These seem to be adults dressed as literal demons (one of them has horns on their head) many of whom are carrying (probably fake) children, and all marching through the mud. It’s very unsettling.
This next thing is considerably worse since it appears to involve pictures of actual children (I won’t link it here since it’s NSFL). One of Bakenciagas designers, Lotta Volkova, had what appear to be photos of children in various…bizarre? Situations. If you search her name and instagram, there are websites which have archived her page (which is now private).
Balenciaga is trying to claim they didn’t know anything about this. That seems absurd given the rest of what they are putting out and who is working with them.
I mean the fashion show is just the typical haute couture nonsense.
But I did look up the instagram profile you're talking about and saw one of the images in google's cache. I'll save other people the trouble of doing the same: it's a little kid taped into a chair with packing tape, including over their mouth, and they're wearing headphones connected to a laptop showing some sort of tv show.
It's not CSAM but it certainly is intended to ape it stylistically, which I find incredibly poor taste.
I wonder if that's the point. Fashion is all about pushing boundaries/generating buzz/publicity, right?
I'm not saying I agree with it. I just don't think anybody would be talking about Balenciaga on HackerNews if they weren't being quite literally as edgy as possible/pushing the boundaries as hard as possible.
If all of this ends up increasing sales/brand image in one twisted way or another, will they call it a net win and go back to being a sleeping giant until they fabricate/drum up the next "scandal"?
They can dress up what they're doing in whatever language they want, like calling it "art" or whatever, but at the end of the day this is a company whose business is selling clothing.
It strikes me as tasteless, or maybe even plain vulgar, to use imagery like this to try to sell clothing. Wasn't the first time, won't be the last, but I'm glad they're getting dragged for it all the same.
Do you think they'll go for the same but instead use stereotypical imagery of starving children or POWs? I bet they do not because yes, it'll create lots of "controversy" but also many advocacy organizations will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
Of course you're right, but let's continue the thought experiment: if they had used some of the imagery you suggest, would anyone claim that the people taking the photos were starving said children, or imprisoning people?
This is not what is claimed, at least, not by the reasonable people opposed to such marketing.
The photos would constitute gore. Just like the Balencia photos constitute pedophilia flirting with ritual abuse.
The photographer is just pushing aside blame. They knew damn well what they were depicting when they checked the light values on the dog bowls and discarded adult clothing placed on the floor of a child's room.
The photographer still says the pushback in general is way overblown, and that people repulsed by these images are overreacting. They know what they did, they just donnot see a problem with it. That is how normal such shoots are these days at the higher levels of the fashion and modeling industry.
What would you expect of someone who takes photos of starving children in a bright Beneton shirt?
The photoshoot included a roll of police tape with the sic:
Baalencia.
With Baal they were referring to Lord Moloch, a pagan God who demanded child sacrifice by casting these in the fires of a horned bull statue.
So the fashion and modeling industry. They depict the demon. Youth and Beauty sacrificed at the altar of Lord Moloch. Maybe the photos are meant as a warning or a way to offset karmic debt.
> I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
Someone who actually believes in free speech, not faux-free speech or faux-satanism. It is improbable, yes, even for those who talk a lot about free speech and satanism.
> So you're saying
I said what I said. These shoots, and the movie Cuties, invoked a pedophilic attraction in me. I do not think that was purely imagination, nor do I appreciate being questioned about the veracity of my feelings by someome who was not born for this path.
> tell us more about the viewers, based on their reactions, than about the photography itself?
I do not get this attraction to a photo of a milk carton. The photography itself certainly plays a role. The more you can identify with the photographer, in regards to boundaries and tastes and attractions, the more a photo will resonate with you.
It's funny to keep trying to convince people you are a "real pedophile" (TM). In particular, with a zero-day account. I don't merely question the veracity of your feelings; I am calling your entire account (both the literal user account, and also the retelling of your stories) fiction.
It's also very suspect that you picked "Cuties" which was the prior round of moral outrage; it is almost as though, rather than being a "real pedophile" (TM) you are just sifting through Tucker Carlson's satanic panics to make provocative points that suit whatever weird agenda you have.
Lastly (and I do mean lastly, as after this, I'm done engaging you in discourse) it's interesting that you're sweating me, specifically. Every single comment on your fake identity "real pedophile" (TM) 4 hour old account is in response to me.
Not necessarily but they would talk about "normalizing" and advancing certain unwelcome attitudes and behavior. Let's say they "recreated" a Srebernica scene -it would certainly be controversial. No one would accuse them of massacring the actors --less so if they used CGI --but never the less is it would be considered beyond the pale and would be denounced by virtually everyone and for good reason. It's gross. It's repugnant. What they did was and is repugnant as well.
My only horse in this particular race is that--repugnant or not--this ad campaign does not constitute pedophilia, grooming, pedophilia normalization, or the like, as is claimed (for example) in the sibling to your comment:
>Just like the Balencia [sic] photos constitute pedophilia flirting with ritual abuse.
