Hypocrites, You don't have to like us to respect our craft.

I see you out there, taking Kanyes spiral in to national socialism for self promotion and sweeping it under the rug, we see you enjoying Chris Browns beats, ignoring Caitlyn's car wreck, glorifying Oprahs promotion of harm, we even see some of you finding Lost Prophets without problem...

And that's fine, this thread isn't about judging any of that. Where you choose to draw your line between art and artist is up to you, it is an inherently personal thing. Only you can reconcile how you spend your money, and where you put the social currency of support, with the reality of a creators actions and your feelings around that.

Only you can make that choice, and you may make it however you see fit, after all the rest of us aren't living inside your headphones, we don't have to share our vision with what's on your screen. Though of course this changes if you want to put forth your support in a public manner, then you fairly open yourself up to debate, as your line in the sand criss-crosses others.

But by and large no one should dig through your Spotify playlists and slap you with the results, after all you're and adult, you separate the art from the artists, right?

That's why you're so disparaging of artists that challenge your view outside their work, right? Never mind their technical merits, or the aptness of their creations message, never mind the fact that you actually bought several of their works in the past, or that their work meets the standards of greatness you yourself impose upon works of art. Never mind any of that, the artist supports free public health care, Gaza, or trans rights, and that's just a bridge to far for you.

That taints all the work in your mind, it challenges who you are or what you believe so strongly that it undermines all they've created in your view, all you see now when looking at a painting you once admired, is trans flags. You can reconcile Nazism and spousal abuse, but a painter with left leaning politics? Absolutely not.

And once again, ill say that's fine, that's you're own internal knot of conflict and possible hypocrisy to untangle. However earlier when I said this wasn't about judging people for when they can and cant separate the art and artist, that was only half the truth. Because if you publicly advocate or claim it is acceptable to separate one artist and their work but not another, you invite comparison between the morale lines you've publicly drawn. In doing so you invite question and challenge of those lines. You are welcome to say you wont support an artwork because the artist is LGBTQ, but if you're then happy to advocate for an artwork despite its creator being a Neo-Nazi, you open yourself up to questions. Questions such as "so how do you end up ranking a Neo-Nazi as less harmful than someone who's gay"

When you put forth these ideas in public, when you try and sway public perception through their promotion, that internal knot of hypocrisy is on display, and others will pick at it, and you will have no recourse, because people are only acting within the lines you've drawn.