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Comment by cyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

He seems to be an absolutely terrible human being [0] and absolutely desperate to appear edgy and extreme, which I could maybe tolerate if his music was any good, which it isn't.

0: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/mar/29/fat-mike-nofx-...

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How fortunate for you that his moral character is reflected in the quality of his art.

Sarcasm aside, this is a peculiarly modern fallacy. While fanatics have often attacked or destroyed 'secular' art, the coincidental observation that the cancelled or scapegoated artist 'actually was a bad artist all along' seems to be novel. No article or comment vilifying say Woody Allen or Roman Polanski is complete without a satisfied nod towards their supposed lack of skill. Despite or perhaps because of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's no longer enough to point out that an artist is a bad person, we must also assume that their work was inferior.

He knows that and he regrets being that way.

  I turn on the TV
  And I don't like what I see
  There's an old punk rocker acting like a jerk
  And that jerk looks a lot like me

From the 2016 song "I Don't Like me Anymore"

Fat Mike is actually a good guy. He's done a lot of shit, but mostly shit you expect from a punk, like this sort of prank (which seems to be the only source for the parent commenter to decide he's a "terrible human being", the sort of hyperbolic, simplistic language you expect from people who are desperate to find something to be outraged about), getting drunk/high on shows, criticizing everything/everyone (just like in his songs) including himself.

A more recent song where he self-deprecates (there's many), "Don't count on me": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS2oFkpsxVo

" Don't count on me, 'cause I'm the worst If I'm there, it'll be a surprise to so many other friends that I'd call first It's not that I don't care, I just don't care very much 'Cause I'm either on the spectrum, or just plain out of touch That's who I am, that's what I do I could change if I wanted to, but I don't "

Anyway, watch the NOFX documentaries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aa9aIoorJ8&list=PL15C6AE3FA...) and Mike's podcast. He seems to be quite nice and liked by all who know him. Maybe that's biased, but that's the main source I have :).

Here's a Reddit post by someone who is an actual friend of his: https://www.reddit.com/r/nofx/comments/1d2iwzx/my_journey_as...

I have no problem with your impression of Fat Mike, but your only example is flawed. He never actually serve urine to anyone. https://archive.completemusicupdate.com/article/no-one-drank...

That was a double prank. He made it look like he peed on a bottle and then served its contents to some people, but there's a video where you can see how he switches it by a regular bottle last minute.

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/nofxs_fat_mike_comes_clean_...

https://www.punknews.org/article/38407/fat-mike-comes-clean-...

In a quick search can't find the video right now, but I remember watching it years ago.

That’s the thing with old punks. They do not care and have nor cared for decades. Which means they are not necessarily the nicest people around.

Most people who achieve great things or stand out far from their peers are not nice people. It is almost a prerequisite. Musk, Gates, Jobs and pretty much every really successful artist are all monumental assholes.

If you can't seperate the person from the art or achievement you can't really enjoy a lot of things.

nah, this is just lame apologia that normalises being a shitty person

Going through life spending energy on hating others sounds like a misearable time to me. But if you enjoy it have fun.

where did you get the impression that i spend time hating people? I'm saying that you shouldn't normalise being a shitty person "because you have to be shitty to be great". There's tons of amazing artists that are generally known as being all around great people

(I'm not even referring to fat mike here, I have no idea if he's a good person or not)

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