Because starting petitions to get artists booted from music festival lineups is our generation’s preferred form of civil disobedience, there’s a movement to have Paris Hilton kicked off the bill of a dance music festival in the US.
Milwaukee’s Summerfest, a massive festival that counts Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lamar among this year’s headliners, booked Hilton to appear as a DJ – you have to search the lineup to see her, but she’s there, about halfway down.
Hilton’s inclusion inspired some irate festival goers to start a Change.Org petition, requesting that the organisers remove her from the bill. The impassioned plea reads:
This is a middle finger to anyone who paid to go this festival. You claim to be one of the premier festivals in America and then you go ahead and hire someone like Paris Hilton. She is a disgrace to dance music and is a perfect example of what spoiled celebrities do when they’re bored. She has no right to be paid good money to stand up there and clap her hands on a stage. That money could be used to hire credible djs that actually work hard on their craft. If Paris has any respect for dance music she would step down as she’s clearly not worthy. Signing her to Summerfest is supporting a false, non credible, and quite frankly overall terrible “musician”/”DJ”. This diminishes dance music as nothing more than a cheap show and if you have any respect for the integrity of music you will remove Paris Hilton from the lineup. Please sign and share this petition together we can at least show Paris that we won’t stand for this.
Paris Hilton’s DJ skills are the source of some debate. The above, fairly damning photo, was snapped during a set in Brazil in 2012, and shows a man stepping in to twiddle knobs for Paris as she waves her hands in the air.
Others claim that she has gotten her shit somewhat together vis-a-vis her DJ game, and one reviewer, who saw her at a club gig in LA, noted that she appeared to be fairly adept with Traktor software.
Earlier this year, a petition circulated to have Kanye West removed from the Glastonbury Festival bill, calling him an “insult” to music fans, but organisers comprehensively laughed that one off.
Summerfest organisers have yet to respond to this current petition, but we suspect that:
a) Paris will laugh her way to the bank
b) Angry fans will probably just skip her and see one of the dozens of other acts on the bill instead
b) Angry fans will probably just skip her and see one of the dozens of other acts on the bill instead
c) Everyone will go on living their lives
via Complex
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
