Yes, this is free speech and capitalism working as designed.
Free speech means that the government didn't prevent Adams from going progressively more public¹ with his racism, even though he clearly understood what the consequences might be. Capitalism means that companies can reconsider their association with him, especially in the face of rapidly diminishing returns.
¹ Adams' racism is not new. In the early 2000s, several people discovered that the email address featured in every Dilbert comic was associated with the AIM nicknames "••••••ape" (rhymes with "chigger"), "ura_••••••" (ditto), and "die_u_•••••" (rhymes with "drink"): https://i.imgur.com/FfH7WHn.jpg
That last part was likely nothing to do with Adams, just a prankster using an easily visible public email address. Those accounts would have dated from the early or mid 90's, when email verification wasn't a thing yet and you could sign up accounts to anyone else's email address pretty much anywhere.
Maybe I'm old, but I don't take salacious anecdotal reports on forums to be be worth considering, whether or not they're plausible. You might not believe this, but people on the Internet used to just make things up -- and the good ones would even try to make their apocrypha believable!
Yes, we all know his persona and ongoing public drama. It's obnoxious. But I'm not sure why that would make a random story in some forum worth taking seriously.
From the video, he is advocating for an ethno-state based off a single poll regarding the feelings people have about the phrase 'all-lives matter' answered by only 112 black people. I wouldn't say this is just 'part of a persona'.
Is it not reasonable to separate the creation from the creator? Dilbert is rather politically banal, and the comic itself has never been accused of being racist (to my knowledge).
I listen to songs by Micheal Jackson, watch movies starring Woody Allen and OJ Simpson, and directed by Roman Polanski. It doesn't mean I agree with their life choices.
Cancel culture is getting old.
PS: I watched the whole clip, and I think Scott Adams is kind of a dolt. My point still stands.
Really, we don't even know the personal lives of most artists and can guess that most have something to get outraged over. So there's a point that tossing art for the sins of an artist whose sins happen to be public is just a way of feeling like you're in control of something rather than application of some moral justice. But that’s a personal choice and fully justifiable.
But different circumstances are different. In the case of Dilbert, Adams has been putting his unpopular politics into the strip (see "Dave the Black Engineer" as the buzz-worthy example). And while there have been plenty of politically vocal and sometimes controversial comics (Doonesbury), I think a lot of newspapers just don't want to deal with a difficult guy and his toxic reputation anymore. Sometimes annoying people get fired or lose their contracts because what they provide isn't worth the trouble anymore. That's what this seems to be.
I think there's also the unstated assumption that artists with privately held unsavory beliefs maybe also hold those beliefs loosely, and could feasibly come to recognize those beliefs as such. (Or hypothetically could have, in the case of deceased artists.)
Whereas artists who are vocal in their unsavory beliefs tend also to hold them strongly -- to the point of doubling down in the face of consequences as Scott Adams has done.
Personally, I have no qualms about moving on from artists whose strongly held personal beliefs unsettle me. There are plenty of other great artists on the world.
A public person who broadcasts public statements to the world, as part of his audience engagement strategy, no less, can very much be dropped by editors who don't want those views associated with their newspaper, and who don't want to pay him.
Note also that Adams's political views have been coming more and more into his comics these days. He's had no end of comics making fun of preferred pronouns, of Wally deciding to be trans to get more money, of companies hiring black people just to up their "diversity quota," who then claim to "identify as white."
There's been a whole ton of anti-trans and race baiting for a while now, and when the dog whistles in the comics match the very explicit words in his public speaking, there's not a lot of ambiguity.
The racism critique comes mainly from his recent rants. Though his beliefs have certainly been worming their way into his strips for some time. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXp6ArvXcT8
Artists that make their living through institutions with national reach - so, newspaper syndicates, Hollywood, network television - are basically beholden to following national interest in some degree; that doesn't necessarily mean that they have to fall within the same lines as someone running for political office, but it does mean that as the sociopolitical winds shift, national culture is implicitly called upon to follow parallel narratives and "do what's good for the country". Falling too far outside the narrative means marginalization; it's a subtle distinction, because what they say can be outwardly critical but still be part of the narrative, still describe "a place where our culture should go".
