this message may be offensive
random rant, but it pisses me off that an investigation was launched into the sexual assault allegations regarding jack barakat from all time low, and the investigation determined that they were part of an organized smear campaign. for those of you who don’t know, these allegations came out a few years ago when ATL was seeing more mainstream popularity than they had in years. and it pisses me off not just because i love the band, but moreso because shit like this makes it SO MUCH HARDER for real victims of sexual assault to come forward, much less receive justice.
a smear campaign like that trivializes the horrors that victims and survivors go through. it uses them as a prop to attempt to take someone else down. it makes it even more difficult for victims to speak out.
i cannot imagine disliking a celebrity (or even a person you know in real life) so much that you and a bunch of other people go to such lengths to make up stories posing as a fan, even using VPNs to remain anonymous and using servers based in brazil because they are more lenient regarding VPN privacy laws. i cannot imagine trivializing something so serious.
anyways, this just makes me mad. and if you remember hearing about the allegations and didn’t hear this outcome, there ya go. it’s lesser known that all charges were dropped:
“‘There is no such person and no such incidents occurred. Rather, an investigation revealed that Doe 2 was an orchestrated smear campaign by multiple individuals posing as a fake fan. The investigations identified individuals behind the anonymous post who went to great lengths to hide their identities,’” lawyer Michael B. Garfinkel of Venable LLP said.”
always believe victims. but stuff like this sets EVERYONE back and makes things more difficult for EVERYONE.