Furthermore, that, these moral panics are dangerous and (specifically in this case), constitute attempts at stochastic terrorism and political destabilization.
I agree that moral panics are undesirable. But by saying "these" you imply that this is all this is: a moral panic. You would have to be able to see this as more than just panic, or you will deem anyone in this debate under the spell of moral panic. You then cannot accept good faith on counterarguments. This is not pragmatic.
Yes, polarization is used to pit right against left. We could all join hands on this: It is repugnant to use vulnerable children for marketing that reeks of pedophilia. Do not focus on those screaming global cabal of satanist abusers, and certainly do not make it representative of the position of your political opposition.
How far are you willing to go to concede on this topic? Or should we let such politicized events destabilize us without a fight (through debate).
I watched this video and I think you've grossly overstated how disturbing it is.
The "theme" (insofar as anything high fashion really has a theme) seems like a mixture of grindhouse and apocalypse. "Child carrying a doll" is a borderline trope in that context: compare, for example, the first episode of The Walking Dead.
I don't know anything about the thing you haven't linked, because you haven't linked it. But the panic over this video doesn't pass the sniff test.
woodruffw says ">
I watched this video and I think you've grossly overstated how disturbing it is.
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Yes. It is annoying to have my attention brought to this. What would be disturbing would be being forced to watch the entire video, as in "A Clockwork Orange":
Sure, disturbing photos and all but what's the problem? This all seems to me like another "save the children" craze, a pretext to oppress speech and snoop into peoples private business.
Artists use provocative or disturbing images all the time, its how some art works. Images of children have always been used in various contexts.
If anything, I will be very disturbed if using imagery of children becomes a new taboo. I hear that in the USA you can't interact casually with other peoples children because they assume that you are some kind of pervert, are we extending this taboo to imagery of kids just because the the elite pedophile cabal runs the government conspiracy theory has become mainstream?
I find all this ridiculous. If there's an abuse or something, jail them already but this has turned into a witch hunt. The western society is just inches away from becoming like Taliban and hunting down people for objectionable art.
There's also a chance this is happening simply because Balenciaga dropped Kanye West but I hope it's Balenciaga's marketing people stirring a controversy.
> These seem to be adults dressed as literal demons (one of them has horns on their head) many of whom are carrying (probably fake) children, and all marching through the mud. It’s very unsettling.
No offense but that’s just a fashion show in a setting involving some mud in the background. It looks a bit like another planet rather than hell. Also there are no children here. I’m still looking for the disturbing part.
> This next thing is considerably worse since it appears to involve pictures of actual children (I won’t link it here since it’s NSFL).
The controversy is about pictures of kids carrying bags shaped as teddy bears in chains which can make one thinks of bdsm. I repeat: the teddy bears are in chains, not the kids. It’s in bad taste but very much SFL.
I have no clue about what’s actually happening at Balenciaga but I wish people kept to facts.
I give a wide berth to artists but those teddy bears are not innocuous. They are highly suggestive and in the context of the photo shoot are beyond the pale. In my opinion BDSM teddy bears alone is a bright red flag.
It’s teddy bears in chains. I mean I know I’m French which means it’s probably hard to find someone culturally less attuned with an American regarding sexuality but the whole thing seems to me like a storm in a tea cup. As I said, it’s not tasteful but that’s miles away from being scandalous.
So because you give a wide berth to artists and I assume high art in general... I'm sorry but your opinion is invalidated.
It's invalidated in the same way if some rube off the street told you that they give a wide berth to applied research and then went on to give some sort of opinion about workplace solutions and then summed it all up by saying some one particular thing was a red flag to them.
The wide berth is to give more latitude in restricting behavior than those who are not artists. It’s a privilege to allow them more freedom to create art. If they use that privilege to create BDSM teddy bears then I think social outrage is a predictable and appropriate response.
What's so unsettling about that? Sure, I understand they did this to cause a bit of a stir, but it's just people carrying around dolls in a dystopian setting.
And even if there were actual babies in there, the most unsettling part is the danger of the person carrying the baby slipping in the mud and falling on top of the baby.
I don't think I can explain to you why this is unsettling in the same way I can't explain why abusing animals is bad, stealing is bad, or anything else is "bad". If we don't already have a shared system of morals which says "abuse of children is bad", then it seems unlikely I'm going to convince you that depictions of child abuse are bad.
To me, this is "bad" because I subscribe to a belief system that thinks abusing children is bad. Balenciaga, in their marketing, has used images which imply the abuse of children. Therefore: this is bad.
Well done on implying someone not agreeing with you on the moral value of carrying dolls in a fashion show is actually them not caring about child abuse and having a poor moral system.
Please at least try to argue in good faith. It’s the first time I think I should flag a comment looking polite at face value.
>Well done on implying someone not agreeing with you on the moral value of carrying dolls in a fashion show
This is not fair. The original post was about the inappropriate use of children in a marketing campaign. Balenciaga claims they didn't know the nature of the photoshoot.
