Let's all take Blindboy seriously now...

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391326#Comment_121391326

While he does not have a full qualification in the field he did at least study it for some time before moving on to other things. So it would elevate him however slightly over the complete lay man on the street. Someone else might give the details more accurately than I - but as I recall he started a university course on the subject and then did not complete it.

However to be entirely fair to him - he very often indeed does point out that everything he says is coming from the perspective of a practicing amateur and that he does not speak with any authority. Pretty much every time he discusses a mental health topic he does so under the rubric of "This is what worked for me - try it and it might work for you - but just because it did work for me does not mean it automatically will work for you".

And on certain mental health topics he has openly said he would not discuss those topics without an expert present. So he seems to show some awareness of the limitations of what he can and should speak to/on. An awareness all too many people on and off line lack entirely.

He has also pointed out on numerous occasions that people who are actually qualified in - and work in - the mental health field in Ireland have used his podcasts as reference and prescribed material for their patients. Which he points out is actually terrible and he would echo your words that if such people are coming to an eejit with a bag on his head for such - then that says more about the state of the mental health profession in Ireland than it does about the eejit with the bag on his head.

Joe Rogan very similarly said almost exactly the same recently when he said "People keep coming to me, a moron cage fight commentator, for political advice. If anything that's a supply chain issue". That people are coming to Blindboy for help with mental health issues - or to Rogan for insight into political issues - says nothing at all about Blindboy or Rogan.

So it would seem your critique - which I would entirely agree with in principle - does not actually apply that strongly to him at all. Nor do I find the "bag" and the "accent" at all relevant in even the smallest way.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391326#Comment_121391326

He doesn't put on an accent constantly though.

And on every podcast on which he talks about mental health, he states that he has no qualification on the topic.

But, his manner on how he talks about it is of someone who has knowledge on the topic, is open to ideas around it, and is self-aware as to his own experiences and behaviours, and the impact of events in his life and who he was then, and who he is now.

I don't listen to him for advice, but as someone with extensive experience of dealing with my own mental health, I think a lot of people would benefit from listening to what he is saying on the topic, rather than dismissing him for saying it while wearing a bag on his head.

He's not a substitute for mental health care, but most of the improvement in our own mental health ultimately comes from within (outside of definitive clinical scenarios) and I think he's a good advocate for introspection even if someone doesn't consciously say that they are going to do it because Blindboy says that they should. He doesn't. But in talking about his own introspection, it will lead most people to do something similar themselves, even subconsciously and there can be benefit in that. He doesn't tell people what to do, he tells people what he does, there's a significant difference in that.

HalloweenJack

I don't think he's ever claimed to be a mental health expert. He talks about his experiences and what techniques he uses. I can't remember him ever saying "this is what you have to do", it's more "this is what works for me".

Whenever he has mental health experts (or experts in any field that he is not qualified in, for that matter) on, he asks them about the topic and offers his own theories but he frequently defers to the qualified experts and bows to their higher knowledge. I don't know where people get this idea that he is some self-appointed mental health expert; he is just someone who wants to share his experiences and talk about mental health issues.

If I'm wrong, please show me quotes or clips where he has said otherwise.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391379#Comment_121391379

You sensible bastard.

WHAT? He said he’d like to see people have more empathy??

I’ll see that bag melted to his head the divil

🙄

you’d want to give your head a shake if you get worked up over this. or indeed anything he’s saying or doing.

82 pages in and I have to ask has anyone yet to explain what exactly he’s doing that’s so wrong? Is it that he’s actually trying to make a difference? Boggles the mind.

The reception he’s getting from some here you’d swear he’s responsible for endless lives lost or something..

DaithiMa

He's just a grifter, plain and simple. Even has a merch site. He is to the left what the likes of Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand are to the right. I've zero time for any of them.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395704#Comment_121395704

I don't think you know what grifter means.

taxAHcruel

Curious that I had absolutely no idea there was a merch store. He has never mentioned it in the select few podcasts I have listened to. Unlike for example Jokko Willink who is a podcast I listen to all the time. And he ends every single podcast with at least 20 minutes going on about his products. Supplements, clothing, drinks, boots, and more.

I did a quick google for "Blindboy merch" just now and about 10 different sites came up with all different merch. Which one is actively actually Blindboy's? And which ones are just people trading on his name/product and have no affiliation with him?

