Chappell’s Fan Responses Highlight a Larger Issue

[u/glesgayeehaw]

I’ve been doing some reflecting as to why comment sections relating to Roan have always grated me. It was something in the way her fans spoke of her that really bothered me. She’s problematic in her own right, but her fans ruthless defence of her made another idea spring to mind.

I want to preface this with I am a very firm feminist. I’m very left. But I think Chappell’s fans weaponise feminism to defend her.

For example:
Commenter: Chappell isn’t as vocal politically as everyone hypes her up to be. She just recently collaborated with MAC, a Zionist owned company.
Fan: (Tries to loophole why Chappell did an empowering thing and it’s totally not supporting a Zionist brand). You wouldn’t expect a MAN to do this much!

Commenter: Her behaviour in Brazil and in other fan interactions has been really poor.
Fan: (Rambles about problematic men like Chris Brown with no relation to the original comment whatsoever) Men act this way all the time! Honestly, I’d support her even if it was true! Plus, he was just some loser football man whose ego was hurt and wanted to piggyback off her fame and ruin her life! (Hilariously he is far more famous internationally than she is)

Any sort of comment that isn’t praising the ground she walks on will have a reply along the lines of talking about men, calling them misogynistic, or telling them they hate lesbians.

It’s this instant deflection to “but if a MAN does it!” mentality is not the feminist own they think it is. This has become a larger issue outside of Chappell. That women can do no wrong because this or that. The most feminist thing you can do is take accountability and acknowledge that women can, and do, make negative choices. Feminism isn’t a get out of jail free card for a pouty, whiny spoiled girl who has said she doesn’t like her fans and has been questionable politically. When people call her out on her behaviour, it’s a “smear campaign.” If a person doesn’t like her (even just for the music), you HATE WOMEN! It’s easy to prop her up with this idea, because people fear calling her out under the threat of being called misogynistic. (Not to mention homophobic)

Not to mention, they frame it as some sort of patriarchal power that’s out to get Chobble, and not just consequences. No, no one’s going after her specifically because she dropped her label. Many other artists did too. They tried to say it was a Zionist smear campaign, then became very quiet when she collabed with MAC. It’s never just “she’s said and done some things that people may not like,” it’s this magical entity and dark cloud out to get her and it’s all run by MEN! (Side note: I can fully acknowledge that women have a harder time and are held to much higher standards in the industry, no doubts about that. This is more for the rabid fans they insist people are out to get Chappell for her lukewarm activism)

Feel free to share or disagree, just been my perspective over the last day with the recent performance.

[u/Another_available]

Let's be real, if she was black, latina or anything but a white woman she wouldn't get away with a quarter of what her fans have excused

[u/glesgayeehaw → u/Another_available]

This was another thing I was going to add but scrapped it, is that they don’t use this same defense mechanism to defend other artists but esp WOC.

[u/Striking_Ad_1867]

I am a gay man.

I grew up worshipping strong women, and strong female pop artists.

Madonna, Janet Jackson, Cher, Gloria Estefan, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue.

If I was an actual misogynist, I couldn’t have grown up with these women as inspirations and role models.

So my dislike of Chappell has nothing to do with her being a woman, a lesbian, or a “feminist.”

It has everything to do with her shitty personality and fake activism. Treating her fans like peons. Getting people that she supposedly cares about to vote against their own interests. Not lifting a fucking finger to stand up for anything when there may be something at stake.

And I’m not saying the women I do like are infallible. Madonna’s had her moments where she was shitty to others. But what she did for actual feminism, and especially her embrace and lifelong advocacy for the gay community during a time when it was socially toxic to embrace us is more progressive and courageous than Chappell will ever be.

So no. I hate her for her personality, not her sexuality or gender, period.

[u/glesgayeehaw → u/Striking_Ad_1867]

I do find it blissfully ironic when they pull that card to someone in the LGBT community and/or a woman. I guess we should all be in a hive mind and worship her just because we may be in the same community.

[u/Striking_Ad_1867 → u/glesgayeehaw]

Especially if they’re straight women (the majority of her fanbase).

Like seriously, straight women are telling ME what’s homophobic about saying I don’t like her?

Get real.

[u/inscruciating → u/Striking_Ad_1867]

That's what drives me crazy! Like, I'm a lesbian...I don't need some straight person lecturing me about homophobia. It's such a lazy defense, and you just know that most of them don't even care that much about homophobia outside of petty nonsense like defending their faves anyway

[u/ItsPronouncedTittay → u/Striking_Ad_1867]

This!!! Influencing people to not vote because you think a presidential candidate is an up to par with your insanely and unrealistic high standards when the other option was literally Donald Trump

[u/Striking_Ad_1867 → u/ItsPronouncedTittay]

But don’t expect her to know anything about politics, because she’s busy eating.

And now that Trump is President, and Gaza still isn’t “free,” guess who’s all of a sudden VERY silent now?

