Here's something fascinating Ghost said in the comment section of the covetous reupload:
What specifically stands out to me is the section
i've been noticing a LOT of similarities between fandom culture and rapist culture; the first that comes to mind being the topic of archival, separation of the artist from their own artwork, and "it's the internet. if you didn't want this treatment, then you shouldn't have posted in the first place."
Are there many elephants in the room lately? Probably. Let's disregard all of them and talk about how this idea tickled my brain, instead.
I'm a pretentious commie who values the free flow of information, so I've always been extremely pro-archival. That's why it's so fascinating to me to hear someone pose archival as a form of abuse. Obviously, in Ghost's case, they have been at war with their archival community since the dawn of time, so they are most likely referring specifically to the archival of personal art.
The case for archival is very easy to make. Art, no matter the artist's opinion or wishes, can mean a lot to other people. Archival is also what lets us keep track of history. It is impossible to ban archival. There have been initiatives, such as "the right to be forgotten", but specific cases tend to have an inverse result due to the Streisand effect.
Let's imagine for a second, though, that is is feasible and possible for an artist to ban archival of their work. When they delete their own copy of it, it is gone forever. It paints an interesting world, because... it's not all that different from our own, actually. One day, something you really treasure might just be gone. That's how most things in our real world work. Maybe that's why we cling so desperately to archival - it presents us with agency over the ever-present decay.
Human beings are obsessed with not dying, and we tend to value being remembered as a worthy second to living forever. So, I think it leaves a lot of people baffled when someone is hurt by the attempts of others to immortalize them. But I think I can understand the feeling. Ultimately, it is the loss of agency over your own image. It is Lenin's corpse forever preserved in the mausoleum on Red Square, Moscow.
This brings us neatly to the second point.
II. Separation of the Artist from their Artwork
Again, I'm a pretentious commie, I don't really believe in the ownership of ideas, art included. That's not to say I don't value intellectual property - it is currently the best way to get people who make cool things fed and alive. But I've never seen it as some inherit truth of the world, where once you put a piece of art out there it is yours to steer forever. Ultimately, you can't control how people perceive art.
If anything, your image being forever tied to anything and everything you've ever made almost seems like a worse fate. I don't think it is ever possible to present a truly authentic version of your "real self", not in conversation, and much less in art. Seeing poets and writers discussed in my literature textbooks always filled me with dread, all of their known life events and every word they've ever written analyzed endlessly, given more thought than they perhaps ever gave it themselves. Not separating the art from the artist only serves to erect a false image of the artist above it all. Everyone thinks George Orwell would have agreed with them.
Acknowledging separation of art and artist lets people do this in a gentler, much more respectful way. The image of the artist no longer needs to twist to fit the audience's interpretation of their work. And different interpretations will always exist. Art is a subjective form of expression.
It can't feel nice to lose control over something you created. But, it is a risk you have to take when you brave becoming known.
I don't think I can discuss this part without at least acknowledging some of the elephants in the room, namely that Ghost is currently embroiled in too many controversies to count.
I won't discuss the specifics of the cancellation here - like all cancellations, it's a messy pile of many things that I think the public should have never become involved in.
The problem with cancellations, I think, is that they lack a clear goal. They simultaneously try to be self-righteous attempts at getting a creator to "be better", and deplatforming. I think it's obvious why the first one will always fail. Any apology or promise in such a situation is made under extreme duress. The deplatforming part is debatable, as well. The only thing they ever achieve is "You hurt me, so I hurt you". Is that what we want? Does taking part in a public flogging make us good, moral people?
Then again, nobody signs up for a cancellation as an event. People hear something and make a post. Someone misinterprets something, some element of the truth is twisted, simplified, passed on. There is also an expectation that you must take a side, must educate yourself (read: make yourself miserable and angry by reading drama posts), otherwise you're a bad person. This isn't the coordinated work of any entity. This is something deeper and older than any of us, a social punishment system that grew into a monster through the power of the internet.
There are clear, comfortable answers here. "You should have been more careful", "You should know how to handle discourse better", "You should have curated a better audience". I think we want to believe that bad things only happen to bad people - and that the two kinds of people who exist are "good" and "bad", vague as those terms are. And I think this is where Ghost's comparison does, unfortunately, hold true.
Conclusion, personal thoughts
All throughout this drama I've been wondering why it didn't especially phase me. It didn't really make me like Ghost's work any less. Perhaps because I had long since learned to separate art and artist. The one thing I was afraid of was that he'd wipe his whole channel, again - and the first thing I did as soon as I caught wind of the cancellation was, in near-delirium, download all of his videos onto my laptop at one in the morning. To fight the ever-present decay. To preserve some part of myself I saw reflected in his art.
I think it is well and good to expect creators with large audiences to wield that power responsibly. I think it is embarrassing that a creator of Ghost's size posts rambling, nonsensical replies in his comment section, clearly written with reckless abandon in the middle of an episode. And yet, I keep reading them. I think I find something about them liberating. I've spent so much of my life making myself look sympathetic and kind, hoping that other people would be kind to me in turn. And there Ghost is,
Being anything, but a perfect victim.
It's reckless, irresponsible and unkind, and I know better. But, deep down, there was always a part of me that wanted to slash and claw at anyone in my vicinity, I was that viscerally mad at the world. It's almost like some self-destructive power fantasy.
I wonder where that puts me in all of this.
