So, Chris Avellone, for those who don’t know, is (or was) a famous game writer. He wrote much of Planescape:Torment, considered one of the best role-playing games of all time. It often sits at #1 on “best of” lists.
Last Year, Avellone was accused of inappropriate behaviour with a number of women. Game companies he’d been working with dropped him like he was greased shit; he became unemployable.
Now, I don’t know what Avellone did, or didn’t do, but what I do know is that if being cancelled means you’ll never have a good job ever again, you’ve got two choices: You can grovel (which rarely seems to work), or you can fight.
Well, or you can slink away, I guess. If you never need to work again, that’s an okay option, I suppose. Otherwise, your future is minimum wage McJobs.
Avellone has chosen to fight. I’m not sure it’s the smartest way (libel lawsuits are hell), but it’s the way he’s chosen.
Big names like C.K. Louis, the comedian, often bounce back fairly easily.
But the effects on mid- and low-level people are often catastrophic. Every time their name is entered into a search engine for the rest of their lives, what’ll come up is their alleged offense. Anyone who hires them knows that they are opening themselves up to a PR hit, so they don’t.
I’m not super-opposed to cancelling. For a long time, too many mid- and high-level celebrities lived in bubbles. The grapevine for insiders always knew about their issues, but outsiders were kept ignorant, and in the worst cases, young women were fed to them. This is certainly the case for Bill Cosby.
Cosby went to jail, eventually, and without the pile-on, that might never have happened.
But inappropriate behaviour and criminal behaviour are two different things, and the penalty of “will never have a decent job ever again” seems a bit high. Even when it doesn’t hit quite that level, as in the case of Alexis Kennedy, the hit can be harsh; his company went from expanding and illustrious to a small shop that will do one artisan game at a time. His little company had sponsored and helped multiple even smaller companies; all of them, save one, felt they had to give up the sponsorship, thus losing important help and money.
I feel a bit bad about Kennedy, because for about the first week and a half I shrugged and assumed it was true enough.
I looked into after a bit, because I admired Kennedy’s writing. The initial accusation was of being a sexual predator, but nothing that came out over the next couple weeks supported that. He had given his girlfriend a job at his firm (she begged him to), then when they broke up, he stopped praising her work and started criticizing it harshly. By all accounts, he was something of an asshole boss, though, and it’s equally possible that his praise was fake as it is that his criticism was motivated by the breakup.
He met his next girlfriend at work and, apparently, they flirted outrageously at a work event (she’s happy, they’re still together). He also apparently sat too close to some women for their comfort. There were some other offenses, mostly amounting to “an asshole boss who doesn’t follow his own procedures,” but nowhere was there any indication he was a sexual predator. No accusations of rape; not even an accusation of pressuring women for sex. He certainly seems to have weaseled on some things, but a lot of it came down to “he says/someone else says” about accusations that were almost all, at worst, “harsh language” and “two inappropriate relationships with juniors that they admit were consensual, and the unhappy one begged him for the job.”
But he still got cancelled.
I suppose this post would end better if I had a rousing finale about how I hate cancel culture or how it’s overall good, but really it’s just mob behaviour, little different from the social dynamics that used to be far more common in villages and institutions and rare outside of them. Sometimes the target “deserves” it, sometimes they don’t, and rather often, the person is disagreeable in some way. But the punishment is either disproportionate or they are accused of something they didn’t do because what they did do is shitty, but not something people feel they can hurt them for.
So I guess my non-rousing finale is, “Don’t believe it until you’ve done your own research.” Don’t become part of the mob, letting your emotions get away with you or shrug and assume something is probably true. It may be, it may not be, but you don’t actually know.
(Avellone’s Personal Post on the accusations.)
(My writing helps pay my rent and buys me food. So please consider subscribing or donating if you like my writing.)
Plague Species
Cosby goes to jail but McDonald Trump doesn’t? Talk about Critical Race Theory. Same with Bubba Clinton. All of them are serial rapist celebs yet only the black celeb goes to jail. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
Riddle me this. How come Kobe Bryant wasn’t canceled and was instead a liberal media darling even in, and especially in, death? Peyton Manning? Peyton was never canceled either and he’s a conservative media darling. Both had credible rape allegations leveled against them, hence they are rapists because once a rapist always a rapist. It’s not something you can atone for, it’s who you are, and one rape is as bad as three rapes or four.
