When it looked like this might be a hoax my first thought was that this type of shit is exactly what will get Trump re-elected. The MAGA folks aren’t going to stop and consider the actual stats about hate crimes. This is what they will see on Fox News for the next week, months maybe.

Yes, I get that these people were…

“When you start adding rope and chemicals”

Also, you introduce two new physical pieces of evidence that can be tracked down and raked over by modern forensics. 

I guess thanks to Ryan Adams being a huge douche and introducing me to Phoebe Bridgers, who is my new favorite. Been listening all week.

There are some outside chances it wasn’t staged, but there’s a 100% chance Smollett’s lying about what happened. He got caught because he provided bogus information to the police (he handed over his phone records, but removed any calls with the nigerian brothers; the police had already obtained another list directly…

Well, this took a turn.

Not to paint too broad of a brush stroke here, but a lot of “creatives” I know aren’t exactly the most analytically minded people.

When I first heard the story my initial reaction was that it sounded exactly like what someone in Hollywood thinks a hate crime looks like, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the…

Well said. I am reserving judgment on who is telling the truth and who is not until the facts are in. I expect that will be shortly.  Until then, this is all so strange and has already taken twists and turns, I don’t know what the hell really happened.

Goddamn it. I was defending this guy and really hoping this wasn’t a hoax. Now I don’t know. If it’s true he staged this, he’s given the MAGA crowd all the need to bellyache about unfair persecution and pretend like they’re the victims of liberal saboteurs. Sigh. That’s the last thing we needed. I’m sure Trump will…

This is the problem. I’m weary of the argument that we shouldn’t push for leftist policies because the right will attack us in bad faith. That is what the right does, they attack in bad faith. However, making up a story out of thin air that vilifies MAGA dicks to garner sympathy only discredits the accounts of…

Yup. Misogynists and rapists have the Duke lacrosse incident to point to (“women always lie about this!!!”)....racists and homophobes will have this to point to.  It’ll make it that much harder for real victims to be believed.

I’ve been trying to find more info about the story this weekend, but every twitter search, Reddit thread, and website comment section is full of MAGA-heads screaming about reverse racism and evil liberals. Ugh. 

Fuck those people and fuck him for adding fuel to the fire.

Trying to “goose his music sales” by making a mockery of hate crimes (an issue that is real) is pretty disgusting. Something is seriously wrong with this guy. And, well -- now his career is destroyed anyhow. Great job!

Did he not think cops would investigate??  This whole thing is bizarre. 

We have a local conservative talk radio station in Birmingham and they are eating this story up.  Dude fucked up big time and is making real racially motivated crimes look like a joke.  

Presumably this thing got away from him, that he set out to goose his music sales with a little extra drama for social media, but the cops got involved and they took it more seriously than he thought they would and then he couldn’t stop digging and now, here we are.

WE LIKE BEER

Re: Philanthropy. A frat near where I work did a fundraiser called “Flippy Cup for Suicide Prevention.” They had a flippy cup tournament with an entry fee and the funds went to a suicide prevention charity, AND they advertised it on facebook and the campus email list! They did not understand why people were upset they…

This is atrocious. And also really fucked up that so many of those arrested are on the high-end of college age (23 year olds), and 2 aren’t enrolled there, leading one to believe these are alumni showing up and making what is probably already horrible hazing that much fucking worse. I’m so sad this happened to the…