I think this is a good example though of the "Hate the person first and think of a reason to hate him second". There are any number of public figures out there and they all sell merch. Think of your favorite band - they likely have merch. But magically when you already decided you hate someone - the fact they have any merch to sell is somehow proof of how awful they are.

It's called confirmation bias. You decide something is true first and then fit the world around that decision second. Ignoring - usually - the countless 1000s of cases where the same thing applies elsewhere but you do not reach the same chosen conclusion there. Blindboy has merch? The git! My favorite band has merch? Oh wow I'd love a new Tshirt as it happens. Take my money!

Quite often too people who create merch stores are not doing it for the money. But because their fans and followers have been on and on at them to do it because THEY want products they can get their hands on. Strange isn't it that this "grifter" appears not to mention his merch store all that much on his primary medium (assuming if and are even his in the first place) while many other podcasters do at great length. Makes you wonder, as the user above, if certain people even know what the word Grifter even means or did they just hear it and thought they would sound smart if they regurgitated it.

magicbastarder

the only merch mentioned on what i assume is his main site are his books - and you'd be straining to call books 'merch':

https://www.theblindboypodcast.ie/books

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395704#Comment_121395704

He's hardly going to do it for free

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395704#Comment_121395704

Blindboy is, and always has been, on the left so he can't be a grifter.

Peterson isn't a grifter either because he is a conservative and conservatives are his base supporters. For Peterson to be a grifter he'd have to suddenly start talking about how wonderful Karl Marx is and how he wants to destroy capitalism.

Russell Brand on the other hand is the text book example of a grifter. Built a career out of being on the left but veered to the right when he realised there was more money to be made there.

TokTik

He’s a clever guy who noticed a niche in the market in Ireland to take advantage of the weak minded. He tells people what they want to hear, but thesauruses it up to sound high and mighty.

He's basically Andrew Tate for sad, lonely losers as opposed to “bro’s”.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395949#Comment_121395949

How is Blindboy a grifter, exactly?

Peterson has been one for years. He's still at it of course but it's become even more pathetic now than it was a year ago.

Brand's definitively that. He was peddling his book for £20 back in the day while actively advocating for the status quo. I'd have no reservations calling him a grifter and more besides.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121396560#Comment_121396560

I said Blindboy wasn't a grifter.

I have no issue with Blindboy - I like him.

Hoop66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121396398#Comment_121396398

Andrew Tate's not for sad, lonely losers?

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395396#Comment_121395396

I'd be interested to see the Venn Diagram of the people who get enraged by BlindBoy and the people who get enraged by Greta Thunberg. I'd imagine there is quite a bit of cross-over.

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121396634#Comment_121396634

Yes, both insufferable. Throw Bressie into the diagram as well

taxAHcruel

Heh. I can not decide whether to take the optimistic view that we must live in a society containing a remarkable lack of suffering that something or someone so innocuous and irrelevant can cause such "suffering" in someone. Or the pessimistic view that the level of resilience has dropped so low in our populace that they are that easily tormented by almost literally nothing at all.

Hard not to take the latter view on a forum where only yesterday I was told that children capable of cooking their own dinner are somehow remarkably resilient. If that's the current bar for resilience then I am surprised Blindboy's mere existence is not sending people into ructions of suicidal despair at the sheer torment they are expected to suffer in their lives :)

Hangdogroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121396398#Comment_121396398

Andrew Tate?

Seriously?

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121396634#Comment_121396634

It would be the most circlest circle that ever circled.

magicbastarder

I just listened to an episode of his podcast for the first time tonight (the one about sparkling water). Dunno what the people who trot out the thesaurus jibes are on about.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391326#Comment_121391326

the bag means he attains the best of both worlds.. anonymity and he can walk into his local shop, pub, doctor surgery, airport, restaurant etc without recognition plus he can spout whatever absurd bòllocks as he does almost daily and isn’t ever publicly in person accountable… the bags wernt ever part of the act… him and the other one like most people who make a living on a stage and in the public eye, don’t require any bags, quite simply a well thought out method of them being able to say any old scutter and then not needing to be accountable… cowardly. they take off the bags and away for a meal / pint / whatever… it’s now David Chambers and he doesn’t have to endure criticism…

