³ :0
Is it awful that a part of me is glad Terry Pratchett is gone and doesn’t have to face this about someone who was a friend and co-writer?
Given how progressive Pratchett’s stories were I would have a hard time believing he was a bad person or could support bad people, and I imagine this would be hard on him. Then again perhaps I’m just selfishly glad that I don’t have to know if he didn’t respond appropriately by distancing himself.
Don’t know if I’m even making sense. This is just so disheartening given how many people I know absolutely loved Gaiman.
It does raise the spectre of “how much did Terry know?” I really hope he was blissfully ignorant of all of it because, frankly, it’s more than I personally ever wanted to know.
Yeah, that’s occurred to me as well. For context I haven’t brought myself to read the specifics yet, so I don’t know all the details. I don’t like to comment when I’ve only read the title, but I’ve seen enough trigger warnings to put this one off until I’m ready.
I’ll just say this, I DID read the details and it is incredibly, deeply fucked up. Fucked up to the point I’m not ashamed to say I’d like to see Gaiman criminally charged. If you do not know, then you’re better off for not knowing.
Pratchett had a deep sense of justice, and was driven by a righteous rage - as described (ironically) by Gaiman in the introduction to Pratchett’s “A Slip of the Keyboard”.
Pratchett also has multiple books with a primary focus on feminism (Equal Rights, Monstrous Regiment), and lots of his other books have feminist takes sprinkled through them.
I’ve read a bit of Gaiman (not as much as of Pratchett), and I don’t think I remember reading anything explicitly feminist. He seems much more obsessed with fantastic mythology than anything with sociopolitical relevance.
Anyway, who knows how Pratchett would have reacted, but I kind of wish he WAS here to see it, because I suspect he would have said something really good about it…
Tori Amos commented on the allegations:
Gaiman is the godfather to one of her kids and apparently she was pretty close to him. If she didn’t know, I feel like Terry Pratchett wouldn’t have known either. This isn’t like with Epstein where association implies knowledge of what was going on. After reading all that I have on the allegations, I’m comfortable believing that Pratchett wouldn’t have known anything about the alleged sexual assault and if he knew anything, it was that Gaiman was known to sleep around… consensually… with adults. (Because apparently this seems to be known among people close to him… including that he and Palmer allegedly had an open marriage)
So unless further info comes out that indicates otherwise, I will continue to enjoy Pratchett’s works.
The article seems to argue that Neil was able to pull the wool over a lot of people’s eyes, and it’s perfectly reasonable for a lot of people close to him to be in the dark about all of this.
I really hope he didn’t know anything about it. Not awful at all, my first reaction when the gf mentioned this headline to me was “oh god please tell me Terry (GNU) wasn’t involved.”
You really should. Sandman and American Gods are incredible, and he also occasionally dipped into trashy comic fare, also enjoyable. He’s one trait I guess comes from the comics he used to do, his best stories are all with other people’s characters. I don’t think he’s ever used a original character, they’re all like mythological tropes. Even supposedly original protagonists turn out to be Balder or some shit.
I think Mirrormask and Coraline were fairly original?
Not really up on his “kid” stuff, I could be completely wrong
Sandman was my teenage years. The series got me into the goth subculture which led to such great experiences in my life. Finding out Gaiman is a monstrous piece of shit has been gut punch.
I have no evidence, but I believe Orson Scott Card has a thing for little boys. I devoured his books when I was a tween, but began to feel uneasy over time. There was a reoccurring theme of young boys being put in graphic situations that just, I don’t know, but I’ve never been able to shake that feeling. Song Master pushed me over the edge. A ‘beautiful young boy’ being castrated so he doesn’t go through puberty was when I stopped reading. My Spidey sense had never stopped going off about him since then.
Aaaand I just googled. I’m not the only one who picked up on that. Ew
Card is also a giant piece of shit in other ways, which is unfortunate because he is a good writer and his essays on the methodology of writing are excellent.
www.wired.com/2013/10/enders-game/
I find it difficult to reconcile how the writer of Speaker for the Dead is such a bigot. Dude took a hard swerve at some point.
