Let's all take Blindboy seriously now...

😂😂🤣🤣Thanks for the psychological analysis much appreciated, it's saved me years of therapy.

There's a special kind of gormless eejit these days who thinks empathy and kindness are some kind of superpower and also the most important thing in the world, they're not, most people have plenty of empathy and kindness they just don't need to go around telling everyone they do and how important is.

Sorry to burst your bubble, A, but if you found the Rubber Bandits stuff “inspired” you were, more than likely, missing the point. Or at least the one Blind Boy Boat Club retrofitted about the Rubber Bandits’ work.

He has since claimed that the early fans of the group, the ones who bought their CDs and went to see them live, weren’t the fans they wanted and had completely missed that it was some form of meta-satire of not making fun of skanger lifestyles in Limerick but instead it was actually laughing at the type of people who would laugh at that sort of thing, through the medium of making fun of skanger lifestyles in Limerick.

I explained the issue with his answer.

It's insincere bullshit used to pander to gobshites.

You don't agree with my explanation then fine.

What the hell is up with people on this forum that you continually have to spell everything out for them like they're a 6 year old.

It's a discussion board, if you just want to state something without being challenged on it, then I understand Instagram or Facebook is the place to go to.

I know I find it very intriguing that someone advocating for others to have empathy is seen as insincere bullshit. Do you believe that no one can express such a view without it being motivated just to garner likes or attention?

If you do genuinely believe, this, I would repeat my post about printing that out and taking it to a therapist, it's not a normal or rational viewpoint.

I can only speak to my own response to their output back in the day. But I'd like to see those quotes for further context.

Was there a large part to the Rubberbandits schtick that played up to certain stereotypes for easy laughs? Yes, absolutely.

But, I also think their best songs were musically interesting, fresh and funny and their appeal, to me, had as much to do with the absurdist humour that they had going on, as opposed to just merely laughing at the working class or whatever else. A song like Spoiling Ivan, for instance, is just strange and disturbing - and I love it for that. There was way more to their act than just one dimension. Other songs like Fellas, Dad's Best Friend or Double Dropping Yokes with Eamonn DeValera weren't just piss takes of working class stereotypes.

I also think back to some of the stuff they did on Republic of Telly where their skits were way sharper and more fully realised than what was going on around them. I remember being genuinely impressed by the Salmon of No Craic sketch. Sustained surreal hillariousness, which I did find inspired. I see more of that today in Bobby Fingers' videos than in anything Blindboy does now.

So he answered your question, you completely dismiss his answer and ask him to answer it again using different words? Strange. I get the feeling any answer he gives would not be acceptable to you.

It's funny because he talks a lot about struggling to express himself when he was younger because of all that old school masculinity crap like 'boys don't cry' and being sensitive or creative is a sign of weakness. How you couldn't do lots of things that weren't safe masculine things for fear of being labelled 'soft' or 'gay'. This kind of repressing yourself to not upset the norm. At the same time, because of his undiagnosed autism, he got called weird loads because he'd say atypical things or stuff that made people uncomfortable.

I think a lot of people who complain about him nowadays would have been the ones calling him soft or weird when he was a kid. And they definitely served as inspiration for songs like Dad's Best Friend and Fellas.

Not quite sure what your point is, usually when someone mentions the other party uses a thesaurus it means they are subconsciously bowing to their superior intellect

As someone who has listened to probably just under half of the guys podcasts - I have to admit I have never heard him claim that everyone has a mental health problem and that everyone is a loser.

Working on the assumption that you are not simply dishonest and straw-manning words into peoples mouth that they never said - perhaps you could maybe offer a few quotes and citations to this effect? Because yes I would very much agree that offering the claim that everyone is a loser and everyone has mental health problems would be a poor position to be espousing.

Look, the lad does plenty of good work, he does try to help people, and for that he is to be commended. He's not out to do anyone, and for the most part he's bland and inoffensive. Sounds like a decent chap who is trying to do some good with his position.

That being said, it's not an unreasonable position to take that a lad wearing a plastic bag on his head, putting on a fake accent and constantly going on about mental health like an expert despite not having an qualification in the field (that I know of), is a bit of a know-it-all eejit.

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.