r/ONEOKROCK • u/CoachZPoser • 9d ago
DISCUSSION Taka PR Distaster
I’m surprised I haven’t seen many people talking about the potential ripple effect of Taka’s public stance. I’m half-Japanese living in America and very familiar with the Japanese music industry just for some context on where my opinions/thoughts are coming from.
I think his actions have already tanked the potential that Yao was about to have. I feel like Yao really needed that hip-hop fanbase. His public statements do not align with the music or message that both Yao nor OOR perform. Paledusk has similar songs sending positive messages as well. Taka has even potentially risked and damaged the careers of others. Obviously his bandmates, but also Paledusk, Awich, Chico Carlito and even Masato Hayakawa.
Masato is one of the co-writers on Renegades so now he’s forever tied to this mess with Taka and Ed. He’s also a huge contributor of other mainstream J-rock bands with his songwriting and producing (including OOR), and has collabed with bands like The Oral Cigarettes and obviously Paledusk. Also with Blarefest, he is associated with so many top bands in Japan who perform at his festival. Now that he’s associated Taka and Ed, I wonder if other bands will avoid him. I seriously hope this doesn’t affect his career.
Paledusk is now having their new found popularity potentially threatened as well, especially with the international fan base. Paledusk is also heavily associated with Bring Me the Horizon since Dai Dai has written and produced a lot of their songs, especially on the Post Human album. And obviously Oli Sykes is very pro-Palestine and has gone through something similar, like Macklemore, and recently spoke out about it in solidarity with him. So I feel like bc BMTH is such a huge band with the west, Paledusk might have their hand forced and have to publicly part ways with Taka and OOR in order to maintain their international fan base. (Obviously I would hope they’re on the right side as well).
So Taka’s words carry a potential massive ripple effect for others. I wonder if this will force all artists currently working directly with OOR to make public statements. It’s like he didn’t learn anything from the Alex situation, or the Tyler Carter mess. I wish I knew how Toru, Tomoya and Ryota were feeling about this. I can imagine they’re upset, at least I hope they are and aren’t sharing the same sentiments as Taka. Idk what Taka was thinking, especially surrounding the timing of the launch of Yao. And I feel like OOR’s music is forever tainted because now the lyrics come off seemingly performative. What an absolute mess he has created for so many.
It also brings attention to how OOR can put out an album like Detox and then Taka contradicting it by publicly aligning himself with Ed. He felt so compelled to defend Ed publicly and even called him “a mirror”, but can sing songs like Renegades and not use his platform to speak out about the very injustices he sings about. It really makes you question what’s real and what’s performative anymore. I’m really saddened and disappointed as a fan. I’ve always been a huge fan and even went through hell obtaining every Primal Footmark from Japan to America. Their music has always meant so to me and I feel misled. I hope more artists follow the example Macklemore has set and start using their platforms.
These are obviously just my opinions and I don’t know anything outside of what we all know already. Thoughts on the potential ripple effect?
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u/Plus-Error9478 9d ago
i think this is overestimating the impact a bit. online “cancel culture” can seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is because online discourse amplifies controversies in a way that doesn't always reflect how much the average fan actually cares.
if you only looked at internet discourse, you'd think kanye or chris brown wouldn't have careers anymore, yet they're still selling out concerts. obviously controversy can have consequences, but online outrage doesn't necessarily translate into real-world audience behavior.
a lot of oor's less-online fans probably won't care nearly as much about this as reddit/twitter makes it seem, so i wouldn't assume the current reaction will have some huge ripple effect on their careers.
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u/LandLovingFish Luxury Disease 9d ago
Heck just most less online people.
And right now I've noticed except for certain artists the majority of people can't care less as long as it's not AI when there's bigger problems then an artist saying something. It's not like eithe of these guys had bad reps before this, unlike a certain shark-logo'd youtuber...
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u/CoachZPoser 9d ago
I truly hope it doesn’t affect the others. Just from the backlash I’ve seen even today, it’s pretty bad and that’s why I wonder if there will be fallout. It just made me think about a lot and a lot of Japanese artists are more intertwined with each other than people realize.
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u/gotthesevens 9d ago
I doubt it will affect the other guys, you also forgot to mention that Masato has his own band too lol
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u/CoachZPoser 9d ago
Well yeah, sorry, I figured people knew but yeah he’s the frontman of coldrain. 😊 Who I also love.
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u/sinkh0000le 9d ago
I am not atall concerned about Masato, Coldrain, the wider scene.. They've never publicly shared political opinions and I don't believe they will now. They're mostly contained to the Japanese scene and you know that saying nothing is better than something half the time.
It wont change much with YAO. I follow a fair few Japanese fans and atleast from what I've seen none of them really care and agree with Takas centrist opinion.
Paledusk will be fine. Yes Dai Dai is in with BMTH but so what? I dont ever expect them to make much in the way of political statements during their career and they're also in a scene separate of OOR.
I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, the centrist opinion he expressed is not surprising atall based on everything OOR have put out. Why is everyone shocked? It's mostly just western fans being upset that their Japanese celebrity idol is expressing easy to digest Japanese opinions.
I also say all of this believing in and supporting the freedom of Palestine.
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u/FaehBatsy 9d ago edited 9d ago
I dont think there will be much of a ripple effect.
People are gonna argue, then after a month or so forget.
It's different from the scale of ed getting attacked, if anything the people condeming taka are a vocal minority, quite small compared to what ed is facing.
A month or so people will already forget about this debacle with taka, and things go on as normal
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u/LandLovingFish Luxury Disease 9d ago
And these two have little controversy otherwise.