You’re not alone in your confusion there, friend. Reading Speaker for the Dead and finding out about who the author was as a person blows my mind as to how such a bigot could even conceive of the ideas in that book.
yeah some of those authors…Like Heinlein’s later novels, what was with the fucking incest?
Huh. I never noticed, but that actually explains Ender’s Game.
Felt that way about luc besson films, Leon is great but has deep pedo vibes, then I find out besson wanted a sex scene between Leon and the kid. Also the fifth element, liloo is essentially a baby, but she’s the one everyone wants.
This is certainly going to have an effect on Tumblr.
It’s not new information but mostly new details - tumblr has been dealing (or really, trying to deal) with this since July.
There’s a lot of good books written by awful people. I guess Gaiman might be one of those awful people
Sounds like someone who suffered from serious abuse, never went to actual therapy in a meaningful way but instead got into a position of power where he could feel good by being the abuser instead of the abused. Which does not excuse any of it. On the contrary, his writing shows very clearly that he understands that what he did was wrong, but he did it regardless.
This was a very disturbing read. I’m glad some of the survivors found each and other and are coming out with story, and I hope wierdo gets prison time so he won’t be able to do this to anyone else
I never liked his books. Just kept trying and trying to get into them, seemed like everyone was reading Sandman and American gods and I was just struggling to finish Neverwhere. Like there was something just…wrong about it. Now I’m thinking I saw something under those words he wrote. Something I didn’t like.
The sandman tv show was pretty good
Before I knew any of the horrible stuff about him I still couldn’t get into his books. There is a focus on style and tone at the expense of narrative and plot. That just doesn’t work for me at all.
My partner and I are right there with you. Could never understand why so many people were so enamored. I tried really hard to like his writing, and there were a few that were ok, and some had a neat concept, but that was the best I could dredge up to say about them.
I doubt I was subconsciously seeing something in them, but I do think there’s a stylistic thing that never resonated with me. And now I’m glad. I am grateful to not feel the grief of losing an artist who meant something to me.
This is true for me too. I liked a few of his books, and The Sandman, but I didn’t love anything, not enough to recommend them to others. Except Good Omens, which has always been a favourite (but then, Pratchett IS one of my favourite authors.
Also the film Mirrormask and Coraline were great - his work seems better in film than in writing.
I’ve always been told I’d enjoy Sandman, but… I never really did more than dip my toes in because there was just this “vibe” to it…
Welp, that’s yet another maker of incredible art that turned out to be an absolute monster. Fucking hell.
If what he says about The Ocean at the End of the Lane about the kid representing him is true, then he’s just another case of keeping a vicious cycle of abuse going. He should’ve sought psychological help. Hell, he should seek psychological help now, the media would love to write about his RL redemption.
Serving for his rape crimes would also be nice.
I was just thinking about how people that are idolized like David Bowie and Bob Dylan are going to have their legacies ruined when all their crimes come to light
I have enjoyed Gaiman’s writing, also the Sandman show was excellent, but I am glad that in this era that I’m not the type of person to be a fan of anybody. I guess it is natural to ascribe virtue and look up to people who create thing you resonate with, but there’s no reason to think someone who wrote a book is worth praising or emulating other than in the book you liked.
I didn’t heed the warning and regretted reading the whole thing - there are very detailed and gruesome first hand accounts of his alleged assaults on multiple women. Excellent reporting throughout, which only makes it more sickening.
Also, as a former Amanda Palmer fan, fuck her, too. It’s clear she enabled this and committed, at minimum, wage theft crimes. Both of them deserve to do jail time with even the most generous best-case-scenarios. I’m sure she was also abused by him, but that is not an excuse to abuse other women. Some feminist.
Wait what happen with Amanda Palmer? I’ve looked her stuff for a while what did she do?
She was married to him and enabled him.
Idk how to format, but I want to save you from reading if you need that. So here’s a brief list of claims in the article:
Just…awful stuff, and this is best case scenario, FFS. She is fucking trash.