Astrid
Cancel culture is authoritarian and it’s mindlessly authoritarian. It’s basically just a modern lynch mob. Even if the person is guilty, there are laws on the books to try and prosecute. At worst, if you don’t trust the legal system, shun them personally and lock up your daughters, but nobody should have the right to exact extrajudicial punishment against strangers.
In what feels like a blink of an eye, it’swiped away a cultural norm where people were told to presume innocence before trial and observe procedural due process safeguards. It also lead to insane injustices like the Alex Salmond case and Julian Assange case, where the clearly politically motivated accusation of sexual impropriety is used to destroy them long after the jury fully acquitted them if any actual guilt.
In a society where if you don’t work, you will likely be soon be destitute, it is also permanently and extrajudicially punishing people and their families. Even if they are guilty, the punishment shouldn’t be to be permanent penury without a chance of redemption. It also ensures that they punishment is disproportionate against poorer people since they don’t have a financial cushion to fall back on or publicity agents who might be able to change the messaging.
In my opinion, the cancel culture never did any good, not even in the Cosby or Epstein cares. The way to get justice for true victims of crimes is to force prosecutors and judges and cops to do their jobs properly and fairly, not for the mindless masses (really more like a small vocal clique of JMG’s rescuers, who are admired by a minority of the populace but quietly loathed by a fearful majority) to act as judge, jury, and executioner against strangers, based on the contents of a single tweet.
Astrid
The case that to me best exemplify this mindless mob mentality is against Woody Allen. Mia Farrow’s accusations made no sense when she initially made them in the 90s and he was cleared by the state and investigating psychologist after a thorough year long examination of evidence. We also know that false memories, especially by children pressured by parent’s with a specific agenda, is absolutely a thing.
Yet despite this and lack of any actual evidence of Allen’s guilt and ample documentation that Allen has a loving and durable marriage and family with his current wife, no evidence that he ever acted inappropriately against any of his actors and crew, and a thoughtful defense by Moses Farrow, the popular media has completely presumed his guilt and made him an unperson.
Now Allen is wealthy enough and has a good enough career (still making European financed movies in his 80s) that he isn’t really harmed by this malarkey. But the evidence free condemnations against him pretty much turned me against all the pop culture critics that I once respected. It might be one thing to fear the mob and not say something in defense of Allen, but to join the lynch mob tells me that I can either no longer trust their judgment or their ethics.
Plague Species
So you’re saying sex offenders can be rehabilitated? I’m not so sure they can be. Rape isn’t a mistake. It’s a deliberate, vicious, malevolent act. There is no “oops” when it comes to rape. Rape is emblematic of someone’s basic character. It’s part of who they are. Absent something as radical as electric shock therapy, you are what you are.
Plague Species
Whether Allen molested Soon-Yi Previn or not, marrying his stepdaughter shows Allen’s proclivity for breaching societal taboos. He has boundary issues. He’s creepy. He’s a creep. In the least. Also, he’s still free to make movies like he’s always been free to make movies. His proclivity to ignore societal taboos indicates he couldn’t care less what society thinks about him. He’s still rolling in dough.
Astrid
(not going to feed a troll who has abused me and others)
someofparts
It looks like the next step for these people is Biden’s domestic surveillance program. People who object to globalization and predatory capitalism are singled out for attention and who knows what else.
Taibbi’s substack has a feature called Meet the Censored, but his regular posts there are looking at this phenomenon from different perspectives. His newest post is a snappy little thing called ‘Our Endless Dinner with Robin DiAngelo’, which I’m going to go read right now.
Ché Pasa
A life of penury and worse is the fate of millions upon millions of unknown/unnamed/unfamous Americans who wind up “canceled” whether or not they’ve done anything they oughtn’t to because that’s how the system works. They have no chance to rise from the Lower Depths, and they have no choice in the matter. “Society” has determined their worthlessness one way or another, and that’s the way it is, world without end, amen.
From what I’ve seen, there is no concern whatever for those many millions who are effectively “canceled” by those who like to fret over the “cancellation” of someone they know or have heard of or who has become famous in some way or another.
The fact that social pressure is brought to bear on well-known personalities, people of status and often wealth, people who have made out well in our society, was until recently practically unheard of. Seeing it happen now is disorienting to be sure.