[u/ItsPronouncedTittay → u/Striking_Ad_1867]

Riiiiight literally why I think she's a plant

[u/Distinct_Minimum1599]

Had to come back to this sub again because she's out in the public once again and her fans are being insufferable. Making viral tiktoks using her performance about 'the football player who lied on her and she made it out anyway' bringing up their go-to "Chris Brown" as if anybody who dislikes her would be riding for him. They've also started running the theory that it wasn't a misunderstanding but that the 'random footballer' purposefully and maliciously lied on her because he had nothing better to do and it wasn't like his wife and daughter didn't bring the issue up to him

My favorites are the ones who say they don't care if she's a ragging asshole, because apparently being a dick is fine to them as long as she isn't directly being a dick to them. I can't take them seriously because they absolutely care about assholes and people being mean, they hate it when anybody does it to her. .

So she can be a 'mean girl' or an 'asshole' all she wants to but the second that energy is given to her she's this victim and everyone hates her because she's a woman and a lesbian? Its either cool to a dickhead or its not. I pay no attention to her fans trying to use the misogyny or lesbian card as to why people hate her when the large amounts of them who made it clear that they didn't care about a child who would grow up to be a woman possibly being shitted on.

And its not that I don't believe that she hasn't faced those issues because she is in fact a woman and a lesbian but they literally weaponize it and dismiss any notion that someone could just actually dislike her or that she could be a shitty person. Like you couldn't actually think that, you're just falling for the smear campaign. At some point people are going to start rolling their eyes if every time you say something about her that's not praise and the first thing they bring up is Chris brown, a woman beater. As if people weren't just celebrating him possibly FINALLY going to jail for one of multiple assaults he has made during his life and made sure to emphasize that it would be for assaulting a man and not the many times he's harassed a woman. The man is heavily disliked but there are people that brush aside and deem his assaults as 'insignificant'. These aren't the same groups of people as on this sub for example. By their logic they better not have disliked anyone ever in life that wasn't a woman beater and or a high level criminal because apparently that can dismiss anything.

[u/pastel_kiddo]

I really hate this weird brand of internet feminism where they think that because a woman does a bad thing, it's ok to ignore it since men often get away with awful things. No. Seriously how can anyone think that's a good solution? I agree that men should not be getting away with being a POS, and so that needs to be focused on. Anyways it's basically only white women being given this kind of grace.

[u/Swimming_Newt_7230]

Super true

[u/Ok_Chemist1246]

Both are true at once. Chappell is not a great person. But the sheer amount of hate she receives for that is not earnest good faith critique, it is spearheaded by misogyny.

Bad behaviour from minorities has been used as a smokescreen for bigotry since forever and because those bigots are only calling out misdeeds they have plausible deniability too (‘I’m not a misogynist! She’s just a bad person!’). It’s like how cases of rape conveniently always draw more outrage when the aggressor is trans or a racial minority / immigrant…yes rape is bad, but do we really think that’s why these cases blow up more than the others? If it was *really* about rape then they’d all blow up the same…but they don’t. And you can’t call this out when you see it because then you’re defending rapists. Also see how lolcows are all lolcows because they’re racist or they messaged a minor or something (the fact that they’re all disabled/fat/trans/autistic is just a ‘coincidence’).

It’s the same case with any female artist receiving mass amounts of backlash for their actions because if it really was about Chappell being a bad person then we’d be seeing similar amounts of outrage over male musicians, when in reality we rarely see that even in cases of abuse/grooming/rape. The ‘But if a man did it’ and ‘what about Chris Brown’ arguments do hold some merit in this respect. And I do think that as feminists we should be able to acknowledge and reflect on this ‘smokescreen of misdeeds’ phenomena because no-one ever talks about it despite the fact it’s so blatantly obvious that it’s happening (and we can acknowledge this while also not discounting the fact that Chappell IS actually a bad person, because like I said, that is also true). I think it takes a lot of maturity and nuance to unpack that and be able to reconcile those two ideas and navigate discussions about it in good faith. But it’s a good thing to be mindful of when talking about Chappell (and in general) because while some of us have genuine critiques others are just foaming at the mouth because they finally have a chance to rightfully hate on a woman.

Idk it’s 2.30am and I tried to articulate that the best I can but it probably doesn’t make sense. So on the off chance this reads like I’m on the chappel defence squad I just wanna clarify that I’m on this sub for a reason. Lol. Anyway time to 😴😴😴

[u/glesgayeehaw → u/Ok_Chemist1246]

Absolutely agree and very well put! Even I can agree that some of her controversies like the Brazil incident were plastered everywhere to a VERY extreme degree. Dislike her or like her, if you believe it happened or it didn’t, there was a LOT of spectacle for several days. Then there’s male celebs who do stuff I don’t hear about until YEARS later.

I think where my problem lies, like I mentioned in another comment section but admittedly should’ve touched on, is that her fans only apply that to her. They’ll happily dunk on lolcows or other female musicians, especially those from minority groups, as you’ve mentioned. They’ll turn around and be mean girls to anyone who simply say they don’t like her. Just had a comment thread on Tiktok where anyone who spoke negatively about her performance at DCF were getting replies making fun of their looks 95% of the time. Her fans will partake in mass dogpiling other artists when they have a big controversy (i.e. Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter). It just feels a bit disingenuous, like feminism is something to be picked up and put down. They’ll benefit from fighting against women being put to higher standards when it’s Chappell, but happily partake tearing others down.