That’s really sad and disappointing
God, she was one of my favorite artists. This is really crushing to learn. It’s so counter to everything she seemed to stand for.
And fuck, Ampersand no longer feels like an empowering song about marriage.
Right there with you. I believe Gaiman was using her as a smokescreen for exactly that reason. (I’m being generous and assuming she wasn’t actively and deliberately trafficking women for him.)
And yes, there are a lot of song lyrics / tweets / media that aged like milk for both of them.
Amanda Palmer also routinely didn’t pay musicians and other people who worked for her, and defended Jian Ghomeshi the sex predator and abuser. She also faked her own suicide to record her then boyfriend’s reaction, who them died of suicide six months later.
That’s awful. I had no idea :(
I never liked her. She always struck me as the worst kind of drama club narcissist.
The sandman audiobooks were so good. I don’t expect they’ll be finished now, if they were, I don’t expect I’d be buying them.
Yup, big fan of his work, really pissed off to find out he’s such an asshole. But I’m glad we live in an era where creeps can get their due. Fuck this guy.
But it’s mere hearsay. Is your judgment so casual?
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Go back to Reddit, douchebag.
You get angry at people you never met, based on stories written by people you never met.
Your anger is very cheap.
Your mother is cheap, too.
Just block him he’s a teenage troll trying to piss people off
Hearsay, eh?
9 women, the youngest being 18, are all saying the same thing, and he also made them sign NDA’s. [Content Warning]
You literally only know that because you heard somebody say it
And yet here you are sticking up for Gaiman because of what he said over what 9 women said.
I am only criticizing you people actually. There’s a lot of room for criticism. Your whole process is retarded.
And yes, you are going after Neil like a mob of 12th century potato farmers.
Statistically speaking, the likelihood of someone lying about sexual assault is low, a reasonable estimate being around 3-4%. When you have 9 separate people making the same claim, it gives credance to the idea that the odds of their claims being false is very low.
What people? All I have is a story, same as you.
You also have a lot of downvotes because everyone else is far more likely correct. So there’s that. This isn’t a jury trial. He’s not innocent until proven guilty in the court of public opinion.
I’d happily eat my words if reasonable doubt arose for half those cases. I want to like him because I like his work, but he legit has that kind of sordid and sad history that fucks people up.
Just be glad that his work stands on it’s own without his hangups. After you find out the characters and themes Lovecraft used were because he was disgusted by interracial children it’s a lot harder to keep that shit behind the fourth wall.
amultiverse.com/…/jk-rowling-and-the-league-of-di…
I have downvotes because I dare to contradict this gibbering mob.
heh hardly :)
Before such articles are published, the journalists would have had to have collected a lot of information and had the article reviewed by their legal team. For so many women out there, sexual assault is a very real and terrible thing that they’ve experienced, with around 1 in 3 women globally being subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime, and I would not even consider relegating their experiences to a mere “story”.
Until you actually meet the witnesses or see the evidence, that’s all you’ve got. A story.
You could suspend judgment.
You don’t actually need to have a hate party. It’s so 1984.
Unless it’s an AI or an automated response, that’s how everyone knows everything. They either heard it or read it from someone else.
I see stuff and meet people in real life, actually.
And then they tell you things that you were not there to witness. That is literally how communication works.
You just seem to think that people you meet in real life are less likely to lie to you than people in an article that shows that a huge amount of research was done and I’m not sure why.
In real life you can talk to people that you know and see things with your own eyes. This is better than essays written by anonymous people on the internet.
And those people could be lying to you. Every single one of them. How do you know they aren’t? Why do you trust them?
Surely you are familiar with the difference between real life and social media.
Social media is part of real life. Humans are not more honest just because you can look them in the eye.
Actually they are more honest. It’s harder to lie. And easier to detect lies. And the repercussions for lying are greater. This makes for less lying.
And that’s without bringing actual firsthand experience into the argument.
No, social media is good for many things, but it is ultimately just a child’s cartoon. A ghostworld.
That is an hilariously naïve thing to say.
Also, I have met many real friends over the internet who I have only interacted with over the internet. I have a friend in Turkey I have never met in person but we feel like family to each other.
