Originally Posted by
Satsuki
Again, not to personalize but all this stuff is so familiar. Even like, the old dude with all the underage girls at the party. Ugh. (I attended a party in say, 2002 or so that was a bunch of underage "troubled" girls who were umbrella-ed on this one web forum that was owned and operated by an old perv, but story for another time. The photos of me from that day look exactly like this, minus the famous animator. Awkward smiles and everyone pretending like it was normal and we were all having fun.)
From the second I stepped on the internet at 15, there were always guys like him around. They were pretty easy to identify because they were "types" - they would buy you stuff and tell you that you were great and you were so mature and smart and blah blah blah. They gave you jobs if they had them, special roles in their lives if they didn't. That always segued into sexual or taboo talk, and as a girl you either put up with it or you didn't, but the second you showed any human emotion to them other than admiration, they just dropped you. I had no idea these guys were all reading from the same script until I was about 25. Obviously they've existed since forever, not just since the internet, but my god the internet just brought so many of them out in the open.
In some ways, I'm tired of these types of men getting endless kudos. Sometimes their art stands up to the test of time, sometimes it doesn't. I've reexamined a ton of books, art, media, and whatever else from known "predators" and a lot of it (for me) is hard to separate. Like I said, Polanski is one I can separate out and still really enjoy his movies. Some creators I can't - I know the person's flaws too well to continue to be fascinated by his work. I can't expect the board to relate entirely, and this may be a specific female experience, but sometimes knowing a guy is a piece of shit just...can't be separated.
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