If he’d only written the first verse, I might believe it.
I find it odd that that singer doesn’t understand his fan-base.
Yeah, it seems a bit strange. At least he’s not a grifter (yet). Or, maybe he’s just really bad at grifting.
His politics and messaging is inconsistent. He’s got Reagan-era tax and welfare talking points mixed in with qanon pedophile conspiracy lines. Then makes a video where it sounds like he thinks he’s a centrist. I guess the Overton window really has shifted, lol.
It’s not hard to imagine how someone within the conservative cesspit would end up with a worldview that’s a complete mess.
It takes education that not everybody has access to to see through the junk science of neoliberalism, transphobia, climate denial and anti-vax. It takes context that not everybody is exposed to to realise that friends and family who have always been good to you, may not actually be good people.
I have a small amount of sympathy for him. His life and feelings were being used to push a far-right agenda that he’s clearly not comfortable with, making him the latest target of abuse. He’s got more in common with the LGBT community than he might want to admit.
But my sympathy dries up quickly. He holds views that are deeply damaging to society and didn’t seem to have a problem when it was other people on the receiving end.
If he can learn from this and shake off his other shitty views, I’d have some respect for him but until then the enemy of my enemy isn’t inherently my friend.
He holds views that are deeply damaging to society and didn’t seem to have a problem when it was other people on the receiving end.
What views? Everyone in this thread is being super vague
He’s just another rube being exploited by the right wing media cycle.
qanon pedophile conspiracy lines?
dude. jeffrey epstien had a private island where they raped children. that’s not a conspiracy, that’s what happened.
And to Oliver, the reason Epstein was rich and able to molest children is because he’s a Jewish queer.
Was bizarre to me that the first NPR story on this song focused on the line referencing Epstein being a far right conspiracy. Everyone I’ve interacted with thinks everyone photographed with him or Ghislaine partakes.
Because it is. People on the left Etc generally want to see anyone who was involved with his sex trafficking to see justice. But we don’t automatically accuse people we don’t like of being in League with some evil pedophile jew. That is a specifically right-wing/nazi conspiracy theory. Combine that with the ridiculous yet prevalent Theory among some on the Republican / conservative side. That Democrats are abducting children to drain them of their blood for the adrenachrome so they can stay young. You couldn’t hardly get more late Weimar Republic / Nazi if you tried.
I don’t find it a stretch at all to believe that a lot of people who were ever in a photo with Epstein or maxwell. Didn’t really understand what they were doing or what was going on. Do you know the intimate details of everyone who’s ever been to a party that you’ve been at? I doubt it. That said anyone for whom there’s a credible accusation or evidence. Should be fully investigated.
But this associating of people you don’t like with Epstein definitely is a far right Republican trope. And a bad one at that. Because their people are often more easily associable than anyone else. I mean we have video of trump bragging about how he “likes them young” for christ’s sake. Sure Bill flew on his plane without Epstein on board. And he and Hillary both had been in pictures with them at different parties from time to time. But I never saw him hanging out with Epstein on purpose bragging about how he likes them young.
I heard that too! I had to pause the podcast. Usually NPR politics is somewhat fair, but that seemed like a stretch
yeah, between that and how they talked about Bernie Sanders during the primaries of 2020 and 2016, I no longer am a sustainer.
I don’t listen to country: can someone say what he said that’s so controversial? As I understand he was making illusions to Jeffery Epstein who is a confirmed pedo
The disgust makes sense when it’s Rage Against the Machine and conservatives but homey apparently hasn’t looked at mainstream country in the past 30+ years because it ain’t “Folsom Prison Blues” anymore its “I Love America And My Ford Truck (Unless Ford Goes Woke)”
You know how deliberately engineered, autotuned pop music and its popularity doesn’t really represent real music? Same goes for “country”. All of those carbon copy songs about ford trucks and beer in the bed of ma pickup chucklefucks doesn’t represent the real music being made in and adjacent to that genre. Much like pop, it’s music for idiots. It moves volume in America because of the size of that audience.
His politics amount to Jews running the world and queers being child molesters so don’t expect much in the way of critical thinking.
Why would you expect someone to understand a group of people just because they like a song they made? Art being misinterpreted, or interpreted in a way the artist never intended, is the oldest story in the book. Long story short it’s not at all “odd that the singer doesn’t understand his fanbase”.
Maybe it’s not his “fan base” that he doesn’t understand, but rather than annoying 10% butt-hurts that always cause trouble.
I mean I don’t have any fans and I don’t understand because I’m actually pretty cool.
Everyone just keeps saying I haven’t met the right group yet but like there are too many groups left.
Ignoring the whole welfare lyric for a moment, I think this experience ended up being a hard lesson for this young songwriter.
To borrow a line from Bluey - “…when you put something beautiful out into the world, it’s no longer yours, really.”
People need to remember that this guy did not have a lot of success before this song. It’s a breakout hit from an unknown artist
If you don’t follow country music, maybe. But this dude has had an audience for quite some time. Far from some unknown.
