In the first two months alone, the BBC has given us the brilliant final series of Happy Valley, and two excellent police dramas, the aptly named Gold and Better. Keith Blackmore, editor of the Tortoise Quarterly, explains why game-to-screen phenomenon The Last of Us deserves your attentionĮven by recent standards, 2023 has been a golden year for long-form television. At some point, we’ll all have to decide whether to do as Roger Waters says and fuck off to the bar. So where do the listeners, the viewers, the consumers fit in? Pandemics, war and climate change will all continue to affect our lives, while also serving as fodder for culture wars and misinformation. That, combined with the fact that trust in experts is at rock bottom, creates an environment where fans can be brainwashed by their favourite stars. A 2022 study from the University of Edinburgh found that celebrities and influencers have the most impact on people’s opinions online, posing far more of a threat than bots when it comes to misinformation on controversial topics like Brexit, immigration, climate change or Hillary Clinton. Ian Brown, formerly of the Stone RosesĪnd what a spotlight they have in the 21st Century: social media means that stars can spread information – or misinformation – to their followers in raw, unfiltered form, and algorithms spread it like wildfire. There’s no data on it, and Dr Daniel Jolley, an expert on the psychology of conspiracy theories, suggests they gain more prominence primarily because the spotlight is on them. It’s hard to say whether celebrities are more likely than the average person to embrace fringe or extreme views. (The platform wasn’t so quick to act when Neil Young threatened to pull his music over vaccine misinformation in the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.) Spotify removed Ian Brown’s 2020 song ‘Little Seed Big Tree’ as it contained the lyrics about a “forced vaccine” and planting microchips. True believers also may not leave their views at the studio door. It’s one thing to just laugh and turn the music up if you find out your favourite singer is a flat-earther less so when they’ve called the virus that’s just killed your grandparents a hoax. The lethal, close-up nature of the pandemic meant that just dismissing these people’s views while still streaming their tunes wasn’t so easy. Madonna claimed before the creation of a Covid vaccine that one had in fact been found, and that it was being kept from public distribution in order to “let the rich get richer”. In September 2021 Nicki Minaj tweeted that she wouldn’t take the jab because it made her cousin’s friend impotent and gave him swollen testicles. In 2020, former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown’s tweets made clear he was against the vaccine and lockdowns. Covid provided a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, and celebrities were by no means immune. The other seismic event of the last few years – the Covid-19 pandemic – also brought favourite artists’ unpalatable views to the surface with uncomfortable proximity. Separating the art from the artist is all very well, but try explaining to the Ukrainian refugee in your office or village why you’re still listening to Roger Waters. Even if we are not paying for the war with our lives, we are paying with our energy bills. There is nothing new about artists having controversial opinions but the target of Waters’ recent outbursts – the war in Ukraine – is very hard to ignore. Musician and activist Roger Waters speaks at a news conference and rally outside of the U.S. In an interview with James Ball in October for Rolling Stone, Waters claimed that allegations of war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine were “lies, lies, lies”. The singer has called it “ probably the most provoked invasion ever”, and recently told The Daily Telegraph that “Nazis” were “in control of the government” in Ukraine. The Pink Floyd drama is a story that stretches back decades and is about far more than politics – but Waters’s stance on the war does indeed seem to have brought things to a head. When approached by Tortoise for comment this week, Samson said: “I despise that uses a platform that was built on David’s and the late Rick Wright’s beautiful music for his hateful political posturing.” The former lead singer and bassist of Pink Floyd has always been active and outspoken politically, but his recent comments on Russia’s war in Ukraine have been particularly controversial, leading to him being labelled a “Putin apologist” earlier this month by Polly Samson, the wife of Waters’ former bandmate David Gilmour. That announcement bellows out at the start of Roger Waters’ “This Is Not A Drill” tour.
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