This was posted on May 29th on Grave’s Facebook page:
“Ok I will remind you once again and believe me this is going to be the last time. This page is obviously not meant to be a billboard for you to promote your band, homemade crap, stupid groups of any kind or yourself. I'm sick of cleaning this wall every week from crap that doesn't belong here and from now on users who post stuff without relevance will be deleted. And no it's not relevant to promote your band here just because you play deathmetal. Try the old fashioned way by writing great songs and get recognition that way before trying to build a false Facebook empire.Over and out../Ola”
Part of a response from Grave/Ola posted in reply to ‘fan’ comments:
“And to answer your question no I would no have spammed other bands walls with my crap if FB had existed 25 years ago. There is a certain respect if you're a serious band. If you are not well then buhuuu for you. Now piss off!”
Personally, I think this kind of thing is needed, appropriate and quite frankly, awesome. I do not want to go to a band’s Facebook page and see spam from whatever other random band or internet troll that exists. Actually, if a band is inconsiderate enough to shamelessly self-promote their material on someone else’s page, I am automatically turned away from clicking on that link. If you really feel the need to do so, there are other outlets just as likely to be full of the same kind of idiots that you have proven yourself to be.
The ease of promotion available to up and coming bands, whether they can write a decent song or not, is astronomical compared to what it was before the internet was widely used. Find somewhere else to promote yourself. “False Facebook empire” is a perfect description. Although it could be amended to something like “False Social Media Empire” or perhaps “Useless Internet Celebrity Empire”. There are certainly enough of those around. Rampant attention-seeking is irritating enough in any aspect of life. Doing it whilst using someone else (and their fanbase) is verging on disgusting. What happened to self respect, some modesty and a lot of hard work? Wait, I forgot. Those things are hard to find on the internet.
Reading some of the comments posted on Facebook, it seems that a few people think that this post from Grave is just whiny and bitchy. Most seem to think the opposite, and I tend to agree with them. In a world where political correctness is causing more problems than it solves, I enjoy the fact that a band may risk losing fans by speaking out in this manner. The reasonable ones will keep listening to the music, and probably agree with the sentiments expressed. The ones complaining that an established band should know difficult it is to get recognition, should be helping out other bands (by apparently letting them spam Facebook pages) and generally should not be posting this variety of comment are the fans I would not want to associate myself with to begin with. Selfishness is not a trait to be valued.
To Ola and Grave:
Skål!
