How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator’s view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they’re transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

luciole,
@luciole@beehaw.org avatar

A creator’s worldview influences me a whole lot on whether I’ll use their stuff or not. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of supporting jerks anymore. There’s just too much shit going on. Consuming is voting. That’s the rational part. The affective part is that when I learn that the creator’s a jerk, I just don’t feel like engaging with their stuff anymore. It’s basically a turn off for me.

The kagi controversy is unfortunate. I’ve been considering biting the bullet, but there’s no way I’m paying for a search engine I don’t feel good about. Also I very naively didn’t realize until now kagi was just aggregating Google, Yandex or whatever, stripping the advertisement rot and applying some extra magic. Won’t they get the rug pulled right from under them the second they reach any sort of relevance?

Powderhorn,
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org avatar

The only thing that’s changed about artists and people in power is that we now know a lot more about their beliefs and personal lives than we used to. One thing that hasn’t changed is that everybody has skeletons in their closet and is the hero in their own story.

As such, and given that I don’t seek out salacious details about people I’ll never meet, so long as their irrelevant-to-the-content/product personal views don’t filter into what they produce, I tend to be unaware of anything else about them.

There are of course exceptions, with Musk being at the top of the list. But as I’m not in an income bracket that would let me avail myself of any of his products, it’s still largely irrelevant.

And the further back you go in someone’s history to find dirt, the more likely they’ve changed. I’d hate to be judged now by some of my early columns in college when I was in my edgy atheist libertarian raver phase, so I’m inclined to give others a pass on adolescent musings.

With more recent stuff, as people let more of their personality into their crafted public personas, it’s not all that difficult to deduce whether their worldview is going to be offensive. But commerce overall is not about whether I’d enjoy grabbing a beer with someone so much as whether their product fulfills a need.

Bitrot, (edited )
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I hate the history thing. People still go after Brendan Eich for donating $1000 to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign in 2008. Prop 8 passed with 52.24% of the vote, over 7-million California voters probably including many that people still like (thanks secret ballot). It was thrown out by courts, nothing to do with people being moral.

That’s not to say he’s a good guy I agree with, he’s said and done other things much more recently that I don’t agree with, like his stance on COVID, but Prop 8 is always the number one thing people mention.

Edit: even later on in this thread. People should boycott anything made in California if that one donation is such a painful thing.

sculd,

When it comes to creative stuff (non-essential goods), I try to only support people with good conscience.

I have cut Netflix because of what the CEO has said. I have boycotted Ubisoft and Activision games because of the continued harassment issues in the company.

There are things I want to watch or play. But if this means supporting shitty people, I would instead prefer to use those resources to support the people I like. After all, its not like there are lack of entertainment in this world.

For essential goods (supermarket chains, goods made in less developed countries with labour issues, etc.), I am less strict because…well sometimes they are impossible to avoid.

Lionir,

That’s a really hard question for me. It’s mostly a feeling more than a science so it becomes a bit hard to lay it down rationally and I know that doing that will result in weird inconsistencies but if I had to define it, it’s probably these three things.

  1. The influence of the author or vibe

I find myself thinking that if I associate a particular piece of art as the vision of a single person rather than a collective work, I tend to be more critical of that art or product. Rationally speaking, I know Kagi is made by more than one person and I know the same to be true of Brave but the fact that I strongly associate both to, in my view, very concrete people whose ideology is very clearly shown in the product, it becomes very hard for me to dissociate the product from supporting that person. Of course, if the vibe of the product or art is off, I just don’t want to indulge with it - it’s essentially an instant turn off. Sometimes it’s just a little thing but it lives rent free in my mind.

  1. The timeframe

If the person that has an influence is dead, well, I don’t have a feeling of contribution to something bad and I might overlook that dislike for the author.

  1. The need

If I don’t need it and I don’t vibe with the author, well, I won’t buy it. There’s better things out there. On the other hand, if I have no option but to use that product, I might swallow my pride.

FluffyPotato,

It doesn’t effect my decision on what to buy or watch. Like I can’t buy chocolate or just basic groceries without supporting slavery so if some person is a massive asshole it would just be hypocritical to boycott them and not the million worse things that you are basically required to monetarily support just to survive.

I’d probably be more selective if I was rich but I don’t have the time or money to fuss about that.

Penguincoder,

Not at all. I’m a user of the product/service, not the creators friend or even acquaintance. If their product sucks, I’m more apt to speak against that. If the persons worldview sucks, that’s their problem; so long as it does not infect their tech or media. If/when it does, that’s a different aspect.

Bitrot,
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Strongly, generally, although I also try to see who they are today versus who they might have been. It also depends on what they are saying and less on what somebody tells me they believe. For example, if someone doesn’t understand or is uncomfortable with a trans person but at the same time believes everybody should have the rights and ability to live life as they choose (basic tolerance, essentially), I don’t consider that transphobic specifically. Some people would though.

I avoid altogether, look for alternatives, or do my best not to support them financially at least. So I avoid anything written by Lunduke, I don’t avoid all of JKR because I like the franchise, but I get anything secondhand.

jarfil, (edited )

How much does a creator’s worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

Depending on what we call “worldview”… either 0%, or 100%.

In this particular case:

SearXNG

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.

  • OpenSource
  • Free
  • Self-hostable
  • User configurable

Kagi

Kagi Inc. is a company […]

  • Closed
  • For profit
  • Not verifiable, not controllable
  • You pay for the privilege

Google, Bing, etc.

  • Closed
  • For profit
  • Not verifiable, not controllable
  • You don’t pay, you’re the product

How much does their respective owner’s worldview matter to me?

  • Being open and verifiable: 100%
  • Giving full control to the user: 100%
  • Wanting to sell my tracking data: 0%
  • Misrepresenting their intentions: 100%
  • Having an unrelated opinion about politics, religion, human rights, or other: 0%

As for art, my opinion of the art doesn’t change whether I think the artist is a great or a horrible person; doing otherwise would be either dishonest… or imply the art can’t stand on by itself (I call that kind of art “trash”, no matter the author).

fracture,

ever since kagi expressed that they’re not interested in caring about the effect of LLMs on the environment (kagifeedback.org/d/…/2), i had already hopped off because i could see their talk about “making the world a more humane place” was just talk. so i’m not really surprised to see this shit unfolding either

i’m surprised to see that the dude who replied on my post is actually the kagi guy, though. that’s surprising, i took him for some q&a support mod lmao

but yea i’m trans so i do my best not to support transphobic (or otherwise bigoted) people. seems like it’s in my best interest y’know. and sometimes i don’t know! i was pretty excited for kagi at first blush, it’s really a shame they’re not worth the time or effort

its_me_xiphos,

Zero. Influencer has a negative connotation to me. I associate it with shock media, cringe, and self-centered hubris. At best it’s a production, meant to create a persona and a market around that.

I don’t want to be influenced, I want to experience art, story, kindness, food, the world all more holistically than through a screen.

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

I don’t care if the creator is racist, sexist an asshole or whatever. I only care that their vision for the product aligns with what I want from the product.

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