Don’t get Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest wrong, he loves his fans, but the singer had to set some boundaries this week after the enthusiastic people posting to his band’s subreddit freaked him out.
In a thread of tweets Tuesday evening, Toledo explained the activity on Reddit messageboard r/CarSeatHR was not exactly what he’d envisioned in a fan community. In addition to digging up childhood photos of him that had dubious (and he seems to think freaky) origins, there was apparently a rift within the fandom causing people to use the subreddit for arguing about who Toldeo’s true fans are instead of, say, analyzing lyrics or swapping guitar chords.
“Hi everyone. I make music. To ‘be a fan’ of Car Seat Headrest, literally all you have to do is listen to and enjoy the music,” Toledo tweeted Tuesday. “If you feel compelled to show your fanship in additional ways, all I ask is that you ask yourself WHY and whether it would be a Good or Bad thing to do. e.g. making fan art? Good! searching for defunct myspace pages to find pictures of me at age 13 to share with a network of strangers? Not good… Pretending to be me to post my old private music on bandcamp? Not good. Pretending to be me to threaten the guy posting my music on bandcamp? Not good.”
“I’m not your principal,” Toledo continued. “Don’t make me play that role, or I will deal with the situation in the harshest terms possible. It shouldn’t be my business to determine how fans interact, so don’t make it my business.”
In conclusion, he says his advice for everyone is to “chill the f*ck out, don’t talk to strangers online, and make a minimal effort to be a decent human being.” He says he’d been more willing to “ignore” aggressive behavior in the past because it was aimed solely at him, but watching the subreddit’s activity escalate to “open warfare between community members who hated each other” had changed his tune. “This is not a ‘good community’,” he wrote. “Take a break.”
https://twitter.com/carseatheadrest/status/968614773716697088
https://twitter.com/carseatheadrest/status/968615291512066048
https://twitter.com/carseatheadrest/status/968615582496100352
https://twitter.com/carseatheadrest/status/968620360458366978
One fan wasn’t ready to call it quits though. He asked Toledo if he’d be open to re-launching the subreddit if new moderators were brought in and “stricter rules were enacted.”
Would you support the subreddit going back up if the mod leadership changed? And stricter rules were enacted?
— Sebby (@Selib1230) February 27, 2018
What about a different subreddit by completely different people?
While the sub was kinda weird at times it was still nice to have a place to discuss the music
In a now-deleted reply, Toledo reportedly told the dude to, “Take a break.”
The subreddit has since been shut down by its moderators.
“Sorry, we’re on an indefinite hiatus, as per request of Will,” a message on the page reads.
H/T Stereogum