The video I linked provides context demonstrating that balenciaga continued the same theme in their fashion show. "Why is this fashion show bad" "because it is part of a larged set of behaviors which include and encourage child abuse".
You can disagree with me, but don't misstate what I am saying.
Your slippery slope logical fallacies has no merit.
There were no children being abused in the Balenciaga video you posted.
>These seem to be adults dressed as literal demons
This would imply you believe in demons, which are things that do not exist in the real world.
You might believe they exist due to your moral upbringing but just because you were brainwashed (abused) as a child, doesnt mean every one is a child abuser.
Lotta Volkova artwork is definitely sordid but so is a lot of art. You dont have to like it or even look.
If anyone abuses a child, partner or elder, they should be held accountable.
Let me know when there's a wiki list full child abuse incidents involving Drag shows while most godfearing people ignore institutional abuse and rape in the Church
> Lotta Volkova artwork is definitely sordid but so is a lot of art. You don't have to like it or even look.
Exactly. I feel like art and its purpose have been lost in recent years. Art is supposed to make people think or feel. Paintings of beheadings in museums don't make people think about beheading people, nor do they make people happy. They make people think about the atrociousness of history and hopefully about not wanting to repeat it.
My (non religious) dad recently argued that music that implies rape or child abuse shouldn't be broadcast on the radio, because it's wrong. I asked whether any movie showing violence, abuse and rape should also not be played on TV or in cinema. I also explained that both are art forms and aren't depictions of things the singers or actors want to do in real life, per se (we all know there are exceptions). He argued this, however, because he heard the argument from some radio DJs.
It'll be a sad day when we ban everything we don't like to see or hear, because that's when we forget those things exist and stop doing anything against it.
Can you timestamp this? I clicked around (not really desiring to watch 15 minutes tbh) and all I saw was people carrying what looks like a stuffed animal (think like a teddy bear for a child) as a purse with a leather strap and people in otherwise skinny dresses and the like walking in mud. Even the final statement piece just looked like your average avant guard edgy nonsense, straps and belts that made no sense draping someone unflatteringly so the model had to walk super slow.
It's still not that unsettling as the parent comment tried to portray it.
I'm actually not sure what caused such a repulse from that comment, it's the usual edgy haute couture show, the way it was described in that comment made me expect a lot more than what I watched. I thought there would be some deeply unsettling stuff and was wondering how it was even allowed on a fashion show. It's just mud, some models walking around with the pieces of the season and... That's it?
The chained BDSM teddy bears with the kids pictures are actually in bad taste and more unsettling than the show but in a "how the fuck did the artistic directors think this would be viewed as?" way than anything else. Because it's truly in bad taste to try to refer to any kind of child abuse.
To me the shock portrayed by the parent comment of yours is actually a bit shocking, might be that my life's experiences made me a bit unfazed to this forced edgy bit though.
I thought that fashion show was great, the empty pit of mud is just hysterical, it is a bit of a shock act. The hole thing just seems like an inside joke that some people took too serious. This is a common problem with communicating things ironically, someone is bound to not get it. Dunno what happened with the photo shoot but probably the director was like put some paper on the table, and someone was like what papers, supreme court document, find some on the internet, I found a ruling about free speech and child porn, Ok great. You may say this is a stupid thing but then the highest court in the country decided to spend its time on the important legal distinction between child porn and free speech. Like that are very serious grown people spending their time on that. Fashion is stupid but at least is obvious to everyone and everyone but the biggest autist know everyone knows.
Also I don't see the difference between the work by Lotta Volkova and some drawings by Goya.
>Dunno what happened with the photo shoot but probably the director was like put some paper on the table, and someone was like what papers, supreme court document, find some on the internet, I found a ruling about free speech and child porn, Ok great.
There is absolutely zero chance that any choice associated with a professional photo shoot was made flippantly, especially for fashion of any kind. Every hair, every spec of dirt, and every single thing in every single shot is intentional.
I'm sorry, but what exactly do either drag queens or men in leather have to do with pedophilia?
I'm not exactly a member of either community, but my understanding of drag is that it's performance art. My understanding of the leather community is that it's (1) a cornerstone of gay male culture, and (2) the polar opposite, in terms of sexual preferences, of the things people normally see as child-abuse-adjacent.
You're entitled to whatever opinion you have about the age appropriateness of "preschool leather daddy," if that's a thing that has ever even existed. But I see no reason to enshroud that opinion in the same old tired fearmongering tropes about gay people.
> which is a stated goal of certain queer activists.
None that I'm aware of. Given your own stated recalcitrance to actually search for resources and information about these things, I suggest (as gently as possible) that you're way off base here.
I'm just pointing out that if you're too uncomfortable to educate yourself on the superficial level of googling if its actually real/a problem, you're likely unable to engage with this subject matter in a way that actually works to prevent child abuse. Yes, it's an ugly subject. Most children who are sexually abused are abused by their own family, not by random drag queens, not by whatever viral thing you heard but you can't google because it's too gross for you.