Just because you can’t make personal connections here doesn’t mean no one can.
There is infinitely more to human interaction than a stream of symbols and images. Trust me on this.
No, I won’t “trust you” on that because you are wrong.
People for centuries have developed extremely deep and personal friendships through the mail.
Furthermore, we now have decades of people in long-term stable relationships where they fell in love over the internet.
Even before the internet, I met a girlfriend from another school via BBSes in high school. We didn’t meet in person for months and it was no different when we met in person in terms of how we felt about each other.
Again, just because you can’t make personal connections on the internet doesn’t mean no one can.
I’m sure it was deeply fulfilling. Or some relative equivalent thereof.
How could you possibly know one way or the other? Are you psychic? Are your needs everyone’s needs?
I know because I know what the medium is like. I have that perspective.
Again- are your needs everyone’s needs?
In this world of fucked up authors, it’s sad that I’m impressed that he didn’t go below 18.
That we know about.
I’m already turning down any party invitations from him, i’ll wait to hear underage before I worry about that one :P
That’s some sad reading. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, from the point where the train crashes back to where the company forces an engineer to cut corners on the design.
Legal classification: probably rape, definitely sexual assault.
An enabling factor: wealth (he was in a position to influence other’s well-being economically, offer hush money and sign non-disclosure agreements).
An excuse: BDSM. The author of the article is correct to note:
As for the search for the origin of his behaviour… I think they’re on the right track. Like a former child soldier who carries a war inside them, Gaiman has probably been carrying a lot inside.
Reading this, it seems obvious that Gaiman developed his behaviour due to trauma during childhood and youth - and has been exhibiting behaviour patterns that became normalized for him during time in the cult.
As for people whom he assaulted, it seems that they too carry a pattern - they were vulnerable at the time. Some had already experienced violence on themselves. Which, it seems - often hadn’t been resolved, but had become normalized. They were not the kind of people whose “no” is followed by physical self-defense or the full weight of legal options - and Gaiman understood enough to recognize: with them, he could get away with doing things.
Well, what can I say about it…
…it is customary that accusations be investigated by cops (who hopefully cannot be bought) and presented as charges to a court of law. The defendant should have a chance to deny or excuse their actions, but if deemed guilty, is required to give up time or resources either as compensation or punishment. A court could make lesser or greater punishment dependent on taking action to fix one’s behaviour traits - seeking assistance and not offending again. Those harmed should be offered assistance by their societies.
Welp, I guess if I still want to read any of his books, there will probably be a ton of them at the thrift store
Annual vpn subscription: $75
20 TB home server: $450
Enjoying the art while the shitheel artist doesn’t profit: Priceless
When you want an artist to benefit from their creative works, support them directly. For everything else, there’s piracy
You people cry shitheel with so little substantiating evidence.
<img alt="" src="https://media0.giphy.com/media/13VSAbTVuYJfLa/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b95204xocztshtftgb59slqidiq1h1rxiuqe1wtt5674&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g">
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ETA: man I’m glad i responded as i did, the poster I was replying to is clearly a troll.
15 accusations, voicemails of him setting up hush money payments, NDAs, none of this points to lacking merit. 1 woman, yeah it could be false or misleading. 15? Either this is very very likely to be true, or someone with tons of money has convinced a huge swath of real people in his life and not total strangers to publicly destroy him in a conspiracy that would be on the scale of a military operation. How much money would it take for you to knowingly lie about an innocent person you babysat for, who, if this isn’t true, is lovely to know by all professional accounts. What kind of dollar figure would that take? Would you be willing to do this without possessing the money already? Would you demand that in advance? Who would contact you to get you into this conspiracy? Certainly not the benefactor. How would they know you wouldn’t flip on them in a heartbeat? Or simply out them to begin because you’re not a horrible person. 15 times. Successfully. That’s what this requires. People who are known to have worked for him. That’s you’re pool. That’s a very shallow pool. 15 successful payoffs with no deserters or whistleblowers? Accusing someone of a crime isn’t fruitful. You don’t get fame or money out of this, particularly if you have 15 victims on your side sharing the supposed limelight and potential pay day. And why if that’s all they wanted, why would they go further than blackmail? They were already getting paid off. More women came out after the first 5? More? 10 people were like oh, they are getting 1/5th of the spotlight. I want that. I’ll get 1/15th of a spotlight! All I have to do is ruin the life of the rich guy paying me off right now. It makes NO sense.