Is it fair? Well, consider all those millions who have effectively been “canceled” throughout history, and certainly now. Whether or not they’ve somehow been bad. Is what’s happened to them fair?
I’m a believer in redemptive and restorative justice. I despise the tendency to scapegoat individuals and whole segments of society for the sins of… well, everyone else. I think the systems we have in place don’t work and never have worked justly and fairly and I don’t think they can be reformed.
Something else is needed.
But can somebody point to a well-known person who’s been “canceled” who has actually been forced into penury, poverty or worse? Facing social opprobrium is unpleasant and may well be unfair, but if you’re already risen to the heights, or were born there, how far is the fall, really?
And no, as unpleasant as it may be, as unfair as it may be, “canceling” someone who was on top is not the equivalent of a lynch mob. The suggestion is deeply morally offensive.
Plague Species
Who knew, libertarians are a rapist’s best friends. Using opposition to the surveillance state as apologia and cover for rapist sex offenders is no better than Cancel Culture and its motivation and tactics. A reaction to poison is poison.
I’m sure Cosby and Weinstein and Trump and Clinton and Kobe and Manning and the myriad other persecuting rapists sex offenders would agree that I am a “t” (the new “n” word) and should be ignored.
Astrid
Che,
Fair enough. I’m conflating the degree of harm between an actual lynch mob and a virtual one. Though I should say that what was done to Alex Salmond is very ugly and very destructive, and those condemning him really don’t seem any more sensible than those in racist lynch mobs.
But, the existence of one greater injustice doesn’t negate the existence of smaller injustices.
I agree that focusing on the famous or even relatively privileged overlooks the precariat who are a $400 surprise expense from disaster. I would argue the other side though, that things like cancel culture reinforces this oppressive system, where people feel like they have to do whatever is necessary, to not fall into that precariat. That’s why there *should* be jobs guarantees, UBI, public housing, free public healthcare and education, good public transit, workers owned cooperatives, and no centimillionaires and billionaires. This is a rich enough society that precarity does not need to be so precarious. The only thing preventing it is the evil faith of liberals and Calvinists conservatives, and the mental pathologies of the rich assholes.
But all of that doesn’t convert what Salmond, Allen, Assange, and Alex Morse have suffered to not be injustices. Or that mob mentality and disdain for rules not to be extremely dangerous, especially when it’s turned against leftish activists and journalists.
BobbyK
Chris’s time line of events seems absolutely credible. Unfortunately his reputation will be sh!t never to recover. MeToo was always going to end up as a weapon against men women decide they have a problem with.
NR
Something that never gets mentioned in all the endless hand-wringing discussions about “cancel culture” is the fact that cancel culture existed long before the age of the internet and social media. For a long time, sexual harassment, assault, and abuse of women was commonplace in many different industries, and any woman who tried to speak up about it was “cancelled” and couldn’t get hired again anywhere in the industry she was trying to work. It wasn’t “cancel culture” when women (and minorities too, in different ways) got used up and run out of the industry they were trying to work in before their careers got off the ground. It only became “cancel culture” when the powerful men who abused them started being very slightly inconvenienced by having their abuse called out publicly.
The effect of social pressure on people’s careers isn’t new, but somehow, it only started being scrutinized when it stopped helping powerful abusive people and started hurting them. It wasn’t “cancel culture” when it was used to abuse people without power. It now is when it’s being used to check people committing the abuse.
Maybe think about why that is.
Plague Species
I’m going to check out the HBO documentary mentioned in this article. It appears Woody’s PR machine reaches even this venue in the far corner of The Net.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/hbo-s-allen-v-farrow-suggests-woody-allen-took-america-ncna1261093
Astrid
NR,
Two wrongs don’t make for a right. Those women were failed by a state that didn’t live up to its own commitment to prosecute wrongs and protect victims. Victimized by apparatchiks who saw wrongs and did nothing or actively worked to perpetuate those wrongs. How does throwing out presumption of innocence and due process help that toxic mix? But it can hurt real victims a plenty by associating in the public’s mind genuine, provable wrongs, with malicious slander.
You and Che speaks as though the victims of these virtual pograms are not victims because of their CIS white male privilege, or because someone else “on the other side” was hurt more. I disagree, a wrong is a wrong. And extrajudicial punishment is wrong even against guilty people. And considering how this had been effectively used against the left far more than the right and the”center” of Cuomo and Biden, it’s also victimizing the rest of us by depriving us of more progressive choices.
