Blindboy cancels himself.

The overreactions are to be expected. Some people have been reasonable in their criticism.

I have never really understood either the deep love or deep hate of Blindboy's stage character. Though it is comical the the "intellectual" effort of a rebuttal people throw at me when I defend him ever is of the calibre of saying things like "Go start a fan club" :) Some people and their sense of irony and self awareness I guess hehehe.

As for the deep hate: I have posted on a few threads about him in the past - not because of any love for the guy himself but because something he said was being massively straw manned and I was more interested in arguing for the truth of what he actually said than I was in defending what he actually said. The main examples of this I can recall are:

1) The meaning of the bag of glue song which contrary to claims (including on this very thread) was not about glorifying drug use but in fact the exact opposite.

2) His recent appearance on TV - Claire Byrne I think it was - where he did not say half the things people attacked him on the Byrne thread for saying. And their efforts to attack the things he actually did say were deeply comical. Such as the guy who went off on one because Blindboy (accurately) described himself as an "artist".

3) His Late Late appearance where he defined "Feminism" and then said why the thing he defined was a good thing - and then a cohort on boards attacked him for defending "feminism" - but offering their own definitions of what "feminism" means to do that attacking. In other words - straw man attacking what the guy once again never actually did or said.

So I found myself defending the reality of what he actually said rather than whether I agreed with the content of what he actually said. Which sometimes I do. Sometimes I do not.

As for the deep love: I can not recall him saying anything too special worthy of dedication or worship to be honest. I am certainly no devotee on any level.

That said however I find myself recently working with young mostly males in a kind of "Jedi Academy" I founded. Problem males. And quite a few times when I identified some issues they had with mental health or depression or negative thinking - there was no resource I could point them to that they could realistically access or benefit from. Except some of Blindboy's podcasts where he detailed his own struggles and how he deals with them.

And they genuinely did benefit from this. Sometimes they benefited from the suggestions Blindboy made about how to deal with those issues. Sometimes they simply benefited from hearing a relatively successful role model talk about the same issues they have. Not everything has to be about solutions. Sometimes hearing someone detail in long form conversation the same things you are feeling - and articulating it in ways different to how you have done so - can be a deep benefit.

As such I do see him as a net positive in the world and in Ireland specifically. He is a resource I have been able to point to in my own work. He is causing zero harm I can see. He is giving benefit to some if not many - and he seems genuine enough in his concern to do so. All of which is much more than the keyboard warrior haters will ever be able to claim about their own influence on the world around them.

So while I do not have a lot of time for him myself - overall I am glad he is out there doing what he is doing and I am in no position to second guess his claims for why he is doing it as people on the thread have been.

On the subject of the thread itself, the OPs link does not work so I do not know what his statement was yet or why he felt the need to realise one. But I hate online "statements". If anyone knows of the "long form" version in his podcast where he explains the song - his feeling about the song - or his retrospective evaluation of the song - then link me to that episode so I can get the longer version of his thinking on the matter. I do not particularly want to trawl through 5 hours of recent episodes to find it :)

Nope. And like you I would much prefer they were working with vetted professionals. But it simply was not happening - and everyone was suffering as a result. To the point where I simply could not stand by like everyone else any more and I felt compelled to do something about it. You will get no argument from me that anything I have been doing is some kind of wonderful ideal. It should have never come to this at all. But it did - and thankfully the result of my having stepped in/up has been remarkably positive and wonderful. In an alternate universe like in star trek the result was probably an even worse car crash. Who knows.

So you are right it is not a "great plan". At all. But in the abscence of anything or anyone else helping out - it is useful that there is someone out there genuinely concerned about mental health issues - genuinely sharing their own experiences and personal journey towards coping - that I can point to that does appear to benefit the people who listen to it.

None of that **** show is "ideal" but life is not an either or of "ideal" or "nothing at all". It is a continuum. And I would prefer to fall even a tiny bit closer to the "ideal" end of the continuum than simply do bugger all. There are times in my life where I make myself do nothing. There are times in my life where that fails and I feel compelled to do something. And I rarely do it without deep consideration and introspection and second and third guessing before I finally take action. So far so good. But sure - it might go entirely awry some day when I step up and later realise the world would have been better off if I had not!

Actually in one of the podcasts I did listen to Blindboy said all of the above himself. That he gets feedback from people that his podcast has helped or that people referred others to his podcast to help. But while he genuinely feels positive about such feedback - the fact that the state of affairs is such that people need to turn to a guy with a plastic bag on his head as a resource for something there should already be multiple easily accessible resources for already - is a complete **** show. He himself laments the fact that anyone would require a podcast like his at all for that - as he is also barely qualified to be speaking on any of those topics (think he has something like 1 year of training on the subject before he dropped out to do art instead or something?).