Hey everybody, I’m back with a new post! I have a tendency to overthink things, and right now, this is what’s been on my mind. Feel free to tell me your opinion below in the comments!
With social media playing as big of a role in our lives, spreading information is easier and happens at a much quicker pace. We all know this, and have seen it happen on the daily for a while now. This also means if a famous artist, writer, musician or other famous person does something wrong, it’s harder to hide from the general public.
I recently talked about how with the whole Sarah Dessen Twitter drama, it has turned me completely off of buying any of her new books, and now I’m taking the opportunity to figure out what to get rid of on my bookshelves. It’s hard for me to read her stuff, as the knowledge of all her “bullshit” (I don’t know how else to describe it 🤣) in the back of my mind. By buying her books, I’m supporting someone who though “apologized” about her behavior, seems to be more sorry she was called out for it, than by her actions.
Side note: If you haven’t heard about my whole take on the Sarah Dessen drama, or just have no idea what I’m talking about, click here.
As I was thinking about this, I realized if this had happened before I had gotten a Twitter account, or if social media didn’t exist and Sarah Dessen was behaving like this behind the scenes, I most likely never would have heard anything about it. I would have kept looking back on her books in fondness and re-reading it when I was in the mood for some contemporary YA.
Ignorance is bliss, they say.
However, since social media does exist, and I have a Twitter account, I saw it all go down. I saw other writers with large followings support her, (as well as their followers), to the point that the person Sarah Dessen called out deleted all of her social media. How could I support someone who essentially bullied someone off the Internet? Which also leads to my question of the day:
How do people separate the art from the artist?
If you support the art, then you are inadvertently supporting the artist, right?
Plus, with a lot of art, the morals and ideas of the artist is portrayed through their art (that’s part of the reasons why they do what they do in the first place, to express themselves). Granted, if it’s someone who is in it for the money, maybe they don’t put as much of themselves into their art as other artists might. That topic is a whole entire discussion of its own, and not relevant to this topic.
Anyways, how do you separate these two entities, when they aren’t really separate in the first place?
Personally, I can’t, which means if whichever artist I support ultimately does something I am unable to look past, I stop supporting them. As I mentioned earlier when talking about Sarah Dessen, every time I see anything associated with that person, the behavior of the artist is smeared all over their work (for me, at least). It’s difficult to look pass, and in the end, it’s easier for me to just stop supporting them.
On that note, that’s about all I have for today’s post! Thanks for reading, and I will see you guys in the next post!
–Erin 🙂
Twitter: @ENordhof
Prose: https://theprose.com/ennord
Instagram: @eclectic_erin87
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/99734662-erin-nordhof
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/eclecticerin87/
Eclectic Erin 
Have you read my poetry blog yet? It features my “art” 🤪
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I think I have read some of it actually! It’s part of the reason why I followed your blog, I enjoyed the poetry! 🙂
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