Why should Alex Morse or Julian Assange pay for the establishment’s enablement of Weinstein, Epstein, and Cosby, and continued enablement of Biden?
Plague Species
Those women, and minorities and dissenters I might add, were failed by a state owned by and directed by those who made them victims. They still are failed by it, in fact, and both sides of the “Cancel Culture” poison pill overshadow it and obscure it.
The State is not separate from these scumbags. It’s an extension of them. DA’s are celebs afterall. And NR is right, it wasn’t “Cancel Culture” and the sentiment behind the creation of that term before some of the victimizers had the spotlight shown on them.
Everyone is O.J. now.
Jeff in Texas
Generally speaking, what the people most agitated about cancel culture really hate is that people who were formerly untouchable can now to some degree be reached and punished. A mediocrity like Matt freaking Lauer had a button under his desk that locked his office door so he could trap women at work– and it went on for years until he was cancelled.
That said, Ian’s specific example here does not seem to fit the pattern– this guy is hardly a Cosby or Epstein, either in terms of his stature or what he is accused of doing.
The Aziz Ansari cancellation was another weird one– the accuser’s own story, if taken as 100% true, paint the picture of a guy who used his fame to have consensual sex with a grown woman who willingly went to his apartment and had sex with him. He was cancelled for being awkward, basically.
Trinity
Since I live in Cynic Land, it sounds to me like somebody wants what Chris Avellone has, or wants him shut down. This is an ongoing resource grab by the elite, first and foremost, so my analysis begins there.
But really great, thought provoking article and comments.
(I just scroll the troll.)
js
It seems the accusations may veer closer to sexual harassment than rape. If the women he sat too closely to were subordinates and there was therefore a level of intimidation to it. I suspect sexual harassment is pretty hard to prove in a court of law, even though there are laws. But taking it outside the legal system is also problematic.
Not able to hold a good job again is almost too much punishment for anyone, even those who have been convicted and served time in most cases. But of course many people will never hold a good job to begin and the “sins” for which it can be denied aren’t even sins (too big a gap on the resume, doesn’t have a degree, got fired form the last job even though the whole country is “at will” and the boss can fire you for any and no reason). But it doesn’t make forcing others to lose their good jobs via trial of public opinion any better.
As for whether sexual offenders can be rehabilitated. Well yes I believe so. But I have actually known sex offenders. So it’s not an abstract debate to me. And it doesn’t mean I condone sex offenses.
NR
Exactly right. And this isn’t the distant past we’re talking about, either. The Brock Turner case was only five or six years ago.
Powerful people absolutely believe in “cancel culture.” What they really object to is “criticism culture.”
They don’t want scrutiny, or dialogue, or democracy. They want silence, obedience, and authoritarianism. And they’ll use every tool available to them to get it.
It wasn’t “cancel culture” when Colin Kaepernick got blacklisted. It was only “cancel culture” when they guy who called him a son of a bitch got criticized.
Imagine how much better our society would be if powerful abusive people like Donald Trump were actually cancelled.
Ché Pasa
So Bill Cosby’s conviction has been overturned and he is now a free man.
RC
The cancel culture started when the ugly behavior of bigwigs finally caused cultural outrage.
Then the elites, like they always do, took it over. They decided to blow up and sensationalize accusations, and eventually forgive their own (Like they want to do with Ghis laine Maxwell)
Eventually the aim is that no one will take accusers seriously.
someofparts
Well, Ian advised not to be part of the mob. I would add that avoiding people who are predisposed to mob thinking would be a good plan too, as much as such a thing is possible.
Also, just for my own equanimity, I am trying to expect people I deal with casually to be potential hysterics unless proven otherwise. I think of it as comparable to defensive driving. Always be prepared for the other person to do something stupid. If they don’t, it is a pleasant surprise and I make it home in one piece.
astrid
Once #metoo backed Biden against Tara Reade, it lost any credibility it might have once had (after being huffy about Sander’s alleged chauvinism against Warren, which ran counter to anything Sanders had ever done or said). It’s just another wedge issue to be exploited by the neolibs and neocons, on behalf of their collective paymasters.
The idpol sold out everyone’s civil liberties so they can yell at a couple CIS (mostly white) males. No whore would ever be so cheap and dishonorable.