If you want to actually make a difference, educate yourself on the very real harm that is done to children. Volunteer for anti-child abuse organizations. Advocate for real policies, such as banning child marriages across all states. Call your government about the hundreds of migrant children that ICE just "lost". Advocate for the removal of domestic abusers from police and civil servant positions. etc.
This is a subtle form of whataboutism. First of all, this is not my personal activist cause. It's just something where I see people being naive (like the person I replied to) and I want to tell them to stop being naive.
If this was about child marriage, I'm sure many arguments along the lines of "it's part of their culture, we need to respect it" can be made. Indeed, such things are normalized in certain cultures. They are not even considered child abuse. I suspect we are early on in a trajectory where we are normalizing child abuse under the guise of supporting LGBT. What we decide now matters not so much to the children today, but in the indefinite future. Human morals appear to be quite flexible in that regard.
It's not whataboutism, it's pointing out that you're making some suspected wild trajectory of child abuse when actual child abuse currently exists in a widespread, normalized fashion.
There's no need to invent gay people clandestinely abusing children as if straight people don't openly abuse children already. Like I said, marrying underage children is legal, and it certainly isn't the lgbtq people that put that law there.
We're entering not-so-subtle whataboutism territory here. Which culture has normalized child marriage? Certainly not mainstream American culture. Even if it's technically legal under certain circumstances, it's exceptionally rare.
It's not just technically legal under certain circumstances. It's explicitly legal. Only 7 states enforce adult marriage, with thousands of child marriages occurring each year. This certainly occurs more often than that viral thing you were too grossed out to google, and frankly attributing online unsubstantiated rumors about lgbtq people, when literal child marriages are happening in the thousands among straight people, is frankly the whataboutism here.
My first guess would be zero, but even if it is in fact one, the answer to your question regarding how many times it would take to make me believe this fashion show is part of a child-porn conspiracy is "more than that".
Drag queens have more to do with clowns than with sex. I can't see anything wrong with drag queen story hour.
in a post Epstein world none of these companies deserve benefit of the doubt in these types of situations. Once people dug into it they found Balenciaga has been doing similar things for years, you have to wonder why their marketing team would think this stuff appeals to their extremely rich and powerful customers
E.g. certain Russian oligarchs winning lawsuits in West because of some legalese. It feels like „rule of law“ nowadays is used to silence the weak and doesn't apply to the powerful ones.
They filed a lawsuit claiming they didn't know about a single stray sheet of paper in one of the photos of the shoot, which looks entirely innocent on first inspection, but happens to be a court document for a famous child pornography suit. The existence of this document has been claimed by some observers (shoe, for one), to be the "smoking gun" proving that this is all satan worship rather than strange art. So it is perfectly reasonable for balenciaga to assert that they didn't know about this document, and a great deal hinges on this seemingly minor question.
I suppose the other thing to consider is the (art book in the photos) by an author who regularly depicts children naked, dismembered, and covered in blood.
Please stop engineering doubt. It's absurd to pretend that there isn't a consistent theme of child abuse here.
Not a claim on OP, but in general for this conversation: I find it intriguing that the level of grace and benefit that is given to the people involved in this controversy seems to be at an all time high. I wonder if the same people extending this grace and benefit of the doubt would do so with those opposed to them politically.
Yep, this insanity is only matched by the deference shown by e.g. the NYTimes to SBF. Compare how Apple is responding to Elon’s political-speech Jihad, vs. the complete lack of response to the child exploitation material that he has been purging from Twitter.
Wake up, you have been conditioned to accept a corrupt, misanthropic oligarchy.
The theme is child abuse... Except not in the way that you're thinking about it... It's speaking out against it by showing the extreme depiction of it in a controlled art manner.
That's an interesting take. What leads you to think that the artist is speaking out against child abuse, though? What do you we have to go on here that would allow us to assign that intention to them?
I can think of lots of art that are designed to, if not crush the humans spirit, at least call into question the goodness of it. See "Rhythm 0" by Marina Abramović or “Helena & El Pascador” Marco Evaristti are just two examples.
There is art that crushes the human spirit. Art about war. Art about slavery. Art about personal trauma. I think if we only depicted pretty war, pretty slavery, pretty rape and genocide, that's pretty disgusting.
> So it is perfectly reasonable for balenciaga to assert that they didn't know about this document
High fashion photoshoots are a multi layered production. Several people would have viewed these photos, edited, adjusted, filtered out bad shots, etc prior to this campaign being released. The fact that no one seemed to bat an eye at a judicial opinion including the words "child sexualization" seems concerning. No special knowledge is required.
Even after somebody told me it was there, I still had to look really damn hard to find it. I don't think your expectation that people reviewing the shoot noticed it is reasonable.
It seems this belongs to the class of thought which believes that the rich and powerful are literal Satan worshippers and they, for some reason, like to hint at this in public.