I see he has criticised Jordan Peterson. A psychologist with much experience and expertise, awards internationally and a multitude of qualifications…. a doctorate for example… yet here is blindboy (who doesn’t have a degree) because Peterson doesn’t subscribe to Blindboys woe is me, soppy bôllocks unqualified makey up sneering victim narrative…. Blindboy lets him have it. 😁. You couldn’t make it up…. It was probably an attempt to get a reaction from Peterson and get more international notoriety.

imagine an amateur physical therapist who read few books and did the odd course, slagging off an orthopaedic consultant surgeon with 20 plus years experience of helping people and attaining meaningful, measurable and documented medical results 😅 ….. hip replacements, knee reconstructions etc…. That’s exactly the equivalent to Blindboy mouthing off in that manner about the work done by healthcare professionals…

eightieschewbaccy

Think I'll actually give the podcast a go now, the thesaurus jibes sounds like posters would view loads of the podcast scene as professional thesauruses. 😂

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121397923#Comment_121397923

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121398508#Comment_121398508

Was wondering that myself. He does not use a lot of unusual words that often. And when he does it seems to generally be because that word(s) are the particular focus of that podcast which means he has explained quite deeply what the words mean first.

You would want to be someone who has a personal small vocabulary in particular to be bothered by the words Blindboy uses. I would recommend someone like that not listen to Sam Harris who really does talk very eloquently indeed. He uses a lot of uncommon words but uses them quite well.

Contrast that to someone like Russel Brand. I never really had a problem with Brand over the past many years. But I always felt he was using words just for the sake of using them. Whereas Harris would use words to communicate more effectively and be understood, I had a gut feeling Brand was using them more to obfuscate and make his monologues appear deeper and more meaningful than they actually are.

Oh no looks I used a big word starting with a vowel. I guess I had a dictionary in my cereal this morning to some of these people :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121398051#Comment_121398051

I do not think there is anything cowardly about any public figure who chooses to go on media in a character - or who writes books under a pseudonym - or similar. A few people I have seen have just declared it to be cowardly. But I have not seen a single one of them construct an end to end coherent argument as to why it is cowardly. They appear to just think shouting that it is so - makes it so.

As for Peterson I would make a few points there in general rather than make any argument specific to Blindboy. Mainly because since you did not mention what Blindboy said, what the context was, or provide any citation or reference it is impossible to evaluate whether the criticism was valid or not. Blindboy is far from perfect and if he says or does something below par it should be called out. As it should for anyone! But it seems the people who hate him will use any single flaw or failure not in isolation but as proof that their blanket hatred overall is justified. As if it has to be perfection or nothing.

But the general point would be that I too have criticized Peterson in the past. With good reason. He has come out with some absolute nonsense. I would push back on this "Appeal to Authority" fallacy that his qualifications put him beyond critique from anyone, let alone people who are on paper less qualified than he. Arguments are either good or they are not. Critique is either valid or it is not. The qualifications - or lack of them - of the people offering a critique or receiving one are absolutely irrelevant.

What I do not do is suggest that overall Peterson is awful and use single cases of him saying or doing something wrong as if it proves I was right all along. Actually despite the numerous criticisms I have leveled at him in the past I think overall he is genuine, actually cares, and on balance is a positive force in a world that is better off for having him active in it than not. Which I would say about Blindboy too. I do not demand perfection of public figures. That's the stuff of cults and world religions.

magicbastarder

there's also some bemusement from seeing people with anonymised silly names criticising people from wishing to remain somewhat anonymous, when espousing their opinions.

Worztron

How did he come up with the nickname, "Blindboy Boatclub"?

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121399065#Comment_121399065

Not sure but I think it was meant to be some reference to Blues Music where the name "Blind Boy" was very common. Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Boy Paxton are the only two that jump to my mind though.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121398051#Comment_121398051

Given Peterson's descent down the disinformation rabbit hole in recent years he's more than fair game for criticism by anyone.

magicbastarder

yeah, it's hard to take a 'BB should stay in lane and not criticise people he's not qualified to criticise' argument seriously; when it's Peterson in question, a man vocally critical of climate change researchers, for example.

Appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience in 2022, Peterson said that "there is no such thing as climate" and questioned the accuracy of climate modelling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121399171#Comment_121399171

And Blind Willy Johnson, king of the delta blues.

Looks like you are correct:

https://goss.ie/showbiz/blindboy-boatclub-reveals-name-came-97661#:~:text=The%20Limerick%20native%20is%20one,Blindboy%20that%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.