*Sigh* I really didn't want to write this post, but I feel like I have to now.
In my (admittedly long and rambling)
review of the Oldest Stories Podcast, I at one point briefly mentioned that I was uncomfortable with some of the views expressed on the Oldest Stories Podcast Twitter account, but since these views mostly tended to stay separate from the content of the podcast, I wasn't going to hold the politics of the podcaster against him.
At the time I said that, the Oldest Stories Podcast wasn't actively tweeting. (He had gone on a Twitter hiatus since mid-January). But in the past few days, he's been active on Twitter again, and some of what he has been tweeting is objectionable. And (unless my memory is playing me false) what he is currently tweeting is more blatant and more objectionable than anything he had previously tweeted--at least within the last year.
Since I published my review back in February, I have continued to promote new episodes of the podcast on this blog (
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here and
here). But I'm now going to stop doing this, for fear that my promotion of the podcast could be taken as agreement with the views expressed on the Twitter account.
Now, I need to make a couple of important caveats here:
1). This guy is not a celebrity or public figure. He's an ordinary Joe who is podcasting in his free time. So for that reason, I am going to do my best to avoid putting him on blast. I'm not going to link to the offensive tweets. I'm not going to describe them. In fact, I wouldn't be writing this blog post at all, except for the fact that I have been recommending and promoting the Oldest Stories podcast on this blog, and I feel I need to make clear that I am not promoting the views expressed on the Oldest Stories Twitter account. (For reasons that are mysterious to me, he is using the Oldest Stories Twitter account to post these views, which make it difficult to separate his personal views from his podcast.)
2). I believe that we can and should separate the art from the artist, and that we should also expose ourselves to people who have a variety of viewpoints. So I'm not going to stop listening to the podcast myself. I'm just no longer going to be promoting that podcast. (I'm going to continue listening to it quietly, without linking to it from this blog.)
And again, the fact that he's using the Oldest Stories Twitter account to promote his personal political views makes it hard to promote one without feeling like you're endorsing the other.
I'm also not calling for him to be cancelled, or anything like that. I'm just trying to put some distance between his views and my own endorsements.
(I had thought about continuing to link to his new episodes, but also including a disclaimer with each new blog post saying, "I don't approve of the views on his Twitter feed," but I decided against it. I don't want to have to say that every single time, and he's not going to appreciate that kind of qualified support anyway.)
One last thing: I had mentioned in
my original review of the Oldest Stories Podcast that I was seriously considering buying his books (based on the podcast) and reviewing those as well. But I no longer have any plans to purchase or review his books.