I actually never met Neil Gaiman, or the people making the accusations, or the person who wrote the article. How about you?
Is your bar that you have to meet the victim to believe them?
Actually yes. Before I condemn somebody I insist upon meeting the fellow, interviewing the witnesses and seeing the evidence.
With what expertise and training? Do we all have to wait until big_fat_fluffy has concluded his investigations before we can trust that any criminal activity has occurred?
Yea, the legal systems has slowed to a crawl with this new policy
Do you have to meet the meteorologist and check his data and model to believe their weather forecast? Do you have to meet every single politician, scientist, news reporter, just everyone, to believe any news at all?
If I’m going to revile somebody, yes.
You’re THIS ridiculous? OK. Utterly pointless. Next time lead with ‘‘I’m insane and don’t believe anything or anyone unless I’ve personally met them myself’’ save everyone some time.
Is this you? What is your evidence that everyone does what you claim they do?
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/853d18bb-fe50-482b-bc77-049a8757b8b4.png">
What?
You are arguing that you can’t know things other people tell you. So how do you know that everyone fakes it? Did everyone tell you? Every single person? Are they all telling the truth?
It’s just weak evidence. Hearsay.
That’s literally what you’re arguing against believing in this thread.
I guess it’s different when you do it.
Your leap of logic is rather tenuous. Can you rephrase?
No it isn’t. You just don’t like the criticism. You’re fine believing what you call hearsay when it suits you.
I’m really not understanding your argument
And now I don’t believe you.
Just state it plainly. Succinctly. Clearly. Then there will be no room for uncertainty.
Read next time:
And what hearsay am I accused of believing?
Once again, read:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/638cc879-a105-425a-90ab-9adde66301e9.png">
Or are you going to actually claim that you talked to “everybody” wherever “down here” is and they all told you they faked their cover letters and none of them lied about it?
Oh good lord, is it the tiny text at the top? I’m just not seeing it.
How about you just tell me.
Nah, how about you stop trolling before you get banned for it?
Just say it. It’s easy. I mean I assume it’s easy. Asking me to pick through your “meme” is ridiculous. Just state your dumb accusation already.
And with that added bit of incivility, you have made your choice.
I dunno. Pirating it is still giving them attention. Talking about it, bringing them up, giving them relevance. You’re paying for it with mental space. But when you straight up shun them, they wither away.
Like the great Terry Pratchett (rip), I see them like Small Gods: you give them power when you believe they exist.
GNU Terry Pratchett
I don’t think I would introduce someone to NG’s work if they were unfamiliar with him. So in that sense, yes, talking about them gives them relevance. However, i disagree that pirating in some way benefits the artist. Promotion does.
Where I do see an alignment with Sir Terry is from Reaper Man. Until the person’s works come to a finish, they continue to live. The thing is, will they live on loved, like Terry Pratchett, or hated, like Jimmy Saville. I didn’t believe in hell. But I think, particularly for an artist or entertainer, the knowledge that after you die your memory will be hated, well, that’s a living hell of it’s own for a certain type of person. I genuinely hope Harvey Weinstein the rapist is one of those people.
But back to the point. I’m not paying anything in mental energy if I watch Sandman again. If NG is a cunt, it doesn’t change the fact that Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, is a BAMF and I’ll watch the shit out of his show
Libraries are free.
There’s also the Libby app
I’m wondering if the editor doesn’t want the article to be read. It starts off so lengthy and boring, I was ready to give up after the first 3 or 4 paragraphs, and just didn’t manage to finish thanks to the prosaic writing style. Hope some actual news outlet picks it up and sticks to the facts.