Willy
The term “Cancel culture” was advanced by the right for the purpose of getting away with a culture of cancelling. When our team doesn’t cancel and only their team cancels, then more power game options become available for us. Thus Liz Cheney wasn’t cancelled since cancelling only ever happens on the left. I suppose that if marching in lockstep is important for you then this makes perfect sense. But for me, not very compelling.
Lefties seem to love a good debate. So here we are trying to decide which cancelling is good and which cancelling is bad.
I was career cancelled. I certainly know what that’s like. ‘Good cancelling’ for me should be about making sure the subject about to be cancelled is clearly warned, then given chances to change behaviors, then is clearly explained why they got cancelled with all the unchanged behaviors being clearly documented for all to examine.
What makes this difficult is that there will always be some PTB that’ll simply adapt to these latest rules and try to control the narrative. And then the winners get to write history, right?
Thus the liberal media was clearly warned, was given chances to change behaviors, and now needs to clearly explained that they’re all and always nothing but “fake news”. And trolls become trolls not because they’re disingenuous disruptors who care nothing about advancing the debate, but because they’ve been successfully labeled a troll by somebody who got their feelings hurt.
Think about it. Who out of anybody alive would best fit the description of “Canceller in Chief”? Yes I’m leading a bit here, but seriously folks… persuade me otherwise.
Plague Species
It’s true. I just saw him in Kensington purchasing some quaaludes from a street vendor. As well as a couple of soft pretzels. Next stop for him? An appointment with a couple of aspiring actresses who have no idea about his past.
Stirling Newberry
Rumsfeld dead. No words can express what I feel.
Though “failure” comes close.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/politics/donald-rumsfeld-dead.html
js
The problem with laws is that they are almost always in practice (in terms of who can afford the lawsuit say) on the side of the powerful. So they only pose so much of a check on the behavior of those who are in a relative position of power. So you can say “let the law decide” but that sexual harassment lawsuit may go nowhere. But it doesn’t mean extra-legal measures work very well either. They might be worse.
The right automatically lost all right to complain about cancel culture and be taken at face value, when they started banning the teaching of a usually undefined “critical race theory”. I am sorry but how is this not a threat to cancel teachers? How is this not everything they might accuse the identity left of and then some?
metamars
While the attempt to cancel Trump’s presidency succeeded, the attempt to cancel the patriotic, national populist movement that Trump sort of leads (even though he’s a fake populist), has recently run into a roadblock.
The same guy from revolver.news that broke the story about “unindicted co-conspirators” in the Jan 6 Capitol riot, being FBI plants, has now crossed the Rubicon into declaring the FBI as instigators. I only heard a brief interview of him by Steve Bannon, but his argument had something to do with the Proud Boys leader being an FBI and Army Counterintelligence asset.
I don’t know why this is more evidential of the FBI being instigators, than what we already knew, but I haven’t really followed the story. Y’all can make for my sins by reading “Federal Protection of “Oath Keepers” Kingpin Stewart Rhodes Breaks The Entire Capitol “Insurrection” Lie Wide Open”.
IIRC, the claim was made that Tucker Carlson is being targeted by the NSA for spying because he’s revealing the truth of Jan 6. There’s no reason to believe that the bad boys are only in a single sliver of the Deep State. I already pointed out, so much, on this very blog.
I heard parts of, and report on, Trump’s Ohio rally speech. (He’s still telling that childish poem about the snake that bites the woman that let it inside, BTW. Oh, brother!) Not a hint of acknowledging the false flag elements of Jan 6; I doubt he mentioned his own followers who are now targeted by the Deep State, for such awful offences as trespassing for 10 minutes (like the grandmother who recently ‘confessed’).
I expect Trump to be of no help in fighting the CommieNazis. At best he’s a feckless coward. At worst, he’s not all that different from the Proud Boys dude.
Plague Species
This is a known known versus a known unknown or an unknown known or an unknown unknown. If Rummy was a sexual predator, he covered his tracks well.
I’m guessing Saddam has greeted him already in his new blistering climes.
Plague Species
Hey metamars, maybe Tucker can have an episode about how the FBI assassinated MLK. Geraldo did. Long ago, of course. Do you think Tucker’s audience would dig it? MLK was canceled the old fashion way. McDonald on the other hand, largely canceled himself. Every time he opens his mouth. It does beg the question, how many times can he cancel himself? As many as all the electrons in the universe?
