Outrage over Pogo’s gay men “an abomination” and NOFX’s Vegas massacre quips

Perth electro-producer Pogo described gay men as “an abomination” in a video and generated calls for a boycott of his music.

US punk band NODX have lost a major sponsor and been dropped from their own punk festival after an onstage quip about those killed at a Las Vegas country music festival being country music fans and not punks.

Both have withdrawn their remarks but consumer anger has not subsided.

Pogo (born in South Africa as Nick Bertke) has made a successful career by mashing animated Disney films into electro songs.

His YouTube channel has 710,000 subscribers and millions of users, while the video for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ generated 20 million YouTube views.

The video in question was uploaded in 2016 as unlisted, but has surfaced in the last month and been shared on Reddit.

It shows him explaining why he called his YouTube channel Faggotron.

“I’ve always had a very thorough dislike of homosexuals,” he is seen saying to the camera. “I’ve never liked a grown man acting like a 12-year-old girl.

“I’ve always found that to be quite disgusting. And so I thought to myself, how best can I express to the world that gays are just an abomination?”

Since then, Pogo has insisted the comments were part of his attempt to “confuse people”, cause debate and “grind the gears” of PC thinking.

“There’s no pinch of salt big enough to be taken with what I have said,” he insists.

The video has since been removed. 

But that has not reduced the anger.

RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon tweeted, “You’re entitled to your willfully ignorant thoughts, but I’d love to know why, without any real provocation, you decided to alienate your majorative fan base with hate speech.

“Good luck selling your music without the queer community. It’s 2018. Wake up asshole.”

Sarah Sterling posted: “If you’re like me and been a fan of his music for nearly a decade, please join me and STOP supporting him from now on.”

Media personnel have questioned YouTube as to how the video has stayed on the platform in contravention of its ‘hate’ policies.

Also getting attention are Pogo posts that “women crave drama,” want to be “manned around” and “treat[ed] like a child,” and that feminism makes them “self-victimizing gold diggers” with more privilege than men.

In the meantime, going viral is a video of a tasteless joke by NOFX singer Fat Mike onstage at the Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Fat Mike and guitarist Eric Melvin were exchanging quips about the victims of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting last October, which took the lives of 58 people and injured 527.

Fat Mike said: “We played a song about Muslims and we didn’t get shot.”

Melvin replied: “I guess you only get shot in Vegas if you’re in a country band.”

Fat Mike responded: “That sucked, but least they were country fans and not punk rock fans.”

The band has since apologised profusely on its Facebook and Twitter pages. “I can’t sleep, no one in my band can.

“What we said in Vegas was shitty and insensitive and we are all embarrassed by our remarks.”

But three days later, California-based Stone Brewing announced that as a result of the band’s “insensitive and indefensible statements”, “we are severing all our ties with NOFX, including festival sponsorship and the production of our collaboration beer.”

Promoters of the Punk Rock Bowling festival apologised for NOFX’s comments to the city of Las Vegas, the victims and families of Route 91 Harvest.

NOFX’s own Camp Punk In Drublic festival in Ohio on the weekend dropped them and Fat Mike’s Me First & The Gimme Gimmes and promised to make a donation to a charity set up to help victims of the Las Vegas shooting.