The original "Dilbert" premise has become dated in the same way as Dagwood Bumstead of "Blondie": it's office work from another generation, one that is now retiring. And increasingly it critiques trends that are political darlings. Whether Adams was right or wrong in his personal statements, this was coming, because he's stayed in the context of circa 1990.
Cancel culture is what the powerful call the power the weak have over them.
No one is forcing you to dislike songs by Michael Jackson, or to stop watching movies by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. But enough people are making this choice to abandon the products of powerful people/organisations, and are making the choice to not utilise services that support these producers, that powerful companies are choosing to disassociate themselves from producers whose stance is morally repugnant.
You may not like the fact that everyone has this power - but that's the price of freedom I suppose.
Agreed. "Kind of a dolt" is a good characterization, and I've known that since I stumbled upon his twitter last year. The same is true for most artists and celebrities in my view. They're good at some aspect of their art, and in other respects they're at best normal flawed humans that get an outsized platform, at worst they're blithering morons. Remember the time when Leonardo DiCaprio thought an Alberta chinook was climate change happening before is eyes, or when Paul McCartney went to PEI to protest the Newfoundland seal hunt? They're morons. Inception's a good movie, Band on the run is a great song, not because of the intellectual prowess of the stars.
The only thing I'd add is that I think celebrities should stay in their lane and not think we care what they think. And so as a corollary, I can see how some people get upset with them when exposed to their dumb views. Imo that shouldn't influence how their art is received, but I can understand how it does.
>I listen to songs by Micheal Jackson, watch movies starring Woody Allen and OJ Simpson, and directed by Roman Polanski. It doesn't mean I agree with their life choices.
It easier to separate the art from artist and not boycott producers of long form art works (Kanye, Woody Allen, Polanski... I wont include MJ since the allegations werent proven to be true) that are therapeutic, inspirational, and have a lasting impact on a large % of the world population.
Scott produces low impact & reach comic strips that are good for a short chuckle and little else. His body of work which is limited to distribution on a dying medium just cant survive him going off the deep end.
>Is it not reasonable to separate the creation from the creator?
That's a lot easier to do when they're long dead, like HP Lovecraft. When they're alive, being actively terrible and benefiting financially from the thing you want to separate them from, or even worse using that thing as a platform for their execrable politics, then refusing to do so is a valid ethical stance.
Actually, the comic itself has more recently become more political and has been accused of being racist/bigoted. If you haven't been reading the strip since its heyday in the 90s you'd probably be none the wiser.
Separating art from artist is something that is easier or more difficult to do depending on the artist.
For someone like O.J. Simpson, the separation is quite clear. His football career predated and had no relation to his alleged infractions in his personal life. Plus, there's no real way to financially support a retired player. Going to the Buffalo Bills game today or watching old highlight clips doesn't financially benefit O.J.
For someone like Woody Allen, it's hard to ignore that his art that he directs and writes happens to include some pretty gross plot-lines, like in one his most critically acclaimed movies Manhattan where his 42 year old character dates a 17 year old.
The fact that the general population was just sort of ignorant of how problematic this was doesn't really change the fact that Woody Allen is very obviously attracted to minors and that his actions were never okay.
So, really, for some of these people there is not much separation between art and the artist. Some are more of a blurred line. For example, arguably, the art of Harry Potter doesn't include much damning content, but many people have made connections between some details of the Wizarding World and the way the author's voice portrays them, and how problematic they might be in the context of her public opinions. I think this is why there's such a split on opinions on whether to continue to consume Harry Potter content amongst fans of her work.
For Scott Adams, it's clear to me that the artist is intruding on the art much more than J.K. Rowling ever intruded on her art. Adams has joined the right wing white nationalist cult and it leaks into the comic strips all the time. It's very much a political strip.
Let me finish off on the topic of "cancel culture." Let's say you walked into a candy store and the owner called you a shithead. You probably wouldn't buy candy from that candy store, right?