Ché Pasa
It’s not just a matter of would-be Important People being “canceled”, it’s a narrative primarily about silencing critics of rightists from the so-called “left” (whatever that is these days; it’s a very fluid identity.)
The fact that people in the lower orders have been systematically subjected to suppression of speech and action and have had their lives and careers severely constrained or destroyed by the abusive actions of those above them simply doesn’t register with those who push the “cancel culture” meme. What happens to the underclass doesn’t matter to them. Only what happens to peers (in their minds), comrades, and those above them really matters.
Mob-like actions against Accused Wrong-Doers, regardless of status or class or sorts of wrong-doing, are unacceptable and should not happen, not least because they are not controllable and are often little more than ritualized scapegoating for the sins of everyone else. I’m old enough to remember numerous blog-swarms and twitter wars instigated by people like Glenn Greenwald (him again?) against those who displease, anger or otherwise don’t comport with the desires of the instigators — with the intention of getting people fired, of destroying their careers, of discrediting anything they might do or say.
This was well before MeToo or the rightist meme of “Cancel Culture.” Ian’s been around long enough to bear witness to what’s been going on for a long time. I don’t think he ever participated, and he might have objected as well.
As we see with the Cosby matter — and so many others — the justice system is so deeply compromised as to be essentially useless in many, indeed most, of the cases we’re talking about.
So the question is what should be and could be done if this were a sane society about people who… become at odds with the norms of society in general or with a specific segment of society?
Most of the offenses we’re talking about are not legal matters, and if they are, the justice systems generally can’t deal with them unless the perpetrator is of the underclass.
Ideally, institutions would be strong enough and inclusive enough to fend off the mobs. But many are not. Ideally, education would ensure that people would avoid scapegoating or mob action as a matter of course, but just the opposite is too often the case.
So what should we do?
Ben
BTW, Louis CK not CK Louis
(“CK” is the pronunciation of his weirdly-spelled last name, so he simplified things for his stage name)
(Or not, as the case may be lol)
anon
Cancel culture is a very good reason to limit one’s use of social media. One tweet, video, photo, or comment could ruin a person’s life . Nothing can permanently be scrubbed from the internet. We can argue whether cancel culture is good or bad, but it won’t go away anytime soon, if ever. People love to relish in the downfall of others, especially if those people are more beautiful, popular, or successful. Jealousy and hate are part of human nature. I tell my friends to keep in mind that there is always someone out there keeping tabs and waiting for the day you get into a prestigious university or career to come forward with the receipts they’ve collected on you.
I’ve always believed in due process and substantiating allegations before ruining someone’s life. But people would rather than jump to conclusions and have someone destroyed before allowing any process to play out and a proper investigation conducted.
metamars
Yikes. It wasn’t the Proud Boys leader that was recently outed as an unindicted co-conspirator/asset of FBI “and/or” Army counterintelligence, but rather the leader of the Oath Keepers.
As per the title of the article I quoted….
From the article (still haven’t read it, but listened to the rest of the author’s interview by Bannon):
I hope Tucker Carlson finds the nerve to repeat this info on his show.
Soredemos
Cancel culture is so fucking capitalistic. It’s like planned obsolescence for humans.
In fact no one ‘deserves’ to be canceled, in the sense of “you’ll never work in this town again!”. To say they deserve it is to say they deserve to be unemployed (or reduced to working whatever crap job they can find), which brings suffering not just on them but also possibly their family by extension.
Now this doesn’t really matter for people like Weinstein or Cosby, who at the end of the day will still be millionaires. But how much is Chris Avellone worth? I don’t know; I can’t find any credible seeming numbers. But he’s probably much further down the pole than those other two. And he’s far from the least person to have had their career ruined by accusations. For every big name case there are far more accusations against people who have no generous nest egg to fall back on.
I have zero sympathy for gropers and rapists, but if you’re okay with destroying careers and likely massively reducing standards of living for ‘bad people’, why not just cut to the chase and execute them yourself, on the spot? Save everyone the trouble of a slow death.
And that’s of course just talking about people who have a. actually done anything at all, and b. what they’ve done is actually a true violation. There is in fact an ocean of difference between “you made me feel uncomfortable by complimenting my dress” and “you cornered and raped me in the copy room”.
