Why didn't it matter?

For a quick recap, two years ago I blogged about allegations against musician James Dewees. 

The allegations were on an Instagram page that claimed to be from multiple people. After reading through every post, I found the the accusations were that he preyed on vulnerable women so he could get money from them and live with them, not what "predator" generally brings to mind. There were other issues, and those were the things I posted about in the original blog.

After receiving two angry but anonymous messages, I later went back to check the Instagram page and it had been deleted.

It changed nothing. Shortly after the allegations first came out, Dewees was fired from his two main bands. That never changed. 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/06/james-dewees-is-not-predator.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/02/james-dewees-is-not-predator-part-2.html

It does bother me for James Dewees himself, but it also seems to reflect bigger issues. That's why I am still writing about this.

So, why didn't it matter?

I think there are a few different factors.

One is simply a matter of power.  

That certainly refers to the amount of fans James Dewees has, but it also refers to my not having a large audience. 

Realistically, I could also have tried harder; posting twice in two years is not a super-focused effort. 

I don't believe more effort would have paid off. Maybe if those efforts were toward building my audience first, but I don't know.

Some of that is also the means. I mentioned the "I'm not reading all that" response... blogs don't seem that popular right now. Maybe if it were picked up by a popular podcast, that would work. 

I am not the ideal person to make that happen. I don't have the patience to listen to podcasts, let alone produce them or network with them.

We here get into an area where the question becomes what one's responsibility is.

I have very little interest in building my brand or my fan base, but I do have an interest in promoting justice and fairness and seeing people do well. Do I have to change how I do  things to be effective?

While we can certainly argue that popularity should not act as protection, and that justice should not require fame, we can also see examples indicating that maybe that is how it works.

That matters, because the other thing that I think is a real issue is apathy about what happens. Do we care enough about what is right? Do we care when it does not directly affect us?

Next week, more examples, and more questions.