Bloodstock Community

Bloodstock have announced Vicky's stepping down from her role, for now, effective immediately following her Tweet yesterday. Be interesting to see if this affects how the line-up looks for next year's fest though I'd expect a lot of the big hitters are already locked in or at advanced stages of negotiation.

Good, can't blame anyone but herself. Her mainstage bookings have been getting increasingly shite too. She won't be missed.

My guess is Simon Hall will take over, and everyone will sound like a Pantera clone.

An injection of new blood could really spice up the festival though. Maybe Hatebreed won't be book for the sixteenth time in a few years.

She was stupid to say something like that in these insane times. I think Vicky should have stood her ground, but I understand why she didn't. The rest of the family decided to (outwardly) stab her in the back because the business is more important than making a show of loyalty.

This is the world we live in. Anti human, secular absolutist mob rule is the way. These are dark times indeed.

It wasn't the smartest move to post something like that and not expect backlash when: (A) She's the face of the festival; (B) She has personally booked bands that include trans individuals for next year: and (C) The festival has a strong LGBT+ attendance. She really has unnecessarily shot herself in the foot here, especially considering the Sophie charity are now reconsidering their partnership with the fest. Why was she so offended by somebody putting their pronouns at the end of an email anyway?

Oh wow, guess something went down in twitterland then? Can't say I'll miss Vicky's love of white supremacists, gun loving wankers and entirely underwhelming headliner acts, but I'll be surprised if she drops out of the festival organisation completely.

She'll still be booking the bands. She just won't be the face of it.

It was beyond thoughtless to have posted what she did, bordering on idiotic recklessness at best and downright prejudice at worst and it definitely is the right thing for her to step back from the festival now and from being the public face of it permanently.
The festival now needs to genuinely make itself THE most inclusive festival rather than saying one thing and having senior members of the team "going rogue"
Perhaps a good way of proving that they are changed and more inclusive would be to kick that vile racist Anselmo off the bill

For context, she posted a tweet saying she would just bin any email received that sign off with gender identifying pronouns.

Tbh, I hope she is OK. The mob is just awful.

She's going to be fine. She's got people around her.

I suppose I should contribute my thoughts as a member of the LBGT+ community (pan, if you're wondering).

I can accept frustration over change in culture. I can't accept the way she mildly vented that frustration. I have little sympathy for her. Simply deleting a post on social media doesn't erase any sentiment behind the post. It implied a basic lack of respect from my perspective - an easy slip up to make on social media, but it turns out making flippant comments can have consequences. You will be subject to anyone's thoughts on your views and remarks. When you're a nobody, nothing much is likely to happen. It's different when you're a director of a company.

Respecting a desire to clear any doubt over how to refer to someone does not fundamentally damage anyone or anything. Even if you don't respect that, it's just good manners to accept, smile and use their pronoun. If the person names themselves in an email, it's even likely you'll refer to their gender in your direct response anyway.

This whole thing doesn't really change my opinion of Vicky, but Bloodstock is full of people whose company I do genuinely enjoy so nothing much has changed from my own perspective.

This situation is not a simple one.

I work with a number of people who identify as trans. I refer to them as the they wish to be referred. I do this for mostly empathetic reasons. However, it is very complex situation, and I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing for them or anyone. Am I being kind or am enabling a myriad of negative emotional agents (internal and external) in these people? The answer is, I just don't know, I'm not qualified enough to know for sure. All of them have complex mental health issues and the conflation of this with trans identity is muddy water indeed.

However, I will say this. I understand Vicky and her anger around this issue. The people who are being asked to use the requested pronouns have no control over how they perceive the individual making the request. For me, none of the trans people I work with register as the gender the wish to be referred to as. This means every time I refer to them there is a disconnect between my perception and my vocalisation; ergo, I have to manifest a type of lie. Lying is objectively stressful (e.g. polygraph test) and I have to go through this (very minor) stress multiple times a day; along with the 50 or so other people have contact with. Now this my be a minor discomfort for me and the 50 other people around them; and the emotional hardship trans people feel may be greater on any give metric of suffering; however, the great suffering of an individual vs the very the minor discomfort of many is a very difficult comparison. This is especially true when the trans identity is somewhat difficult to pin down, either in cause or manifestation. Moreover, a lie is a fundamental transgression in pretty much all societies. Society itself was first founded upon truth and trust. Promises kept, form the basis of oaths, which where the first formations of social structures that could be lent upon for stability. Enforcement, either socially or legally of (what feels like) lies is a profound corruption of the perception of truth itself and has a deeply destabilising social impact - people need to know what is true to operate as a reliable social agent, and be a good person. Now the 'trans women are women slogan' has little strength when someone has a biological reaction/recognition regarding gender- hormones don't lie, even if I do, apparently.

The question comes down to: should people who identify as trans be able to force people to lie?

Was this what Vicky getting at in her painfully blunt and inarticulate way? If so, perhaps I agree with her.

I don't have feel confortable expressing my opinion on what she said (and, not being trans, don't really feel like I have a stake in it anyway, unlike seemingly everyone else). I will say that it seems like people are putting more thought into thinking about what she may or may not have meant than she ever did with that tweet. I also kind of agree with Ghost. I kind of doubt much will change overall.

I don't have twitter. What exactly happened?


Edit: Nevermind, I looked it up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-d ... gn=KARANGA

Whilst Vicky of course doesn't deserve direct abuse or threats (correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen any such content), this is very different to receiving criticism or reading the opinions other people have about her character based on the way she presents herself on social media, which she has quite frankly brought upon herself.

Unless she's received threats, she's not the victim in all of this. For someone who is so prevalent on social media, she is very aware of what that environment is like so tbh, it really comes down to the fact that she shouldn't dish it out if she can't take it.

This isn't the first time she has (unprovoked I might add), chosen to post something that she knows damn well will offend people and cause controversy. And it just comes across like she's being confrontational for the sake of it and trying to start online arguments for no reason, which all seems just a bit juvenile.

And this isn't a freedom of speech issue at all - there was nothing stopping her posting that tweet and there would be nothing stopping her posting it again if she wanted to. But freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from the criticism of others when you speak in/on a public form.
When you post on a public form such as social media, then you have to accept that other people will comment, particularly when you are the public face of a brand such as an international music festival. Despite what some people might think, the original aim of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook is to connect with others and create discourse, not to massage your own fucking ego by convincing yourself that everyone agrees with you. If she didn't want other people to comment, then she should write a blog, not a fucking Twitter post. Or if she only wants comments from people who agree with her then a) social media is not the place for that and b) that's rather sad.

And if you're not as "free" to post whatever you like on social media because you're the face of a brand and your posts could affect the reputation or the business activities of the brand you represent, then boo-fucking-hoo; that comes with the territory and the privileged position that you're in, deal with it.