In today’s edition of extremely YIKES news, The 1975 frontman Matty Healy reportedly performed a Nazi salute onstage.
People, understandably, are outraged and hurt.
Twitter user Nat (@natluvsfilm) shared footage of the foul incident to Twitter, which appeared to be taken from an Instagram Reel.
In the vid, The 1975 are performing “Love It If We Made It”. As Healy sings the lyric “Unrequited house with seven pools / ‘Thank you Kanye, very cool!’” he appears to start marching and lifts his left arm above his head.
tw // antisemitism
why is no one talking about the fact matty healy did a h!tler salute on stage?? pic.twitter.com/QXdza5gzuX
— nat (@waystarnatco) January 26, 2023
Folks on Twitter slammed the bloke for his vulgar behaviour.
“Satire or not this is irresponsible and super lame to do on-stage in front of a crowd of people,” one user said.
“U [sic] cannot hide ur [sic] ignorance and bigotry behind preformance [sic] and dramatisation. Whether its [sic] support to be satire or not, the mf willingly threw up an anti-Semitic sign in the middle of his preformance [sic],” another wrote.
“No amount of context will ever make this behaviour okay. People who try to justify this are part of the problem too,” said a third.
The reason people are bringing up satire and context is ‘cos loads of Matty Healy stans have defended the bloke.
“He’s obviously making fun of Kanye here, right? Am I missing something? This is obviously him mocking Kanye, literally quoting [Donald] Trump while doing a Hitler salute. Is this user trolling?” one wrote on Twitter.
“He raised his left hand, so it’s as close as meaningless,” another said. Of course, because Nazi salutes are performed by extending one’s right arm, so this absolves Healy of all responsibility!
I mean, with all due respect, shut the fuck up. I’m struggling to understand how doing a Nazi salute — which is illegal in Germany and Austria — is satirical or funny?
It’s vulgar in any circumstance, but it’s especially foul considering it was done while singing a lyric about Kanye West, who has openly praised Hitler, tweeted an image merging a swastika and the Star of David and said he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” on Twitter.
It’s unclear when or where the original footage was recorded, but Nat shared the video to Twitter on January 27, which is Holocaust Memorial Day. Sort of adding insult to injury, you know.
I’m not implying that Matty Healy is a Nazi sympathiser or anti-Semitic, but this is peak “edgy white bloke trying to make a statement”.
People can’t get away with blatantly offensive behaviour under the guise of satire, nor should they be excused from being being held accountable ‘cos they’re a problematic fave who does dumb shit on TikTok. Enough!
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