Scott H Biram is an unknown artist. This guy has had a following for a minute, now
This song is honestly amazing with Dale Gribble AI vocals. It feels like it was from a parallel universe where King Of The Hill never stopped making episodes.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/JbJTbykAK1Q?si=9FnjofCl9GMMq_to
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
The lyrics could have been written by an AI it’s so generic.
I disagree. I think it’s clever. I’m a hillbilly who doesn’t live far from this guy so I may have a little bias.
I just wish like hell he hadn’t included that horrible line about poor folks. He’s off the mark about who his enemy is.
I was too at one point. I was so burned out dealing with those people. Where I’m from that’s all you see. You have people who work every day or you have huge people riding around on mobility scooters with skinny half starved children begging for a bag of peanuts. When that is your experience day in and day out and you haven’t yet had the opportunity to learn why that is, you just get angry at what you see.
I hope he comes to understand the source of those problems and directs his anger at the right people.
He could end up being the protest singer that we need in Appalachia to offer a decent perspective.
When I was younger I wrote an entire mini book on how much hatred I had for the junkies in my community. It would embarrass me right into my grave if I had to read it today. I ended up falling into the trap myself and then I realized it wasn’t a choice they were making. Once I realized that my people had been intentionally poisoned and lied to so some jackass wearing a suit worth more than our houses could grow his bank account, I was furious with myself for what I had believed earlier.
I hope this dude gets some truth and brings more people around.
Sorry if this is a jumbled mess. Trying to type it out at work and keep my train of thought is a terribly difficult thing to do.
Thanks for your perspective. I come from a completely different background but also started conservative and became more left leaning as I learned more about history and economics and social science etc. as well as years of gaining lots of real world experience caring for all kinds of different people. Like you said, it’s not really their choice. Nobody wants to grow up to be on welfare or a drug addict. Of course there is some personal agency but it’s far more complex than what this song and the popular narrative make it out to be.
Unfortunately my parents, many of my coworkers, and of course the entire Republican party still buy into that caricature of evil poor people choosing to steal from the rest of us hard working patriots but it’s easy to forget that they too are brainwashed. I appreciate your reminder to be kind and understanding above all and hopefully we can raise everyone’s collective level of understanding, empathy, and care instead of deepening divides.
Upon an honest look at this song i see nothing wrong with its lyrics
I feel fooled by an internet wave
Are you being victimized by fat people on welfare?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/JbJTbykAK1Q?si=ct8MNE11-Zzvw6Bm
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Ootl… Who is this red head of the woods and what did they do?
Tldr: some no name dude wrote a country song. One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients. Conservative hogs lose their mind and his song hits top charts. He comes out backpedaling and claiming we all “interpretted the lyrics wrong” and welfare recipients are victims not leeches. Now everyone is confused.
Can’t forget the part where his personal YouTube channel also has an extensive watch list (“videos to make your noggin’ bigger” or something similar) full of full-on anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Such as Jews secretly orchestrating 9/11.
This is an important detail of which I was unaware. I was almost gonna credit him for snubbing his nose at privileged politicians, but now I can write him off again.
Got a link to that?
ETA: never mind I was having a hard time finding reference to that but then I found this article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/rich-men-north-richmond-viral-conservative-anthem-rcna99698
this definitely feeds into my thoughts on who he thinks the “rich men” are
Ohhh. This is the dude who performs the song my coworker was all but having orgasms over yesterday and was trying to make me listen to - “the lyrics are amazing, just listen to them!” She already thinks she’s magnetic from a hepatitis vaccine, and this morning informed me that the moon landing was a hoax, so I think I made the right call in utterly ignoring her and her stupid song.
Oh no… This is just sad. They need a friend and a hobby.
“the lyrics are amazing, just listen to them!”
It’s got good wordplay and flow but the content is confused and under informed
The song title rich men north of Richmond is also likely a dog whistle for other crappy bigots like this idiot.
What’s the dog whistle? Washington DC is north of Richmond VA.
Richmond was one of the northernmost slave owning towns during the civil war.
Interesting. Thank you for the context
I think a lot of people get way too uptight over nonsense that is actually bait.
One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients.
There’s no way he chose Richmond for any reason other than being the CSA’s capital city.
I feel like a lot of people are weirdly jumping to conclusions and trying to make up detailed conspiracy theories. Could it possibly be that DC is north of Richmond, and “rich men” sounds like Richmond?
Could it possibly be that DC is north of Richmond, and “rich men” sounds like Richmond?
I mean if you want to pander to people who are still upset that DC took away their slaves and who would prefer that they could call Richmond their capital, and all you had to do to get people to defend you for that choice was to toss in an awkward half-rhyme, why wouldn’t you?
Ah okay I was confused why people were hating on this guy. Before I knew that it sounded like “The machine is wondering why rage against the machine hates them for liking their music again.”
Just to be clear, this isn’t the guy who made “try that in a small town” which was another meme of a song lately.
I said most of what I wanna say yesterday
It’s wild that people are so mad about the fudge rounds line. Poor people are often forced into situations where they eat unhealthy foods. Why should food aid programs help fund American obesity rather than tackle it? Is that not the same as declaring tomatoes a vegetable so we can keep serving pizza to to schoolkids?