Well, Scott Adams did that to all Black people just now. You walk into his candy shop and you look a certain way, and he categorically dislikes you before you even say hello.
Scott Adams categorically called an entire group of people shitheads based on the color of their skin alone, not thinking twice about whether that group of people might be in charge of editorial decisions at newspapers or whether that group of people might be customers of his product.
The truth is, it's not very hard to treat everyone with respect and dignity regardless of their ethnicity or personal background. It's not hard to treat people the way you would like to be treated.
People like Scott Adams are actively going out of their way to hurt people's feelings, so they can't act like it's an injustice for their feelings and bank account to be hurt in return.
If boycotting assholes is cancel culture, long live cancel culture.
> This is why "cancel culture" is only "getting old" if you're in a privileged class that isn't affected by the bigotry.
Sorry, but that’s not a very constructive or honest way to discuss the topic.
While rooted in positive intent by a diverse community, there’s obviously a strong vein of white savior complex behind “cancel culture” and people outside of “privileged class” can in fact hold a variety of opinions on the topic themselves. It’s not universally beloved, even by the people it’s intended to serve. Is there a way to advocate for it while acknowledging the right of everyone to have their own experience and opinion of it?
The truth is, white nationalists are mad that pop culture can't be openly bigoted in their favor anymore. And why can't it be openly bigoted? Because America is no longer over 85% white like it was in 1960. [1]
Instead, you're looking at a country with a diverse community, just like you mentioned.
So, when we're talking about "cancel culture," I think the practical application of the concept is really about business risk.
If I carry Scott Adams' comic strip, how many of my customers that he directly offended will cancel their subscription? How many of my employees will quit or complain? How much money will I lose? On the other side of the equation, what's the financial upside of keeping this comic strip in print?
That equation used to look different when all your customers and employees were part of a homogeneous ethnic group.
Conservatives make the argument that white people, usually the ones in cities who have interacted with lots of non-white people and know them to be normal people, are afflicted by "wokeism" and "white savior complex." Call it what you wish, at the end of the day customers with dollars don't want to buy shit from bigots.
I disagree. The workplace merely recognizes the monetary value of not having issues like racism, harassment, and bigotry pushing out talent and hampering company performance.
As a business owner, effective DEI is proven to lead to better financial results. You can call that politics if you want, I call it business metrics.
Hah. Having private business owners pit working class people against each other over superficial ethnic and cultural differences is possibly the least Marxist thing imaginable.
It’s cool if you want to blame the left for things, but at least blame the right parts of the left for the right things!
today I learned that "the Santa Rosa Press Democrat" is still a thing in 2023
> As individual newspapers told readers they were dropping “Dilbert,” the company that distributed the strip, Andrews McMeel Universal, said it was severing ties with Adams
what a weird atavism of an "industry"! even with that dude's fame he couldn't just sell his stuff directly and had to go through some middleman "company that distributed the strip to newspapers".
(apparently he entered the kanye west mode, too bad)
PS I think what he said and posted was wrong, but watching these extinct dinosaur people and organizations fighting and cancelling each other is kind of funny.
that's how newspaper comic distribution works. it works that way for everyone, even for Bill Watterson when "Calvin and Hobbes" was at its height. Bill continually fought against what his distributors wanted, and fought for what he wanted.
this is just how newspapers are.
can you imagine what it would be like if each piece of non-local content in a newspaper was negotiated with each creator? one by one? every day? how many thousands of phone calls per day would need to happen for a single comic strip?
honestly maybe it's my ignorance but I'm really surprised all these newspapers like santa rosa even exist. How? subscriptions for physical newspapers? I haven't seen an actual physical newspaper in over a decade (except junk mail). Paid classifieds? it's all craigslist et al nowadays. Paid print ads? really? how is this stuff even around?
there are entire worlds that exist outside the sphere of what you see.
not only are there still newspapers, there are still people riding bicycles delivering those papers every morning. maybe not where you are, or maybe you don’t see them, but they are far from gone.
the world you know about is absolutely dwarfed by the world you don't know about.
