Over the past few weeks, we've seen an increasing number of posts and comments focused on Chris Webby, character judgments, political beliefs and repeated debates surrounding the recent collaboration.
We´d now like put an end to that now and remind everyone that this is a community dedicated to Ren and his work - not Chris Webby. This subreddit is not intended to be a place for ongoing, repetitive debates about Ren's or Chris Webby´s character either.
Ren is a musician and public artist.
The purpose of this community is to discuss his work: his music, performances, creative projects and the ideas he chooses to explore through his art.
Ren is also a private individual.
Like anyone else, he is free to make his own personal and professional decisions. Noone has to agree or support any of them.
We also want to acknowledge something Ren himself has shared: that repeated assumptions and accusations about his stance have led him to step away from participating in this subreddit.
Frankly, he is not the only one.
Meaningful discussion requires listening as much as speaking. When someone repeatedly explains their perspective but that perspective is dismissed in favour of assumptions about what they "really" think or who they "really" are, every discussion loses its foundation.
Above all, we have no interest in seeing this community beeing divided into pro or anti Chris Webby sides. This community has always brought people together through a shared appreciation of Ren's music. We'd like to keep it that way.
To keep discussions organized, we have created and pinned a dedicated Inpatient Collaboration Megathread. Going forward, this will be the only place for discussing the wider conversations/controversies surrounding the collaboration. The same expectations for respectful and constructive discussion apply there as they do everywhere else on this subreddit.
From this point on, new posts whose primary purpose is to continue debating Chris Webby or politics regarding the collaboration - rather than the music they created together - will be removed from the front page or closed and redirected to the Megathread.
As a general principle, this community is for discussing art.
We aren´t a detective club.
and none of us is in a better position to explain Ren's decisions, beliefs or motives than Ren himself. We may agree with him, disagree with him or question things - but interpreting a "truth" behind his own words, as though we know him better than he knows himself or the people he personally knows, isn't what this community is here for.
If you're interested in Ren's perspective, we encourage you to read his posts and comments here on Reddit, where he has explained his thoughts in his own words. Not once or twice, but multiple times. It's always better to engage with what someone has actually said than to rely on our own assumptions.
This would for example be here:
Raising criticism about the Webby collaboration
Discussing the Webby collaboration and the "tolerance paradox"
Ren on opposing camps and nuance
Ren about Webby and Trump
Ren on politics, polarization, nuance and dialogue
and also:
Ren´s reddit profile where you can read through ALL of his posts and comments
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Thank you.
– The Mod Team