It has its roots in old anti-semitic conspiracy theories, particularly beliefs about blood libel (that Jews would kill Christian children in diabolical rituals) and "Cultural Marxism" (a Nazi-born conspiracy theory that academia is filled with ranks of Jews conspiring to indoctrinate people into Marxist/Communist ideology, which feeds into general conspiracy theories about "the elites" plotting to change/take over the world in some nefarious way.)
Basically the modern version just has the serial numbers filed off and doesn't reference Jewish people directly, just "the elites" (note finance, entertainment and academia have long been considered "Jewish" domains for various reasons.) But if you did deeply enough, it's always there.
That photo [1] with said document looks real enough, what's there to "troll"?
Not sure about the satanic thing, as I'm an atheist myself, but to put that sort of document inside a photo-op that already looks fishy as hell is not ok, to put it mildly.
I watched the very first 30 seconds and saw literally zero things to worry about. If there's anything there, kindly link to a specific timestamp. Dear God, I wish we were still in pandemic mode so that pearl clutchers could scream about masks instead.
Not people wearing horns, dear god. I think we might be summoning the devil.
> Balenciaga is trying to claim they didn’t know anything about this. That seems absurd given the rest of what they are putting out and who is working with them.
There you go.
The sort of person to give final approval over this at Balenciaga thought they could test and get away with this incredibly disgusting shoot. Then everyone noticed and they started to back-peddle.
Unfortunately, I don't think it is the last time we will see Balenciaga and others do disturbing shoots like that. Quite a shame that they have just shown how disgusting they are.
Until there is actual evidence of actual pedophilia, this is just a retread of the 1980s satanic panic, being capitalized upon by the global fascist hard right, but this time conflating pedophilia with homosexuality and transsexuality.
Is it tasteless? De gustibus non est disputandum. So much high fashion is stupid and provocative, imo.
It's amazing to me how seemingly mainstream this conspiracy theory has become in the US. People used to joke about "think of the children" being used to justify all sorts of ludicrous policies. Now you can just make up any baseless allegations about your political enemies and throw "child abuse" in to make it stick.
Sorry, which shooting was that? Hard to keep track here in the US.
Are you attempting to imply that the "non-binary" or "porn" adjectives are relevant here? I may be going out on a limb here, but I am not sure that "non-binary" or "porn" people commit shootings at different rates than the rest of the population--do you have any evidence, rather than mere implication (if that is in fact what you are implying)?
>Sorry, which shooting was that? Hard to keep track here in the US.
The one you just cited, obviously.
The point is that you are either misinformed, speculating as it suits you, or lying to present that shooting as being motivated by moral panic type politics because it has since come out that the shooter did not subscribe to those beliefs.
And as much as it pains me to agree with you I concur that the shooter's gender and father's occupation are irrelevant.
Yes, everyone knows how radicalization works. It's a well trodden path.
The problem here is that in two separate comment subthreads you are acting as though the purveyors of moral panic are radicalizing people to shoot up gay bars when in reality they're responsible for 0 of 2 if that is indeed their goal (which is an insane assumption).
You are trying to lay blame at the feet of people who are not responsible when it is known that there are specific others who are. Stop it. Stop lying. Or if you can't do that please live long enough to reap what you are sowing by doing your part to poison discourse with dishonesty.
A false narrative which doesn't pass the sniff test.
Non-binary according to the shooter's attorney but referred to as "he" by his father. Neighbours also asserted that the shooter frequently used homophobic slurs and didn't identify as non binary at any point in the past.
I am in favor of free speech. However, I can't help but think the mainstream internet activist left and right are engaged in a trolling war.
This art is probably intended to be edgy, just like the faux-satanism fashion, it's meant to rub freedom of expression in the faces of certain people the in-crowd dislikes. All that is happening is mutual provocation and outrage. The same thing is happening on Twitter with performative trolling and then people claiming that Twitter is now a threat to democracy. Obviously, that means a lot of people who claim to want free speech only want it for themselves.
This particular speech that I don't like is a threat to society
I fancy myself a bit of a pedophile and a satanist. Most of my education on these topics stems from the 80s. In the 70s, naked children in photography was not even occulted.
Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to children. These photoshoots normalize and facilitate this attraction. If I was found with these photos in my possession, such evidence would get me in big trouble.
Yes, these blatant photoshoots are capitalized on by the hard right, and mostly ignored by the hard left. You would think that children are some of the most vulnerable people in society, and that these need protection from 1% sexualized capitalism, something the far left usually fights for, but these seem pre-occupied with battling global fascism right now.
Transsexuality is a big satanist topic. Male homosexuality has a big pedosexuality problem, but this is occulted and taboo to talk about.
You ask if it is tasteless, but then quote the Romans on debating taste, so assume it has a taste. This is the taste of pedophilia and Baal worship. This taste certainly provokes those with more common sensabilities.
It is pedophilic in nature. These people involved did their homework. Not like pop clips for children from about a decade ago, where they just slapped together some depictions of Isis to raps of Jeffrey Dahmer eating out hearts.
More like: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
To you, these photos are not pedophilic. To me, an actual pedophile, these photos are. To each their own path. It is, afterall, a satanic truth that some things can have two opposing properties at the same time.
