i honestly don't keep tabs on threads like those and maybe everyone i talk to on here is secretly a shitty misogynist after all but i really don't get that feeling aside from those notorious few and the odd nobody user with 3 comments so the framing of the site as such honestly gives me "look at me im one of the good ones" white knight kinda vibes when it really shouldn't be about our male egos at all

i'm sure the write up was otherwise excellent, i just got bad vibes from that outro thats all

there are certain users and staff here (and i'm not saying you are one of them at all johnny, i really don't think you are) that seem like they need to exaggerate the ~shittyness~ of the general sites community as often as possible to give themselves an ego boost or assure themselves that they are a super good person or something and it just seems super transparent to me.

if feeling like a good person comes at the expense of plenty of other perfectly good people's reputations then you probably aren't actually that good of a person.

How is sputnik a toxic and mysognistic cesspool lol wut

If ever the slightest comment made by a user appears to be mysoginistic (and in most cases they are made by temporary and not established users) you can bet that multiple people will jump in and feign outrage/ ostracize him. Just because sputnik is an almost entirely male predominant website and the odd derogatory comment appears doesn't mean it's a cesspool of hatred towards women.

Free Doof

yeah. and this isn't even speaking comparatively. comparatively (think of any number of other notorious male driven sites) we look even less bad tbqh.

we aren't perfect by any means but gottdamn, the ego-flexing white knightery is toxic too

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

if feeling like a good person comes at the expense of plenty of other perfectly good people's reputations then you probably aren't actually that good of a person.



Love this, Pots. Good stuff.

"that seem like they need to exaggerate the ~shittyness~ of the general sites community as often as possible to give themselves an ego boost or assure themselves that they are a super good person or something and it just seems super transparent to me."

Pretty much this and it also manifests in a variety of different ways of interaction in here on a multitude of "sensitive" topics.

Album Rating: 2.5

arguments on the interwebs

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

i don't specifically disagree with any of your comment at the end of the last page, but i think any issues this site has goes beyond those specific users and draws on a wider tone-deafness/unwillingness to view problematic content/artists in a certain light that applies to a lot of people in often innocuous way. for example, denying that something is problematic/that its problematic aspects are relevant to anything obviously does not amount to rape apologism, but i don't think it's a big step to view them as part of the same culture. for examples, jfc that science fiction thread is a good place to start, but it's something i notice more widely in the way a heap of people routinely objectivity pop artists or are reluctant to put up with discussion about inappropriate connotations of albums they like (fwiw, i don't believe in avoiding suspect artists/music entirely, but it doesn't sit right at all with me to avoid discussion about why they might ever be viewed as such in the first place)

i get exactly where you're coming from re. white knight-ism and your following comment. tbqh i don't consider myself exempt from the issues/perspective i just described. i felt somewhat hypocritical making that kind of statement, and i don't think i'm a better person for it - if it seemed to embrace that good guys/bad guys dynamic from someone on the righteous end, that's my bad. however, i think it's important - more important than me seeming hypocritical - that *someone* spotlight it in a way that's loud and focused and public because i believe it *is* an issue, that most people here (hi!) have a limited perspective on it, that it affects and often comes from staff as well as users, and that, in the context of the obvious inadequacy of our not having any female writers eager to cover that album, it seemed the most appropriate way to platform a strong female voice assertively calling out tactless or oblivious male archetypes that i can often relate to this site. i like this site. i care about writing here and i like the community here, and when i say that we can all do better, it's from a place of c'mon guys, not hellfire and moralising absolutes, as i hope you can recognise

tl;dr no-one's perfect, other corners of the internet are undoubtedly shittier, but i think it's something on which we as a site can most certainly improve. i agree it's important to have discussion about the constructiveness/virtue-signalling involved in some of the ways people go about this, but this shouldn't come at the cost of foregrounding something that i firmly believe is a site issue

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

was gonna write an actual review today, but i guess that's my scribble quota max'd. peace to all of you except Colton

>i think any issues this site has goes beyond those specific users and draws on a wider tone-deafness/unwillingness to view problematic content/artists in a certain light that applies to a lot of people in often innocuous way. for example, denying that something is problematic/that its problematic aspects are relevant to anything

ding ding ding

The separating art from artist debate and refusing to look at problematic content and artists in a certain light is so not just a male sputnik problem tho man that's an everywhere problem

Otherwise I feel you on all that

>that's an everywhere problem

indeed

Album Rating: 2.5

hmm

so much of this is unmistakably fun and upbeat, and a lot of the instrumentals (like the piano and guitar flourishes on "counter culture") and variety really boost the album as a whole. there's always been something about most Japanese vocally driven music, though, that's rubbed me the wrong way, whether it be some inherent vocal inflection or styling or whatnot. her high register timbre and very unnecessary shrieks certainly don't help



overall, eh

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

not to antagonise that wholly understandable stance, but can you imagine how wearying it is to continually churn it out for one of the most talented and (for non-vanilla j-pop) inspiring songwriters of our generation only to get continually speedbumped because her tone and inflections don't square up to english-lang pleasure triggers and a large quotient of the cathartic/exuberant aspects of her performance style and platform get choked out by language and cultural barriers

like, i'm p certain pots would find this cringe af regardless of language or nationality, but sometimes i wonder what my wordcounts were really in aid of

^this, basically. i wish ppl were more open minded about voices cuz i think there are so many vocalists in both the west and the rest of the world who have repeatedly proven that a non-traditional voice that might seem grating at first can actually be amazing if you give it some time, to the extent that "their voice just rubs me the wrong way" is never a valid critical opinion, although ofc it's a valid statement of personal preference. oh well

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

shouganai brother :[

Its not fair to just say people who don't like one person's voice just aren't open to non traditional voices in general or condemn them to some kind of aural xenophobia. I think you guys know better than to assume that. I like a lot of "untraditional" vocalists, and not liking seiko's voice has nothing to do with that. And I have no problem whatsoever with Japanese tone and inflections be it in music, film, whatever, in fact, I love the language. Still hate this chicks voice... and I don't find anything attractive or particularly impressive about her songwriting either. J-pop just isn't for me. That's just one style of music.

As for the word count thing its not as if reviewing any other peripheral style of music on sputnik is particularly gratifying either, its a small community with pretty specific interests, that's just kind of how it is unfortunately. You think anyone around here really cares about any of the electronic I hype? Very rarely

I've also repped a while lot of various "world" music with "strange" vocals to the site to over the years too but I'm not gonna tell u ur opinion is invalid or that ur closed minded because you don't dig Tuvan throat singing, ya dig?