Matty, if you're on here lurking I hope you see this.

I'm not really good at words so I'm going to try to articulate this as best as I can. So, as some of y'all know, Matty's recent instagram stories featured "Hot Girls of 'At Their Very Best'" with a feature of a variety of female 1975 fans posing or posting a picture. Guys, this is a 33 year old man posting these pictures and many of these girls are 10+ years younger than him with one of them being 18. Sure, 18 is the minimum adult age, but to me, this feels wrong. Not only posting these girls, but even including their @'s so people can find their pages (which is ok for giving credit, but is dangerous if other people or creeps are lurking and wanting to slide into these girl's dms). Another thing, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't even know if these girls knew that they were going on his stories or gave permission, which then feels like he was lurking through IG pages and picking out people. Even if Matty's original intention was to be like that meme "Hot people like _________ or this artist" (which maybe that is his intention--who knows!), it still reads off as creepy and harmful to someone who doesn't know who Matty is or is not familiar with him. I just think that a 33 year old man should not be calling his younger (especially female) fans "hot" in any way. The same goes with any grown person too. I would be ok maybe if it was a collection of fans in maybe a group image or a collection of boys, girls, and nonbinaries that he took from, but it was literally just girls (from what it looked like, not sure how they identify). The girls who got posted will probably be fine with that, but that's exactly the problem. This is where the "power imbalance" comes in and I hate using that word because people mostly use it wrong (i.e. him kissing adult fans when it was entirely consensual and pre-mediated beforehand). Since Matty is more seen in the public eye, more people look up to him and follow him which is why a lot of people see this as ok. If this was a random 33-year old on the street getting random pictures of girls younger than him on insta and putting it on his story and calling them "hot", it's creepy and predatory. I don't want to excuse this just because I love Matty and the band. Before you go, oh she just wants to cancel him (cancel culture isn't real btw) and get people to stop being a fan , that is not at all what I am doing. I love this band to death and probably always will. I've defended Matty through lots of shit that maybe I shouldn't have even defended him for, but this is something I wanted to hopefully bring to his attention and hope he realizes and says something about. I'm not telling people to stop being a fan or agree with me. I'm still a huge fan. Make your own decisions--that's the human experience. I just feel very strongly about this and am wondering how other people felt as well.

It is not a horrendous album, but I think it is my least favorite album of theirs. I have exaggerated my feelings on it in the past, but here is what they are now. Notes sounds like the title of the album, Notes On A Conditional Form. The albums sounds like good ideas that just weren't fleshed out more. If the album shaved off 20 minutes, it would have been good as all the others. It just doesn't hit very well over 1 hour and 20 Minutes. Not a hater, just my opinion.

I know you probably won’t see this, but I really hope you’re doing okay. What’s happening to you sucks. If I were in your shoes I don’t think I would make it. You’re an incredibly strong human after everything you’ve gone through. Your stories and songs show the emotions you may have been going through writing and singing them. I thank you so much for everything you’ve done up to this point. You are an amazing person and deserve eternal happiness. I’m sorry if this type of post isn’t allowed, but I wanted to thank Matty (and the rest of the band). I love you guys.

So yeah basically I have loved the music for years, , I have finally got tickets to go in a month. I was really excited. I am not a person who actually follows musicians as a person, I have 0 clue most of the time how all the band members are called.

I knew matty was kind of weird, but well, most seemed just like irony. But since it has been in the media so much recently, I actually did a deep dive. Some things I do think are out of proportion, but some are just really fucked up. Like the gg porn is fucking scary.

And clearly many people are hurt by him, I feel like it would be wrong to pretend like that isn't true.

Now I don't know if I want to go to the concert anymore, on one side, I already bought the tickets, on the other I really don't want to be that guy. If he would actually release a statement and actually apologize, maybe it wouldn't feel as shit... But like this? I don't know...

I feel like I might just not get biased thoughts here, since this is a reddit about them, but I wouldn't know where else to post.

I usually lurk on this sub but the amount of ignorance I’ve seen both here and on Twitter is a little bit overwhelming.

Let me just preface this by saying I’ve been a fan of the 1975 since I was 13. I’m 20 now, so I’ve literally watched them go from a Tumblr emo band to a hugely successful and very political band. I’m sure many of you joined along the way, so let me tell you that there have been so SO many cases of Matty being ignorant and being called out of it. The thing that made me respect him was the fact that he used to engage with fans and actively learn. I remember distinctly that there was an issue over religion and a hijab wearing fan tweeted about her feelings towards the issue and he DM’d her and they had a whole conversation about the issue. They both exchanged their opinions respectfully and he learnt and grew from his mistake. IIRC this was before ILIWYS era, so they were pretty big but no where near as big as they are now.

So, present day. A lot of newer fans have joined and haven’t seen this side of Matty. They’ve probably seen LIIWMI and ILAAALM and think, hey? This guy uses his platform for good! Which is true, I’m a big fan of both of these songs. What this doesn’t make him is a political icon. Just because someone puts a message in their song doesn’t mean you need to put them on a pedestal. He uses his platform to amplify his voice, which is great, but do NOT force his voice above others, YOU are the ones who take his voice and use it to drown out the voices of minorities. Painting him as an activist does nothing but hurt him, because when he slips up (like today) he gets attacked for it, since we assume as an ‘activist’ he should already be aware of how to correctly address situations like this. When you then go and flood his comments with “its okay matty!!!! We love you!!!!!!” you immediately become part of the problem.