>To you, these photos are not pedophilic. To me, an actual pedophile, these photos are. To each their own path. It is, afterall, a satanic truth that some things can have two opposing properties at the same time.
So you're saying that the photos tell us more about the viewers, based on their reactions, than about the photography itself? Interesting take, actual pedophile; interesting take.
"Gabriele Galimberti, who shot the teddy bear ad but had no involvement with the spring campaign, said in a statement on Instagram that he too was given no control over the creative content of his shoot, other than details like lighting and framing. The content — pairing child models with the teddy bear bag — had already been decided before he was hired, he said."
There is a valid lesson here for all professionals including us Software Engineers. The photographer has demonstrated something about his willingness to do something for money regardless of whether it's a 'good' idea.
Take a step back and decide do I want to be involved in this?
I honestly think this is going a little too far. The photographer also stated that they were not even involved with the photo with the court case documents... Everyone is quick to judge but everyone is culpable for something bad... This is like China's internet mob justice and "human flesh search" days all over again.
Mob justice on the random people hired to do this is irresponsible. Target the beneficial owners...
I don't know what BDSM looks like so it looks innocent enough to me and it seems those are real bags from the company that just look like that... with children holding them because it's a teddy bear? Seems like lots of pots calling the kettle black here?
> Mob justice on the random people hired to do this is irresponsible.
So, here's a random person hired to do this shoot boasting about it on their Instagram page. [1] I don't even know what angle you can come at this to make this seem normal.
Who is the random person hired to photograph here? What am I looking at here? If she was significant then why didn’t her countless followers do anything before? Are they culpable?
The photographer was hired to do a job and he did it. I doubt his reputation will be damaged by this.
Nevertheless I think he showed poor judgement. I doubt he could pretend that he didn't know that the teddy bears were sexually themed as BDSM styling is not that obscure. And it really feels to me that he should be paying attention to what he is photographing.
So I stand by my point that I hope that other professionals pay attention to what they are being asked to do and decide whether they will do it.
The photographer literally posted on instagram saying they had to say something because they were receiving death threats... Imagine getting death threats for a photo of a child holding a banana because some people in the world happen to be fruit-sexuals and like to have sex with fruits, only to be overcome by shame and trying to deflect it onto someone else when seeing their banana butt plug in the hands of an innocent child.
You stated, "I don't know what BDSM looks like so it looks innocent enough to me". So you're stating that you're not informed about the background context of the imagery. It's really unfortunate that the photographer also did not know, research, or think about the imagery in their photoshoot. And specifically the juxtaposition with children.
At the risk of going close to Godwin's law I would say that a photographer publishing pictures of anti-semitic symbols is going to face negative feedback if they don't understand what they are photographing and present it appropriately. I'm not justifying threats of violence but criticism is definitely valid.
I was trying to talk about the photographer not having shown good judgement and how we should learn from that. If it involves sexuality, race, ethnicity, children, disabilities, or politics then professionals should probably think about whether they are qualified to do it appropriately.
>One of them seems to show, albeit in an obscured way, text from a Supreme Court decision related to the PROTECT Act, a 2003 federal law that states child pornography is not protected by free speech.
This is not the whole truth; it's an excerpt from Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition, which was a case in which it was decided that fictional depictions of minors that don't exist nude or engaged in sexual acts is protected speech under 1A. If anything, its placement seems even tongue-in-cheek; many other countries do not have as thorough free speech protections, and such material is outright illegal.
The "Twitter users" mentioned in the article likley refers to Sh0eonhead who has a history of stirring up controversy around child sexualization with very little evidence, only insinuation and conspiracy style thinking. She's figured out that the one thing that unites the political spectrum is the mere hint of child sexualization and it's being milked for all it is. We saw similar last year, with the 'Cuties' debacle, which was also based on mere insinuation and conspiracy.
Truly a nothingburger story, like most stories based off a few tweets.
You're leaving out all the photos on Lotta Volkova's Instagram. These are not a "nothingburger" it is obviously the product of a sick mind that likes to imply the sexual suffering and physical injury of children.
NGL, most of it just looks kinda innocuously edgy and made for shock value. For all we know she's had like 1 edgy photo out of 100 normal ones and then someone just collated the creepiest ones? Do we know the context of any of these?
[Edited to add: I don't know any of these people, fashion, or anything. I'm however extremely skeptical of conspiracy theory talk, poorly-contextualized information, and so need way more than context-free photos allegedly from an instagram page.]
The picture you mentioned looks more like something you see out of a police procedural or true crime TV show, which are very very popular genres of entertainment that are treated like popcorn watching. Bingeable, fun!
To be clear, I just don't think they're any more edgy than what is already normalized. It's just easy to prime the brain into thinking it's more serious than it is, because it's being put into an ominous context. In reality, simulated murder and children in one-pieces are already normalized as popcorn-level entertainment in the context of tv shows and gymnastics. If this is bad then we should really be cracking down harder on way more stuff than an instagram page.