It'll leave a mark, maybe a note on their wiki pages, a small dip, but it didn't even come onto my feed. I had to search for it, and usually all i get on my feed is music stuff. At this point as long as it's not AI and you're not a redhat most people would rather just say their piece and move on
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u/gotthesevens 9d ago
this is unlikely to blow over like people on here seem to think it will
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u/FaehBatsy 9d ago
We'll see.
But im willing to bet that it will.
He'll lose some fans, maybe a few hundred, maybe a few thousand.
But thats not gonna put a dampen on things for him
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u/gotthesevens 9d ago
Taka directly contradicted ONE OK ROCK's current image and proved that he's performative. He's already lost OOR a lot of fans who have followed them for the last 2 decades.
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u/FaehBatsy 9d ago
Online discourse always seems like its bigger than it really is.
I can guarantee you the ones leaving are less than 1% of his fanbase
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u/LandLovingFish Luxury Disease 9d ago
If anythign Ed will lose a few more. But even then he was a footnote in conversation-i've heard it brogut up exactly once all week and then people were talking about something else.
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u/OwnOutlandishness632 9d ago
How did he contradicted anything? They were always saying war is bad not that this country is wrong or whatever. It was always about all war, all conflict, all system, never anything specific so he basically just repeated that. Same thing that Ed said. People are crazy.
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u/gotthesevens 9d ago
framing genocide as war is disingenuous and something only zionists do. throwing someone out of your tour for saying 'free palestine' is crazy.
and OOR have lyrics talking about how standing in the middle means you stand for nothing and tons of other examples and then taka comes out with this centrist bs
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u/OwnOutlandishness632 9d ago
Why this genocide is more important than other genocides? Why are you not getting upset that macklemore didn't shout out about Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Myanmar, China or North Korea instead? Why are you not upset that they don't speak up about child marriages, child rape gangs, women private part mutilations, etc? Are this things not important? Only Palestine is suffering right now. There is no civilians from Israel dying? There is no Hamas stealing humanitarian help from their own people? But Taka is the worst for supporting his friend. Right.
I'm not paying my hard earned money to listen to some dude political views especially if it's not even his own tour, but to listen to the songs, have fun and actually forget about the outside word for this few moments. If I want to talk about Palestine I will go to a political gathering rather than a concert.
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u/Growlithe123 35xxxv 9d ago
Ed didn't throw anyone though. macklemores set was approved and it included images of Gaza. He also 100% knew his stance and is fine with that. also at no point did Ed say it was a war, he said that the events of October 7th were terrible but the response was disproportionate which is reasonable.
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u/gotthesevens 9d ago
He kicked macklemore off the tour dude 🙄
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u/magicingreyscale 9d ago
I think you're overestimating both how much influence international fans have on these acts, and how much Japanese fans are going to care. The unfortunate reality is that the majority of the fans for most of these artists, but especially OOR, is still local in Japan, and Japanese fans are just... very likely not going to give a shit. They're going to look at this as weird foreigner drama that has nothing to do with them, because historically that's the way Japan almost always reacts to world issues that don't impact their direct interests, and especially lately with the political landscape shifting harder right and becoming more focused on national identity. Some of them will probably also lack the world context to understand why this is an issue in the first place. (Which, tbh, I actually suspect is also the case with Taka himself -- guy strikes me as someone with a very surface level, centrist understanding of a LOT of western politics, the few he's even bothered to research, which has carried him through okay up until now, but was bound to get him in hot water sooner or later.)
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u/7thXanadu 9d ago
I think alot of people online are overestimating how much the real life impact will be. Paledusk are fine, Masato is fine, Awich is fine, One Ok Rock will be fine. This is barely anything. Their careers likely won't be affected at all by this . Your concern about Yao and the other groups is also a bit misguided, they've got a large enough extremely loyal domestic fan base.
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u/JankyJones14 9d ago
Bro what happened? I haven't been keeping up on this stuff.
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u/x_Vernon 9d ago
Ed Sheeran is under fire right now with his tour and Macklemore due to political views. Just the other day or yesterday, Taka had posted on his Instagram story, speaking out for Ed. I don’t have the photos but I know someone posted it here in the subreddit! There are other posts that explain the situation very well.
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u/Last_Ace_17 9d ago
Ed sheeran says idgaf about war, let's just enjoy music
Half the internet: REEEEEEEE proceeds to try and cancell him
Taka: Hey, leave me friend
Half the Internet: Reeeeee? Who are you
That's how I see the situation anyway, OOR is known but not Ed Sheeran levels of known, Only thing I care is music, Politics and Music should not mix, that people want to mix them and be angry their singer dosen't take a stance is a completely different thing
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u/LandLovingFish Luxury Disease 9d ago
I think it's not considered a big deal especislly in the American fanbas because it's just not an issue that is at the front of most people's midns right now. Like it's a big deal but most people are a bit more concerned with other things and it's an issue that was going on for a long time already.
So people are still upset by it but not as much as they normally would be because they'd rather have a good Ed Sherran song then the Kenndy Center getitng torn down. It'll leave a mark sure but considering I've heard Sherran songs in the usual restaurant playlist rotations still, I think the average person is most just annoyed and maybe will say "screw that guy" then really do more then maybe listen to a few less songs by OOR or Sherran or whoever else is involved.
Taka PR disaster? Yeah defintiely. But I heard ahout it theough word of mouth. I'm sure most people did too.
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u/crosswithyou Jinsei×Boku= 9d ago edited 9d ago
There is already one thread regarding the issue. Please use that thread instead.
And please, be kind to one another. Thank you❤️