One of the few genuinely good parts of Christianity were the ideas of forgiveness and redemption, but today we’re adopting what amounts to secular religious fervor with no forgiveness or redemption. So all the shit parts, with none of the good aspects. So that’s where we are now: an accusation, presumption of guilt, little realistic chance of actually proving the accusation false if it is, and your career is probably toast even if you could prove innocence (if there even is any kind of criminal trial, which there seldom is). It’s very likely no employer will touch Avellone regardless of the outcome to all this, simply because of the optics of it.
If we’re talking videos games, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Jeremy Soule was one of the biggest composers in the industry, up until a couple years agao when he was accused of harrasement and rape. Did he actually do anything? Who knows; no charges were ever filled. But his career seems to have ended there and then, brought to a complete standstill. But at least he’s still alive.
The same can’t be said for Alec Holowka, who after being accused by a woman with a history of, shall we say, tenuous connections to the truth, was almost immediately abandoned by his co-developer ‘friends’ and killed himself. Said ‘friends’ claimed other ‘credible’ allegations had been brought to their attention in the aftermath of the original accusation and that’s what led them to disown him. What were these accusations? What was the ‘credible’ evidence? Who knows, we the public never get to see anything as inconsequential as ‘evidence’, because, of course, never any hint of charges and a trial. Did he actually do what he was accused of? Who knows. Did you kill himself out of remorse for his crimes, or did he instantly see his entire career was ruined over lies and fell into despair? We’ll probably never know.
KT Chong
If Woody Allen was a creep, then Mia Farrow was a slut. And a cheater, liar and manipulator.
Think about it: Mia Farrow became pregnant with and gave birth to Ronan Farrow in 1987, which is during her relationship with Woody Allen that lasted from 1980 to 1992. For two decades, Mia manipulated everyone — including Woody and the media — into believing Ronan is Woody’s biological son. Nowdays anyone can look Ronan and know he is Frank Sinatra’s biological son, so Mia can no longer lie and deny the obvious truth.
Which means: Mia Farrow cheated on — cuckolded — Woody Allen with Frank Sinatra. So either she was a slut who did not even know who had impregnated her, or she must have known and lied to Woody about Ronan’s paternity. Either way, she manipulated Woody into believing Ronan Farrow is his son.
We do not know what transpired behind the scenes between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. Maybe Woody found out that Mia had cuckolded him, and decided to take revenge on Mia Farrow — by hooking up with her adopted daughter. As a man and Chinese, revenge seemed to be a fair game to me. (Of course, I would have never dated a divorcee or single mother in the first place.)
I personally do not see any “taboo” about the relationship between Woody Allen and Soon-Yi. Woody Allen is NOT related to Soon-Yi Previn. He did NOT adopt Soon-Yi himself. Mia Farrow was the one who had adopted Soon-Yi when she was married to the musician André Previn. Let say if a man’s wife cheated on and cuckold him, and then he found out the only son they had together was not his biologically. So he cheated on his wife… with her SISTER-IN-LAW, and then he left his wife. Was that a taboo? No, that was revenge.
Granted, Woody Allen was a fool to date a single mother, and an even bigger fool to adopt (some of) her children; however, we know how manipulative Mia is, (atop of being a lying slut,) so it is reasonable to that she must have manipulated and pressured Woody into adopting Soon-Yi. Woody was a cuck and pussy, but at least he finally grew some balls in the end.
Just to be clear, as an Asian man, I do not usually look favorable upon relationships between Asian women and white men, (obviously whoever other people want to date or marry ultimately is none of my fucking business.) However, in Woody Allen’s case, having concluded from the sequence and timeline of events that Mia Farrow had cheated and cuckolded Woody Allen with Ronan Farrow, IMO Woody had good reason to hook up with Mia’s daughter as a big “fuck you” middle finger to Mia; and given how Mia is still angry and bitter after all these years, I would say Woody’s revenge on her must have been the sweetest.
KT Chong
Corrections:
Woody Allen did not initially make the decision to adopt Soon-Yi. Soon-Yi was a “baggage” that Mia Farrow brought into their relationship. I think Woody later adopted Soon-Yi, but I conjectured he adopted the girl under the manipulation and pressure of Mia, whom we know is a lying, manipulative slut, (i.e., she kept lying about Ronan Farrow’s paternity until recently, when Ronan’s Sinatra FACE would no longer allow her to keep lying.)
