Ireland's Eurovision disaster

[Abhannmor]

Wild Youth who are representing Ireland at the Eurovision song contest have sacked their creative director , Ian Banham. All over a Twitter exchange where he said male rapists should not be in women's prisons.

This is not going well for the cowardly cretins judging by the comments on their page. Now who can I support instead of these despicable rape apologists?

Poland maybe....

All over a Twitter exchange where he said male rapists should not be in women's prisons.

I'm fully with him on this - some of his other posts^^ were problematic (comments on Ukraine, for example). However, given these were in March last year, it's clear that his posts on rapists being in women's prisons were what triggered the initial response & they went trawling for other posts after.

Ireland had zero chance any way (I'm Irish btw!) so it probably hasn't affected that situation.

No it won't make any difference to the outcome. But their nauseating attempt at holier than thou virtue signalling seems to have backfired anyway.

Now they are trying to hide behind RTÉ. How could anyone in the business trust snakes like that- who would sacrifice a man who helped them just for woke points?

Well they have their 15 minutes of fame. Much good it will do them ....

This would exactly be the kind of thing that Liveline would usually lap up but I wonder will Joe be told to say a million miles away from it after the previous castigation he / RTE got on any discussion of trans issues?

He might be ' under starters orders' @EarringsandLipstick . There might be sycophantic interviews with the band though. That is allowed. The ratio is pretty damning on Twitter though. Not quite the easy win they must have expected.

https://twitter.com/intheWildHills/status/1651095627994898433?t=LXiYzpK_nLR7B_I97MQy_Q&s=19
I really haven't seen anything posted by him that deserved losing his job.
There was one about a woman's weight that really wasn't nice, but to fire the man was nothing more than virtue signalling at its finest.
I think this response sums it up

https://twitter.com/GreenFrome/status/1651007189857828865?t=hemWCk628ys708S6p7cIOA&s=19

Conor O Donohoe getting a right pasting. As someone says it's like Pete Best got John Lennon kicked out of the Beatles.

Prediction - Irland : nul points.

I think the Eurovision has always had a big LGBTQI following, so Conor probably thinks this will be a vote winner. But, sadly for Conor, Wild Youth are dire, and it will take more than firing a "transphobic" gay man to work that miracle for them.

Wild Youth are despicable cowards. Nothing wrong with what Ian Banham said. They're shite anyway, so they won't win.

I can imagine many LGB ppl and of course women - the 51% - not voting for these plonkers.

Even if the vote was confined to middle class college kids they'd struggle for points. Wild Ageing Hipsters are clambering on the bandwagon just as it plunges off the Cliffs of Moher.

Sunlight sunlight sunlight. That's what Wild(and not at all cult members) Youth have brought.
There's only so long RTÉ can stick their fingers in their ears and go "La La La! We aren't covering this issue".

That's not the only tweet and it's disingenuous to suggest that's the only reason he was let go. His whole timeline was relentless anti-trans, anti-vax nonsense. Posting one article might not make you bigotted. Dedicating almost your entire online existence to finding negative stories about, and mocking groups of people to try and paint that group of people as dangerous groomers is bigotted.

The group have every right to work with who they like and it's clear their values did not align.

@Ladybrrrd

I agree in part with you. His account is locked now, but of screenshot tweets, he had a significant number of problematic views, including towards Ukraine (and their winning of Eurovision).

However, most of those were some time ago, last year in many cases.

I believe the only reason they are now coming to light is the recent comment re the male racist in a women's prison, which he's wholly correct on. Then the deep dive began that brought in the other tweets.

If the other tweets were problematic to Wild Youth, they had a long time to review and respond to them - and they didn't, and were happy to engage him.

It's clearly a 'trans' issue.

Perhaps it was a case of that one causing them to look at the others and decide that on the whole, he is transphobic, xenophobic, right wing and doesn't align with their values. Perhaps it was him calling the whole trans-sphere a 'clown world'. Perhaps it was his engagement with the two other tweeters, both of whom are transphobic, xenophobic, anti-vax right wing accounts.
Whatever it was, they have every right to stop working with him. I certainly wouldn't want to. He has every right to tweet whatever he likes. He's not being arrested. He doesn't have the right to control how others respond to him.

