Lots of complicated thoughts regarding this. Not only do I dislike the Arcade Fire’s music, they also strike me as pretty woke people, but granted that’s based on their personae and the way they look and frankly sound, and I don’t actually know that for a fact. It follows, then that my immediate reaction was more or less “live by woke, die by woke,” and that this was a situation of the woke eating themselves. Plus, given my experiences with woke, ostensibly feminist men involved in music, it wasn’t that hard for me to believe that the allegations were both sordid and true. After reading the Pitchfork story, though, I’m starting to think the situation is a little more complex than that.

Nothing Win Butler is alleged to have done rises to the level of transgression this article and his accusers seem to believe it to be, at least in my estimation. His behavior wasn’t the best, for sure, but essentially what this boils down to is a series of short consensual relationships between adults that ended less than ideally, and were entered into under dubious circumstances to begin with. I was expecting accusations like those leveled at Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, and was instead underwhelmed. It doesn’t show great judgement or character on Win Butler’s part, but it doesn’t strike me as so egregious as to warrant ruining his career or reputation either.

There is also an attempt to frame this all as part of rock’s troubling history of male musicians sleeping with underage women, something which I recently referenced myself in a comment on a thread in /r/punk in relation to my experiences with predatory MTF trans people in the punk scene that went over about as well as you’d expect. Again, that’s not what I think is exactly going on in this particular situation as everyone involved is above the age of consent, and if Win Butler was not a straight white male, I sincerely doubt he would be being subjected to this degree of scrutiny. Consider, in contrast, the likes of Jada Pinkett Smith, Cardi B, and even Ezra Miler in the court of the public opinion compared to Win Butler.

This whole situation raises a few pertinent questions which require some serious reflection. Chiefly among them, why was my initial reaction to delight in Win Butler’s cancellation? I really know very little about him, and if I’m going to cheer on the cancellation of someone just because they are outwardly woke, how does that make me any better than the woke? Also, these accusations all revolve around events that seem to have taken place within a fairly finite period of time. Cannot people have high and low points in their lives? Cannot they grow and change for the better? Cannot this even apply to even the most woke? These are all big things to consider moving forward.