setsuled

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I was going through my iPod a few days ago and came across Where's Neil When You Need Him?, a 2006 album featuring various singers and groups performing songs in tribute to the works of Neil Gaiman. Nowadays, perhaps the answer would be, "Why would we need him?" At least, certainly that would be the answer on Reddit forums formerly dedicated to him. But where is he? This month marks one year since the last time Gaiman released any public statement aside from court filings. His once prolific social media presence is gone.

Am I the only one who finds this creepy? Leaving aside for a moment whether you consider the allegations against him to be true (they seem flimsy at best to me), isn't it weird that a guy one day had a highly vocal and passionate fanbase and over the course of a very short time was abandoned by them? It seems like a lot has been devoted to talking about how one should be wary of the sense of personal connexion to a famous creator. Maybe the famous creator ought to be just as wary of a fanbase. Maybe it's just another indicator of an increasingly shallow culture. I'm not sure.

I saw people who once expressed their deep, emotional connexion to Neil's work just rhetorically wipe their hands of him. It's like in The Court Jester when the character is hypnotised to change personalities at the snap of a finger. Or the clones in Revenge of the Sith turning against the Jedi when triggered by "Order 66". Could this be psy-ops? Mass brain washing? Surely that's crazy. But is there an angle from which this doesn't look crazy?

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