KT Chong
Didn’t Chris Avellone get into a huge legal tussle with Obsidian Entertainment just a few years ago?
Link: https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/updated-chris-avellone-talks-about-departure-from-obsidian-entertainment
The incident revealed Feargus Urquhart to be the biggest asshole. IMO, Urquhart knew about Microsoft was going to acquire Obsidian, and he was scheming for it. So he installed all his family members in the company and fired anyone else who could have claimed a stake.
Feargus Urquhart was not happy that Chris Avellone went public… Urquhart could have something to do with all those “Me Too” accusations against Avellone. Based on my observations: nowadays “Me Too” is more of a weapon being leveraged against opponents by paying off women to make false accusations.
, which revealed Feargus Urquhart to be the biggest asshole? Urquhart just suddently terminated Avellone’s contracts with Obsidian and refused to pay Avellone for works already done, and he cancelled — because Avellone took a contract with a competing studio.
Obsidian
Astrid
KT,
You make some good points but please read Wikipedia for a precis. Soon-Yi Previn was never adopted by Woody Allen and she’s is ethically Korean. They had basically no contact before she turned 19 despite Allen’s long relationship with Farrow.
Moses Farrow spells out family dynamics in a rather famous post that destroys Mia Farrow’s claims and hint that her behavior is more about projecting onto Allen what her earlier husbands ( esp. Sinatra whom she married at 17 and Sinatra was 51, she never condemned this when it’s far creepier) and her convicted sex offender brother, none of whom she condemned. What is happening here is like Israel transferring the guilt of Nazi Germans onto Hamas, while having no problem hanging out with ex Nazis and US Nazi sympathizers.
http://mosesfarrow.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-son-speaks-out-by-moses-farrow.html?m=1
Allen’s taste may or may not be creepy to the average person, but there’s no actual evidence that he ever abused any young person under his control (unless you want to go into whatever his first wife may or may nothave said about their relationship when they were both very young). He started his relationship with Soon Yi well after she became an adult and they married when she was 27. Whatever iffiness of Allen’s aethestic tastes, and I say this as someone who finds Manhattan very discomforting, Hollywood loved him until this current round of groundless hysteria and accusations. They are almost certainly shunning Allen to make up for their participation in letting Weinstein and Cosby victimize women for decades.
Plague Species
Now you’re just plain lying. She married Sinatra when she was 21. She was a virgin when she married him and lost her virginity to him. He was 50 at the time.
Why would you lie about this?
Astrid
Okay, you caught me, I miscalculated her age at time of her marriage based on her birth year and marriage year, but still, that relationship is just as much of age disparity as between Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn, so my point stands.
And you’re still an asshole troll who goes after women online because they expressing different opinions.
Plague Species
There is no such thing as a male or a female in virtual world as far as I’m concerned. You’re just an asexual screen name.
Plague Species
Mia Farrow was not Sinatra’s stepchild. I don’t advise men who are 50 to date and marry women who are 21. It’s not for me and it does make me question the 50-year-old man’s judgement. However, marrying your stepchild who you have known since they were 19 is another matter entirely. IT IS CREEPY. It is a boundary that should not be crossed, whereas a 50-year-old man dating and marrying a 21-year-old woman is approaching that boundary but not crossing it.
Astrid
No surprise that PS knows all about Mia Farrow’s marriage dates but keep repeating the lie that Soon-Yi Previn was ever Woody Allen’s child, when an earlier investigation found basically no contact with Allen before she turned 19. So there was no “grooming” going on.
Is the relationship icky or not? I see a happy and successful marriage between two adults who successfully raised two daughters, which seems a lot better than Farrow’s track record of 2 failed marriages, at least two kids who cut off contact with her, two likely suicides and another one who died young, and who dedicated the last 30 years of her life to making her ex and her adopted daughter’s life hell. I see people finding happiness wherever they are able. PS wants to damn people based on false information.
PS obviously think I and several others are so icky that he thinks about us all the time, obsessing about who we are, where we live, assuming that we must lie about our nationality or race or religion or something. I think that’s icky, but that’s just me.
anon
Glenn Greenwald does a great job of analyzing this issue using what is happening right now between TYT and Dore: https://youtu.be/WoXZP4m-Af8