if only the problem was merely your strange use of the word irony.

[jlh]

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

(That link takes you to sparkymonster's entry, in which there are many photos of the product placement in Lady Gaga's "Telephone" video along with photos of various Klan activities. Work safe, but definitely disturbing.)

I find people who are outrageous for the sake of being outrageous to be seriously uninteresting, even more uninteresting than the people who are boring and middle-of-the-road, because at least those people know who they are and what they're doing. Celine Dion, for example, is very upfront that she's making music to be played in the background of people's lives, and you know, you have to respect that at least she knows where she fits in.

What I find even worse about the outrageous types is that if you're not on their train, then you don't understand art, don't understand their "journey", you're too conventional, whatever. Which I find incredibly, incredibly cowardly, the "you just don't get me" rationale. And that message is very effective, especially for people who think of themselves as open and are actually trying. (The people that don't have already wandered off.) They're the ones who really want the Emperor to be wearing, well, at least a thong.

Which is all to say, I didn't know of Amanda Palmer before she got together with her man, not that I really keep tabs on him either but the union showed up on fandomsecrets so I heard her name. (Though I do keep confusing it with Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks.) And thanks to a mention about some previous controversy in another post, I found her defensive blog entry about the Evelyn Evelyn matter.

And honestly, I don't want to listen to her music, because I really can't get on board with whatever she thinks her program is. It seems, to me, self-indulgent and attempting to step up to the line of offense without going over—to "make people think" as she says. When she's challenged, she starts hollering about context—when no one gets any context on twitter; that's the genius and the horror of it. Well, I think that she likes playing with fire, but blames her audience when she gets burned. And I don't have a lot of sympathy for that.

Comments

[alwayswondered]

I knew of Amanda Palmer before all this, but I first heard about her as a really cool feminist that a lot of my really cool feminist friends admired. I was never a fan of hers as I didn't like her music when I tried it, but I appreciated what she seemed to stand for and it's quite painful to see the aforementioned friends getting saddened and disillusioned by her increasingly appalling and clueless behaviour. I'm starting to dislike her a whole lot more than I ever liked her.