J00prstar

Surely the only people who would become 'new fans' after this would be those who like that he hasn't called it a genocide?

Well yes, exactly. He is putting customers first, even though he is already a multimillionaire with a net worth of over £300 million. He could never sell another thing in his life and still live beyond our wildest dreams. But that isn't enough.

I first read appalling enough oop

It's a very simple situation to me. What do you value more, morals, or money? Ed Sheeran has shown through his actions that he values money. For me personally I don't even mind that, what gets my back up is the dishonesty over it.

I think what everyone on this thread is dancing around and so I am going to say outright is that the bottom line is this is a lie. He doesn't 'want everyone to just enjoy the music'; he doesn't want Israelis and people who support Israel's actions to stop buying his music and paying for his concerts and his lifestyle. That is why he hasn't made a stronger statement and that is why people are criticising him, because he is essentially admitting that despite already being fabulously wealthy and successful, he is not willing to jeopardise the chance to become even more so by making a political statement that might alienate potential customers.

PR statement or no, leading with Israel isn't how I would have said it as it somewhat weakens the statement on Gaza. It reads like "and I guess Gaza is bad too but Israel is the primary victim here".

This is even worse, holy shit. Feels like any minute now Gal Godot will be announced as the new opener doing a monologue of her most emotional line readings.

Transistor used to be on the main album, I always wondered what happened to it!

I think what I find annoying also is how many people seem to have studied and learned about WWII in school and as an adult and yet come away with the understanding "WWII and the Holocaust were bad specifically because Germans were targeting based on ethnicity and creating untrue and misleading rumours about Jewish people and that is always wrong", instead of understanding that why it was wrong was because a group that sought total power was deliberately doing that to a minority group that was unable to defend itself and that THAT is what should be ensured to never happen again.

I think what frustrates me is that the letter of the rule in a lot of places now means that you can't say anything grossly offensive in an obvious way, but that isn't taken in most places further into the spirit that you shouldn't be offensive or be harmful, so now we are in the place as a society or within institutions where somebody speaking using strong words to express themself is viewed as 'worse' than something like deliberate insidious portrayal of an entire category or group of people as malicious or harmful based on lies or information deliberately taken out of context. And that now extends into how people self-censor on social media and express themselves irl as well.

Conversely, I loved when KY called them out for being delusional. The overuse of therapy language in normal conversation from about half the room was really getting on my nerves, I respect when someone can call it like it is. Tequila was absolutely atrocious in the challenge, terrible choice of character, terrible impersonation, no references and none of it was funny. You put raisins in your cake? What the f does that mean? It's not funny sis, not even a chuckle. Feel how you want to feel afterwards but all Kelly said to you was you weren't atrocious, it's on you if you took that as you being good. Surely you experienced your own perfomance and how Ru responded?

I wanted to make a topic on this generally because it's something close to my heart (and my blood pressure) and seems to only be growing as the days and years go on in impact and influence. I don't know that there's anything that can be done about it except continuing to hold awareness and be sceptical about things. I feel like broadly this site is one of the few places online nowadays that isn't completely overrun by bad faith arguing and frankly what feels like unrealistic and unnatural lines of argument. Everyone here still feels like a real person which can't be said for other online spaces, comment sections etc. Maybe I should withdraw from some of those other places but something in me can't let it go when misinformation and implication are being spread about deliberately to mislead or control people. It just feels so unfair though that people wouldn't just honestly promote their own ideology and let people decide for themselves, instead they would deliberately lie to win. (For example about immigration, crime, minorities in general, poverty, what they plan to spend the budget on, etc.) Where censorship comes into it is with things like rules governing what you can and can't say, written by people who give a pass to the propagandists. So for example on reddit, a journalist can post a racist article, and people can comment on what's in that article, agreeing, as long as in their comments they don't use explicit racial slurs. But if somebody calls them out for doing so, ah, that is 'making a personal attack' which is against the rules. So, the rules are thus implicitly pro racism through the politics of politeness. Rinse and repeat through other minorities.

Obviously this is going off piste but I don't understand why non Israeli people are remotely pro Israel anyway? And why everyone is expected to have an opinion on it. Where is this energy for the conflict in Sudan for example.

Me most months 💅

Apparently Imael Angel is AI, that's why!

What is that time and place if not on stage, mic in hand?

Art really didn't even put up a fight

not me coming 3rd! appreciate the love & glad yall enjoyed

I feel like mine was probably fairly obvious (except for Blacksquare)

N DTN wins, right?

Frankly I've never understood the idea that Jewish people feel in some way personally attacked or threatened when the Israeli army is criticised for their actions. I'm white and that doesn't mean I feel personally attacked when someone criticises or expresses fear and disgust toward Ian Huntley or Harold Shipman. How reductive and smooth brained to equate critique of someone's actions while being a person with certain physical characteristics as being a critique of those characteristics. Ed is rich enough already. The statement was poor. He clearly didn't threaten the stadiums or the owner and he could have. If he is truly concerned about the wellbeing of the tech crew he can well afford to pay them out of his own pocket! As for Pink, what she said was stupid, but if that's her view, she's entitled to it. She didn't have veto power here like Ed did though which is why I critique him harsher in this instance. At least her statement showed where she stands honestly instead of making excuses.

Irrationally annoyed that KY Kelly apparently shortens her name to KY rather than Kelly

No, heavier stuff! (Which might spoil my entry 😅 but we've all voted now)

I also thought Liquido sounded like a winner. I didn't expect this sound to most of them. I guess I'm basic with what I think of as 'guitar music'

Idk if there is specsavers near you but if so they have a little hoover they do it with & there's no waiting list