Saying Ukraine got more votes out of sympathy rather than the quality of the song isn't "Anti-Ukraine". My grandad was a Ukrainian refugee from the pogroms, btw.
Not a Eurovision fan but isn't geopolitical bias in voting is pretty common in Eurovision voting.

Ya looking at the receipts provided over on the feminism board it looks like none of the other allegations made against him stand up to scutiny either. It really does look like he was fired for pointing out that a rapist was a man. That's transphobic apparently.

This is a post for the other thread on this:
.....................................................................................

capitanaamerica · Today 12:10

It looks like the band's cutting ties with Ian Banham was prompted by a thread from ESCDiscord, a "16,000+ member Discord server" not affiliated with Eurovision and with no formal standing. The criticism wasn't directed at the band but at RTE: 'Eurovision celebrates diversity through music. However, his remarks related to transphobia and Ukraine (and their victory last year) seem to run contrary to this. We therefore strongly condemn @rte for using Mr. Banham as the staging director for this year's Irish entry.'

Apparently recent tweets set someone off at ESC Discord and they went on a hunt to find "incriminating" prior tweets. No mention of the Tate tweets (I haven't read them), but I'd imagine they included everything potentially incriminating that they could find.

The tweets included in the complaint (first link), in order:

1. 29/03/2023: IB agreeing that convicted rapist (and this is apparently the THIRD conviction) Zara Jade is a man.
2. 26/03/2023: IB replying to a retweet questioning Dylan Mulvaney's claim to be "acting like a woman" with the comment that DM is not a woman.
3. 02/04/2023: IB commenting on a tweet about a trans-species person, saying "it's for sure a cult"
4. 15/05/2022: IB tweeting in response to JHB approving of Ukraine's Eurovision win, saying it's supposed to be a contest of music not of political support
5. 15/05/2022: IB tweet congratulating the UK on "winning" Eurovision
6. 16/03/2022: IB commenting on a GB News article reporting WHO warnings about COVID resurgence, saying that it's ramping up fear
7. 15/05/2022: IB replying to a tweet re the "perfect" Ukraine > UK Eurovision result, commenting again on the political basis of the win and wondering if Ukraine can/will host.

Sorry, from the other thread

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not seeing anything much wrong with IB tweets.

But most importantly I mightn't like what he says, but I will defend his right to say it.

Nothing he said is hate speech, it's his opinion

So as it turns out, not really to do with the teans thing, though I'm sure it didn't help. Seems to do with the fact that he made disparging remarks about the winner of Eurovision and the contest, which isn't really compatible with working at Eurovision! Fair enough!

He's allowed to say it. He's not going to jail. But easy to see why the band wouldn't want to work with him. Transphobic, xenophobic, anti-vax... Not a good look! And the band has every right to cut ties.

HNTTFT I agree with him 🤷‍♀️

I agree with them cutting ties with him, so everyone's got a little win today. :)

How is it transphobic to say that rapists like Isla Bryson are men?

Do you think Ukraine won Eurovision on merit?
Does anyone? Hum us a few bars of the winning entry.

I strongly disagree with him about the vaccine etc. But this is all deflection after the event. They booted him because he says rapist men are men. Finit.

Now , because it has made them unpopular , they are tap dancing away and trying to blame someone - or something? - else.
It wasn't us , a bigger boy did it and ran away. Boo hoo.

I think it’s a stretch to say he’s ‘anti vaxx’.

”16/03/2022: IB commenting on a GB News article reporting WHO warnings about COVID resurgence, saying that it's ramping up fear“

How is it transphobic to say that rapists like Isla Bryson are men?

Beside the point. Sharing one article, one time. I guess go for it. Not using the chosen pronouns of a rapist, very understandable! But dedicating so much of your life and timeline to seeking out stories which paint trans people as peados and rapists, not alright.

Take any group of people, you'll find bad eggs and horrible news stories. I could find lots of stories about, say, male teachers grooming young girls. Doesn't mean they're untrustworthy. I could find lots of examples of women stealing from shops. A misogynist could find lots of stories about women lying about rape/SA. I'm sure that you'd agree that lying about rape is wrong, but if someone were to go out of their way to share lots of examples, and bleat on about how we shouldn't trust women, would you say 'fair enough?'

Why else would someone choose to continually and consistently find negative stories about trans people, if not to try and spread mistrust.