[below the cut, i’m going to be discussing the tactics serial rapist and sex trafficker neil gaiman is using on instagram right now. i won’t be going into explicit detail about the allegations against him, but this is, obviously, a post about a rapist. the typical warnings apply.]
neil gaiman softlaunching his comeback right now is obscenely calculated. the current news cycles in the united kingdom and united states, both places of residency for gaiman, are focused on an institution of child rape by extremely powerful people. the aspect of gaiman’s sexual violence that was emphasized by reporters when the allegations came to light was the bdsm dynamic, and the idea that the lines between bdsm and sexual abuse can be unclear; had the focus been on a different aspect, such as the formulaic procuring of young women over whom he had power and his subsequent use of this power to coerce them into sex, or the involvement of his young son as an exhibitionist party, i suspect that he would have had to wait another couple of years, as these things too closely echo the reporting on epstein. in the face of the epstein files, the angle of undernegotiated kink appears benign, maybe even misunderstood by society — a feeling that attracted much of his audience in the first place.
notice how he starts with vulnerability, a sense that he loves each person who has been supporting him as an individual, a sense that they are heroic for sticking by the underdog. notice how he mentions proof he does not show in the rest of the post, primarily as a means of reassurance. you knew he couldn’t have done this. in fact, here’s a reward for trusting him:
it’s so boring in its brutality. appeal to mass emotion around how awful everything feels (neatly placing “neil gaiman accused of rape” alongside the current human rights atrocities in the process), calculated display of vague vulnerability and bookish wisdom, and then the centerpiece: a reward for sticking beside him long enough to get to this slide. all the horror that you, as a fan of his, had to go through is finally worth it. some beauty has come out of this destruction. his next book is going to be big. book buzz sandwiched between platitudes. never once in this post does he clarify what “the allegations” even are.
this is perfectly tailored for his particular fanbase. it’s twee without being too precious. it’s glossy without being too removed. it gives the feeling of intimacy without actually discussing anything. it’s made to comfort people who desperately need the allegations to be untrue, and the timing could not be better.
i don’t think much of the audience this is geared towards will read the substack articles he pushes in the post; i genuinely believe this is enough for them. journalists will read them, though, and readers who hadn’t heard of his allegations before will probably find the version of them resurrected by the coming news cycle tame in comparison to the reports of sexual abuse being discussed on a wider level at the moment. he’s using some of the same tactics of fostering parasociality, making a subject feel special, and revealing emotional vulnerability that he used against his victims in their accounts. to be clear, i’m not suggesting neil gaiman is grooming the public—this is about book sales. it’s not the behavior of an evil mastermind, it’s the behavior of a rapist in the literary world. this is marketing. the rape and trafficking of multiple women is a prop used for sympathy.
please be a killjoy. bring it up. don’t let him get away with sweeping this under the rug and attempting to profit off of it. don’t give rapists an inch.
baratheonpilled
romaincrisis
amandla
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