My comment was only in reference to the photoshoot set containing the document or the 'BDSM bear'; my point is that these alone feed into an outrage machine that goes nowhere.
As for Volkova, I don't know enough to judge, but you might be right, I don't know; but it's a separate issue, in which there may be more under the cover than the usual insinuation and conspiracy thinking.
The fact that Lotta Volkova is not even mentioned in this "Explained" article and the fact that a lot of misinformation is being thrown around (people trying to blame the photographer) just goes to show how much fake controversy is potentially being drummed up here.
Controversy is what it is. Firstly, it's high fashion - they're always courting controversy, but secondly, what exactly do people think is happening when they see some ruling about child porn in a photoshoot? I'm sure Tucker Carlson will run and run with this (and unfortunately there are unhinged people who genuinely think there's a pedo sex cult around every corner), but this is just your bargain basement shock chasing. We didn't accidentally stumble across some candid image of someone at Balenciaga revealing some inner thought, it's a deliberately provocative campaign the same way a dozen other campaigns have been, the only people who benefit from this are outrage merchants and Balenciaga. It's certainly a dangerous game to be playing at the moment though.
Even if they were shock chasing, it's just a really fucked up thing to do (and those are the mildest terms I can put it in). There are plenty of ads I see where I go "well they took it a little far but I can understand what they are trying to do". Making references to CP in photoshoot with children going many many many steps beyond just "shock chasing".
Reminds me of when I worked in Berlin for a year. The streetlamps were filled with posts of what looked like young models broken from heroin. Sexualized and dirty. They used the hashtag #heroinkids. I believe this is their current website: https://ignorantfashion.de (sort of NSFW)
It's just shock advertising people, or at least I think shock advertising is the likelier culprit than a cabal of kiddie grooming satanists.
I think this is just a corporate version of a pattern that has become very common - people doing more and more outrageous stuff to garner attention in an overcrowded world, and then stepping over the line which is becoming thinner and thinner by the day.
"50% better, 25% less expensive" just doesn't cut it as a marketing message these days.
Art critics and other “intellectuals” (non artists) are to blame. They spread the false notion that art should be provocative not pretty.
So the tasteless imitators who pose as artists have churned out a bunch of cringy beevis and butthead level “art” with pentagrams and blood and sexual perversion, etc… These are edgelords not artists. The public lap it up because they’re uneducated and have no aesthetic sensibilities.
A bloody pentagram is not good art. It’s juvenile, and frankly cringeworthy. The famous “Twinkie” bust [1], maybe. Baby dolls in red paint is just silliness.
I take no particular stance on your examples of what constitutes good or bad art. I agree: bloody pentagram? Cringeworthy.
What I vehemently disagree with is this assertion:
>the false notion that art should be provocative not pretty.
Why should art be pretty? Why "should" art be anything specific? I would even go further to say that to require art to have (nearly?) any specific quality is the antithesis of art.
Denma Gvisalia is a hack. His popularity in high fashion is analogous to those jokes you hear about someone taking a shit on a table and calling it modern art.
Balenciaga was trying to be edgy and got sucked into the culture war.
In the culture war, the right often raises the issue of sexual abuse of children where it exists and not, or the depiction of children in any proximity to sexuality. The right is reacting to a view on the left that we should "treat children like adults". Following from this, many on the left see nothing wrong with exposing children to sex, nudity, stip shows and so on. This is related to the problematization of sex (the left would like to unproblematize sex; the right sees the problematization of sex as necessary).
I would say that we're constantly negotiating new norms and it's not surprising that norms regarding children (and how they are depicted) are a particular flashpoint. Consider Slouching Towards Bethlehem. One of the eduring images from that essay is aimless hippies feeding their children LSD for breakfast. Still, I'm optimistic about this process. The left and right both have a point and we'll slowly work towards a middle ground.
Seems bizarre
Is bizarre
Disturbing
Seems concerning
Fishy
If someone shows you who they are believe them
Shame
Disgusting
Literal demons
Very unsettling
Congratulations! You took the bait! Now you are participating in something called moral outrage. All you are doing is exactly what they want you to do. They being Balenciaga. You are free marketing.
Okay but when does a joke stop being a joke and become serious? If they were little Jewish kids tied up getting gassed and whipped, would you be willing to take the same tone?
I agree that marketing companies are well aware of shock value and use it from time to time but I would also assert that there's a large gray area where shock value becomes actual advocacy. I assert that that Balenciaga is within or past that gray area here.
>Okay but when does a joke stop being a joke and become serious?
When people are hurt or crimes are committed.
>If they were little Jewish kids tied up getting gassed and whipped, would you be willing to take the same tone?
That is is in bad taste, but not, in fact, the Holocaust? Yes.
>I would also assert...
And I assert that I am the most handsome and witty person in the HN comment section. (That's the thing with assertions--we can make as many as we want, but unless the are in our particular area of expertise, they are of little value.)
