We must learn to be sensitive
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| The infamous Jack Parow aka Zander Tyler. |
Sometimes I sit and wonder what goes through an artist’s heads in general??? I mean how do they come up with half of the things they write? Do they still write content that is appropriate for all suitable viewers or only for a specific group of people? Are the views of the audience taken into account or they just do not care at all?
Have we reached a point where in society we just do not care whether artists use vulgar language or we can finally say that we have had enough! Last week Friday during a concert in Durban, a city in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, Zander Tyler whose stage name is Jack Parow, was almost attacked on stage by a fan that was lucky stopped by the police before he got to him. The fan was furious and also felt offended because of all the swear words Jack Parow used in his song “dans, dans, fokken, dans”.
Later on Jack Parow’s critics aired their views about the performance, calling him “satan slang” which is in Afrikaans and translated to English, it means (devil snake) and also saying that his music is what they call a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language”. This was all written in the NewCastle Newspaper’s Facebook page. He reacted by saying
"I was singing dans, dans, fokken, dans and one guy was shouting at me said: why are you F#*$king swearing? but that was funny because he was swearing at me". "If you're going to put me on after blerrie Steve Hofmeyr; well, our fans are worlds apart".
When we look at the incident that has taken place and put it more in a Public Relations point of view, you would realize that Jack Parow is dealing with what we call Public Opinion. Public Relations is a management of building and maintaining relationship with all our audiences, be it internal or external. But how can you build a relationship when you do not have public opinion that is positive and in your favour?
Well Hennessy(Public Opinion;1985) defines public opinion as “the complex issue of beliefs expressed by a significant number of people on an issue of general importance”. Public Opinion basically represents more than just the collective views held by the public, they have the power to make you or break you as an individual.
In conclusion, what Jack Parow can do with his publicist is apologize to the public and realize that although his music has its own target audiences, it will happen that most of the time his music will in different ways also reach those audiences that he is not targeting and they will also react in this manner. I hope it is a lesson learned and that next time he will not react the way he did.
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| Jack Parow in "dans, dans, fokke, dans" music video. |
Here is the link to Jack Parow's "dans, dans, fokken, dans" song :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yWeMIALolY
sources: http://www.mg.co.za/; http://www.product-search.ebay.com/; http://www.pvphotography.blogspot.com/ and http://www.hmsfriday.com/ .