Thank you, I thought it was just me. I got through a bit more than you it seems but I still started skipping paragraphs at a time before giving up.
Yeah that article is a slog. It’s 5-10x longer than it needs to be. I get they’re trying to set the tone, but holy shit.
It’s a “long form” story. Sometimes you need that to provide context. Also it helps treat people like people, not just like statistics.
burn the witch!
Why do people get so concerned about what artists do in their personal lives? Authors are fucking weirdos, I don’t let it affect my reading choices. I’m sure Chaucer was a dickhole, but whatever
Is this some shit-tier trolling or do you really think it’s OK to financial support someone who anally rapes women and fucks in front of his kids?
Ask any living successful creative of any kind. They will all tell you the same thing ‘‘I am truly sorry this is so, but the biggest factor in your success is going to be how well you manage social media accounts’’
That’s depressing.
I have a giant flatulant zombie alligator in my living room. Of course I’m going to feed it regularly.
If you need to be blocked this badly, OK.
First, people love to burn witches. Screw any moral, logical or aesthetic implications. They can’t even spell it. They just want a witch to burn.
Second, people love to cut down anybody taller then them. And Neil Gaiman is a very tall fellow.
All that love, it’s inevitable.
I mean I keep hearing that Roman Polanski is a good director but I’ll never know, cause I refuse to watch anything made by a convicted pedo. It’s easy to live without a book or movie
Gross. I’m glad this particular milkshake duck wasn’t one I cared about. I still won’t spend any more money on JK Rowling’s stuff ever again.
Milkshake duck?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkshake_Duck
Copy/paste- pixelatedboat @pixelatedboat Twitter logo, a stylized blue bird
The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! 5 seconds later We regret to inform you the duck is racist
Today I learned!
This article from 2017 is worth a read for anyone trying to figure out whether/how to separate the art from the artist.
What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? By Claire Dederer, Paris Review, November 20, 2017 www.theparisreview.org/blog/…/art-monstrous-men/
I never read this and I really appreciate the share.
Some parts that spoke to me:
Yeah. Guilty.
I found this fascinating. While I was confused by Allen’s statement and why women found it so disgusting, the Trump parallel made it click.
Going back to Gaiman, his work is held to a very high standard. But to say you dislike it, you will be met with confusion or even anger. And this is where this piece really spoke to me.
A tangent in the essay about women writers. I found it fascinating that when a fuckface like Elon Musk abandoning his more than dozen kids can still rise the ranks. but God forbid a woman does the same.
There really is no answer to this that the author provides.
The tangent I shared is her last thought: does great art only come from monsters? I think a lot about other creative works, painters, comedians film makers… Who does some wild shit but not nearly to the level of Gaiman’s accusations.
Also, like all summaries, read it yourself and find your own takeaways. It’s the nuance, not the summary, that has value.
Nah. It’s well known that power corrupts and being a great artist is a form of power, so that skews things perhaps, but I really don’t think there’s a direct correlation.
I’m not convinced that power corrupts, I believe it reveals.
I’m just going to assume all authors are creeps from outset from now on.
ISHYGDDT
YAAS.
Your Acronyms Are Shit.
Wow. Several of the instances described are quite clearly rape; with some horrible scarring and degrading stuff through in; exploiting power-imbalance to make it possible. What I struggle to fully understand though are the text messages mentioned in the story. Gaiman argues that there was consent, and there are things said in those text messages that might support him. But the other circumstances, and the pattern of behaviour across multiple victims surely is enough to overrule that.
Pleasing your abuser and even returning to them because all you have ever known is abuse and they are showing you attention is extremely common. This situation sounds like one of those.
Edit: In the article they also point out that she didn’t actually think of it as rape until she described the situation to others. Which is something I have heard more than one other rape victim say.
I’m really disappointed in Amanda Palmer. This does not paint a pretty picture of her.
As far as I’m concerned Palmer is an active participant. There’s absolutely no way she didn’t know what was going on, and her public feminist stance provided extra credibility to Gaimen.
This is an extremely fucked up article. I don’t think anyone could read it and not be disturbed.