From Ariel to Armie Hammer: How Toxic Fandom & Toxic Stardom is making us all even more broken

It’s 2022, we’re living in the future, we can be anything we want, so a lot, so some, maybe. We already live halfway on Mars, fly through the air on e-scooters, eat green juice and sometimes keep it indoors, invent vaccines against pandemic viruses at lightning speed and thus heal part of the world’s population…

The future we could haveif we would / could concentrate our strengths on the good, and not some shitheads would get upset on the internet because the new Arielle is black, samma is actually still okay?

fans of the week

In the movie “The Little Mermaid”, due out in May 2023, has Halle Bailey (we love and cherish her as part of the R&B duo Chloe x Halle) as the red-haired mermaid, and once again, many can’t stand it. Adult men have been flooding the comment columns under the trailer videos and articles for days. They even approach it scientifically. YOUR Ariel lives under the surface of the water and that’s why it can’t be that … whatever. If it weren’t so racist, it would be weird. Previously dismissed as girl stuff, they are now willing to make any concessions to at least maintain white supremacy.

The “phenomenon” was also currently in relation to the series “Rings of Power”the spin-off of Lord of the Rings, where the problem is somehow supposed to be that elves and dwarves aren’t white… On the show The View, Whoopi Goldberg freaked out nicely about this:

“You know that? There are no dragons. There are no hobbits. Are you telling me Black people can’t be fake people too? Is that what you’re telling me? I don’t know if there’s like a hobbit club, I don’t know if there are gonna be protests, but people! What’s wrong with y’all?”

“Fake people”, it’s so beautiful. There is also a wonderful twitter thread collecting examples where the cast actor persona for the film and series differs from the description in the novel and, surprise, it just bothers people when whites are made non-whites or they imagine that the people in the novel are white because that’s the “normal” skin color for them and that’s how they imagined it. And then there are even cases where a character in a novel is even described as “dark-skinned” and it’s still shitstorming.

But one must not forget: Often these are all targeted troll attacks on ratings and comment columns by pathetic internet men and the actual appreciation for the films and series is greater than it sometimes appears in the course of such shit. We’re all definitely going to Arielle’s beautifully and it’s going to be magical.

And, now that everyone is talking about “Toxic Fandom”, for example in last weekend’s very good FOMO podcast episode…

…I would really like to talk more about Toxic Stardom, or rather: What are we actually willing to drive ourselves in for nonsense from our rich, famous artists? And also to literally drive in, looking at you, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, J.Lo, etc., who, with the insecurities of your fans, sell nonsensical and often harmful beauty products and keep getting richer and richer.

horror of the week

And then there are the particularly dangerous specimens: powerful men. The three-part documentary “House of Hammer” sheds light on the family history of Armie Hammer, you know, that actor who was accused of cannibalism last year that so many scoffed at. The allegations of abuse and rape, which were also made in the course of this, put many a bit “down the back”.

In fact, behind this guy and his lousy doings is a decades-long shit show by the men of the whole Hammer family, in which there have been countless cases of domestic violence, abuse, rape, corruption, manipulation, out of words, so much garbage , also political, was laid open there.

On the one hand, I don’t know whether it can really be the last word in wisdom that there is now a documentary series on every abuser and that these cases, which leave so many traumatized victims behind, are made into a pop culture phenomenon. At the same time, it finally gives all these women a voice and it makes these men feel less secure. On the other hand: How can it be, for example, that Armie Hammer sends such violent text messages under his real name in 2020, three years after #MeToo? How can he be so sure of himself? Sure it’s power. In fact, he has still not been charged. Just like countless men of culture hardly got any consequences for their actions. If hundreds of documentaries are needed for that, fine. But better laws are also needed regarding violence against women and all other conceivable ways of disempowering powerful men and their networks.

family of the week

Another family that is of course quasi-holy compared to the Hammer family is the Kelly Family. But even with the Kellys, not everything was fragrant, but quite a lot was very difficult and, if you want to put it harmlessly, characterized by a problematic authority: the father Kelly, who didn’t want to expect his children to go through the classic school education, but with them and his lot younger woman (all very strange too) toured different countries. Everyone had to perform there so that they had something to eat. The five-part documentary “The Kelly Family – The journey continues” has now started on RTL2 and sheds a so-called new light on the family’s past, told by the six remaining members. So the band, not the family, there’s more. How many, no one sees through them anymore, including the Kellys. Not all of them are still alive, some are kept secret and every now and then someone new comes along. An alleged half-brother Paul from the USA, for example, no, that’s clear. Conman series spin-off, I hear you trapping.

I was way too cool in the 90s to like the Kelly Family. Maybe I was too young, too atheist, too American-oriented, too angry or something. It wasn’t until many years later that I fell for the lying hippie nonsense that also drove the Kellys. But I hope to learn some Kelly knowledge from this documentary, including all the names. The first episode was promising. The old Kelly bus is activated again to search for clues, people in Rome are forced to sing, have staged conversations about childhood, pretend to live in the bus. But that’s okay, these people just don’t know any different. And RTL2 can only do RTL2, that’s why there’s a lot of editing, pointing out, meaningful nonsense comments and funny music over what’s been said, so that you think it was a joke, but actually it was a normal statement.

Death of the week: the Queen

One of the most toxic, deadly cults – the monarchy. Their most troubled family mourns. So what else is there to say that Chumbawamba hasn’t already said – and the Beatles added it?

“Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but I hope she’s the end of the line”

What happened until now? Here is an overview of all pop column texts.

<!–

–>

<!–

–>

ttn-29