It doesn’t help fund obesity, it helps feed people.
People who live in a food desert and can only access bad food.
You don’t ask the “keep people from starvation” fund to also be the “fix systemic class based wage structures” fund
Oddly I’m not bothered by that line so much. I’m more disappointed with the title and the chorus. Richmond, being the capital of Virginia was a border state of the Civil War. Yes technically Washington DC is very much north of Richmond, but I think the song resonates more with a certain crowd due to the former reason vs the latter.
The song could have been better IMO if it targeted LOCAL governments by state, instead of trying to blame Rich Men North of Richmond. As if Rich Men South of Richmond wasn’t a thing…
i’m not buying it. Sure he could be a confederate apologist but if you are writing a song about some rich old dudes in DC screwing the rest of us over its some hard rhymes. When I heard the song he pronounced the word “rich men” and “richmond” nearly identically. I was like what does “rich men north of rich men” mean, then later I heard “richmond north of richmond”
Looking at the lyrics he was complaining that we have people in the streets with no food to eat while there are obese people getting fat on welfare. Sounds like he thinks government is incompetent.
I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
*Something, something can’t give money to poor people. Something, something, give money to rich people. *
The bullshit argument that is all about hating and punishing poor people. With nice extra boot lick the rich.
Yeah I heard that argument from the “right” and “left” yeah people would gamble all their money away then what.
Its basic income, if you want more go produce something. But we should treat people like adults and stop treating them like children.
I don’t think Virginia was technically a border state in the civil war? MD. WV, and KY were southern states blanketing Virginia. When the government moved through Baltimore, didn’t they have to point federal hill and Fort McHenry cannons at Baltimore to stop the city from rioting against the government army?
Deciding what food people get to eat with their food assistance money is disturbingly authoritarian.
Deciding what food people get to buy would be a bad solution to that problem anyways
Working to have healthy options be more affordable and available seems like it’d help and it doesn’t seem disturbingly authoritarian
Food assistance is already regulated. No hot food, no pet food, no vitamins, no beer or wine, etc
So now add ‘no sugar’ to that? Look, I don’t like that there’s an obesity epidemic, but that’s basically telling poor people they can’t enjoy food they like. I don’t think that is the right way to help people.
I’m not saying we should or that it is.
I was just pointing out that food assistance is already regulated based on there being some things people may enjoy or want that the government has determined they can not use that assistance to purchase.
Largely, it would seem, based on the fact that those things bad for them (alcohol), that it’s not an efficient use of funds (hot food; any food intended to be eaten on premises), or it’s not actually caloric in any way (vitamins).
I’m bothered by it because he’s just repeating Raegan. At least try to convince me you’re a populist, come on.
Are people mad or is media saying people are mad and then people are agreeing with media.
I often find now that media creates a bunch of controversy on behalf of artists or comedian’s were no shits were given. But like a “man on the street” bit, when confronted by a view like “the song calls people fat” then people who never gave two shits might say this things like " that’s kind of shitty"
I have no idea if the media is saying people are mad, the only place I’ve seen angry comments is here on Lemmy. Fair point though, maybe it really is just media controversy.
I actually don’t see a lot of it in the media. I do see a lot of it in terminally online and too-plugged-in places like Twitter, here, Reddit, Mastodon, and political YT.
I think it’s just as much that it’s good stamps buying the junk food. The point is he’s mad poor people are making a poor choice. I don’t really see any sympathy for the fudge round eater.
“Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for our bags of fudge rounds.”
The implication is that if to pay for your own food, be as fat as you can, but if you are poor you better act how other people think you should act.
The point seems to be less that poor people are making a poor choice, and more that his money is being used to facilitate that poor choice.
People often have the idea that “it’s my money being taxed, why shouldn’t I have a say?” And I can at least sympathize with that.
People often have the idea that “it’s my money being taxed, why shouldn’t I have a say?”
Then why isn’t he complaining about the U.S. military-industrial complex rather than what a tiny percentage of the tax dollar is spent on?
It seems to me that paying for killing brown people is a lot worse than paying for fudge rounds for fat Americans.
I can’t.
His statement doesnt make sense. He needs to own up to what he made.
Seems like a cool guy
Interesting to follow all the Oliver Anthony stuff.
Sabby Sabs on Oliver Anthony: Oliver Anthony ATTACKED By Partisan Politics (clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQZGPv4m6bc
The Jimmy Dore Show on Oliver Anthony: Working Class Anthem Attacked By Establishment As “QAnon!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77osCokywc
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=NQZGPv4m6bc
https://piped.video/watch?v=g77osCokywc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Even if you give him full benefit of the doubt, the fact the right could adopt this as an anthem against his intentions shows how milquetoast the song is, and how he’s failed to communicate the meaning he wants the song to have.
They adopted Fortunate Son too, and that one’s obviously not for them
This 100%
As well as “Born in the USA”
deleted by creator
to rile up
You seem pretty riled. Someone get your jimmies?
Those jimmies sure do seem rustled.
Homie you are fully riled right now.