I don't disagree with anything you're saying. The original poster claimed that we were all stupid for being angry with Balenciaga over this because Balenciaga was just joking. My claim was that you can't still claim you're joking when you cross a certain threshold. At some point, you're just unironically into the thing you're joking about. I wasn't talking about any legal implications with my post.
Looked for the photos, yikes. There's a reason people look at this stuff and get morally outraged. It is absolutely outrageous. I guess this is what they set out to do. Mission accomplished. Great. Fooled me again! They got free marketing and I've lost a little more faith in humanity.
If you've experienced this kind of abuse, this kind of stuff is beyond "triggering". "Feels" are supposed to matter, right? I guess who cares when you're pushing the boundaries of art and making money? At least the artist had the decency to set her profile to private.
Strangest thing is everyone defending this stuff as merely edgy/effective marketing. Suggesting COVID came from a lab gets you banned, but this stuff gets a collective shrug. And the left wonders what the right is angry about.
Where's cancel culture when you need it? /s
edit: To be clear, I have no problem with art, even edgy art. Context (and intent) is key. This was merely a cash grab with no artistic value. Unless the cynical cash grab is the artistic statement. Welcome to post-postmodern. Great tool, nothing matters. Next thing you know SBF will claim FTX was intended to be "performance art".
Nah, I went to an old slaughterhouse turned temporary art gallery when I was like ten (and my brother 8), I saw more disturbing art than that.
I also was into the 'danses macabres' at some point and went in four different museum to appreciate the art, in three different countries. I kinda like those photographies, they're not great art, but one or two could have their place in a museum (art show called 'danses macabres et capitalisme' could probably be done. Film/tv show extracts could be added)
I've seen disturbing stuff too... I can see the artistic value in the proper context... and 100% it's the context that matters. What's the message here?
When you go to an art show like the one you describe, you're prepared ahead of time for this stuff. You have some idea of what you're getting into. COUM Transmissions in the 70's comes to mind, shock was a part of the point of it all. Or if you're into death metal, a disturbing album cover is sort of par for the course. Its part of the overall artistic message.
To have this stuff mixed in with commercial fashion, or whatever you want to call that nonsense, is much stranger. And the kiddie bondage stuff... in a commercial space? It's just too far for something targeting mass awareness and consumption. We're not all open minded people with an artistic bent who want to contemplate these kinds of things. This is stuff that belongs in the fringes, and I don't see how any normalization of this stuff has a net upside to society at large.
If they tried to show this stuff to schoolkids I'd be in the long line of people asking what the heck the administration was thinking. Anyone who has had kids knows what I'm talking about.
Also, to be clear I'm talking about the Lotta Volkova pictures, not so much the BDSM bear stuff which is in poor taste but not nearly as outrageous. The relationship between Volkova and Balenciaga isn't clear, but that's what I found first when I went down this particular rabbit hole. Examples here [1]. The kid taped to a chair and the bedroom full of blood stand out as particularly disturbing, the message of child abuse is clear.
Pretty much all high fashion is bizarre by the standards of average people who don't deal in it.
Grouping people who call it that in with people going whole hog on the moral panic serves no productive purpose other than to lend legitimacy to the moral panic.
You will eventually reap what you sow with this "everyone who has a criticism is an extremist" rhetoric.
>the very dumb in the USA will use this as justification for shooting up LGBTQ nightclubs
Did you mean the Colorado shooting, which was done by a non-binary person whose father was a porn actor?
Or the Orlando shooting, which killed 49 and was the product of a muslim immigrant who self declared as a supporter of ISIS?
>or pizza parlors.
You mean, the one shooting in which nobody was actually shot?
Exactly! (Btw I've just been going through all of the comments of this and upping everything you post lol. You seem to have your head on right about all of this )
Yeah, I'm no crank, I'll let a lot of things fly. But a random piece of paper containing a printout of a Wikipedia page about a court ruling in the periphery of a photo is where I draw the line. It's called having standards.
Is staged the right term? I would call it planned or intentionally provocative.
I don't follow fashion at all; the last I heard of Balenciaga was their Simpsons short. But a handful of people are some level of outraged about this which causes articles like this to get written which is somehow newsworthy enough to reach HN.
I wonder why they dont go with political outrage, it's all the rage these days. Like, imagine some pictures of Epstein on that table, or something to do with vaccine controversy
. gah, i think i found my new talent
Fair warning: the children shown appear to be dolls, not actual human children, but it is still disturbing:
https://youtu.be/Yh_1K9s6UV0
These seem to be adults dressed as literal demons (one of them has horns on their head) many of whom are carrying (probably fake) children, and all marching through the mud. It’s very unsettling.
This next thing is considerably worse since it appears to involve pictures of actual children (I won’t link it here since it’s NSFL). One of Bakenciagas designers, Lotta Volkova, had what appear to be photos of children in various…bizarre? Situations. If you search her name and instagram, there are websites which have archived her page (which is now private).
Balenciaga is trying to claim they didn’t know anything about this. That seems absurd given the rest of what they are putting out and who is working with them.