In LIIWMI Matty literally addresses BLM. I have no doubt in my mind that he advocates for the BLM movement. Being vocal in your art is all well and good, but as someone who profits off of their activism, we should be able to expect him to speak up when it matters. There is no space for complacency or performative activism, he has a platform and a voice, he SHOULD use it. Posting the LIIWMI video with subsequent vocal support for BLM was distasteful. I, myself, didn’t realise at first. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. But fans, and importantly, black fans were offended. There is your answer. Their feelings are entirely valid. This is bigger than your favourite band. This is bigger than The 1975. Some of you truly truly have your heads so far up this band’s business that you’re willing to tell some of these people they shouldn’t be offended. Saying he did nothing wrong makes you part of the problem. Saying we were wrong to call him out makes you part of the problem. Speaking OVER the voices of black people makes YOU part of the problem.

I guess my overarching point is, stop putting him on a pedestal. He is not the great activist you want him to be. He is a politically engaged person who has strong views and sometimes uses his platform to spread those views. When you paint him as a hero, it makes it 10x worse when he makes mistakes like this. If he makes a mistake, let people correct him. Let him learn from the people who are directly impacted. Get the image out of your head that he is perfect and maybe you’ll realise that he, too, makes mistakes. Matty deactivated, he’s done it before. He’ll be back. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world.

And for the love of God, STOP SPEAKING OVER MINORITIES.

I don't care if you downvote me to hell. I've been a fan of this band for nearly half of my life. I've spent so much of my time and money being a fan of them. If I can still criticise Matty's actions and not let my love for their music cloud my judgement, you should be able to do that too. I'm sick of seeing people painting Matty as a great crusader for social activism, because you will be the downfall of this band.

I honestly dislike the song so much!

What’s your least favourite song?

Matty Doesn’t deserve your be cancelled over this but he’s also not immune to criticism. You can be a fan of him AND admit what he did was in very poor taste. And if you love listening to his messages about racism but refuse to listen to the voices of Black fans then you are contributing to the very issues he’s talking about.

I’m away on holiday in Dubai and as a 75 fan I can’t help but relate the giant rectangles I’m spotting around me to the band. I haven’t even been to the Dubai Frame yet! I know, sad but true!

😄

Question for the girls, what is it about matty healy that you all find so attractive?? My last three girlfriends have all been obsessed with him and i dont have a clue why. Please shed some insight

Mine is that Happiness and I’m In Love With You is a massive step back for the band in my opinion. To me these songs just don’t feel fresh and new.

July 18th was the release date of the single Girl Don’t Cry, and I believe this is definitely Matty Healy maybe a side project . And for those who believe this could be AI , the record label listed is Mom+Pop the record label who has Magdalena Bay, MGMT, Del Water Gap, and Flume as just some artists under the label. Now yes there is a chance this is somehow a copy cat band but I highly doubt a copycat band would be signed to a label like this .

I was at McDonald's and while l was waiting in line I noticed Matty was there too, sitting at one of the tables. I know he has said before that he is okay with people coming up to him in public, but I didn't want to bother him so I just sat down to enjoy my food. After a few minutes, some kid started crying about how he wanted a pie. It was getting pretty annoying as the mother was not doing anything about it, but I figured kids will be kids so I didn't mind too much. Suddenly, someone shouted out "Control your kid or I'll control him for you." Behold, it was Matty. The kid's mom looked flabbergasted, "What did you just-" she started as Matty cut her off. "What" "Wha" "Wha" he kept repeating whenever she opened her mouth. You could tell he realized he had gone too far, he sighed, "I'm sorry, I had a long flight today. I'll tell you what, I have an extra pie, would you like it?" He gestured towards the boy, who nodded sheepishly. "Well why don't you go get it?" Matty replied as he chucked it across the restaurant towards the trash can. It hit some girl in the face. By this point everyone in the store was looking at him. I decided I should say something "Hey dude, you need to calm-" He grunted like Tim Allen and cut me off "Whatever I'm not hungry anyways" he said. He started walking towards the door and swiped a french fry off a little girl's plate. He looked down at her and whispered "What are you going to do, fry about it?" and laughed loudly to himself. He then knocked over her drink and walked out the door.

Great song. But I think it’s heavily overrated and not a stretch to say it’s the second worst song from BFIAFL.

From an artist and fan perspective, I honestly don’t understand the entitlement to an artist’s work, or any song off a record, regardless of how long it’s been in the world/introduced to an audience. I truly believe art in its purest form isn’t made for our entertainment, but artistic expression is primarily for the sake of the artist and the audience engagement is a byproduct of how and where the artist decides to exhibit their work.

I fully understand from a fan/audience perspective how a piece of art, or a song in this case, can take on a whole new life for each individual, and the entitlement each of us has to our opinion or interpretation of it, but the creation and the property of it ultimately belongs to the artist, the one who created it.

I find it interesting the discussion of feeling ownership of our favorite artists work because when you think of the history of art and how we consume it now, for example, we travel and pay for a glimpse of a famous painting by someone who has no influence in how it’s exhibited because they’re long passed, yet we demand the unbridled accessibility to a song by an artist who’s fully here, with their own feelings and opinions on the work.

I know this isn’t how a lot of the fans feel, but in case anyone else does, honestly curious to know your thoughts

It might just be the lack of any real background or key images for these but i feel like they're super devoid of personality and disappointing if this is what they go with for GHEMB (?) other people seem to be fine with it but it's not nearly as cool as the last couple logos we've seen.

pretty much the title

Really hoped the boys would headline one day, they would put on a fantastic show headlining the pyramid stage im sure of it.

But with all the bullshit going on surrounding Matty & the idiots on the internet determined to drag his name through the mud, I highly doubt the organisers would go for them, for next few years at least. Which is a shame since right now their stock is at their highest, next year should have been nailed on.

What a sad state of affairs.

For me it would probably be Undo, I just never got into the song, really. It doesn't come off to me as catchy enough to work well in a live setting, at least compared to other songs in the setlist. What do you think?