Must we agree with the artist, the art's audience, or even the art itself in order to enjoy it? It can certainly help to agree with the art's message, but is it a necessity?
I generally avoid funding art created by artists that I vehemently disagree with, or art that promotes ideologies that I vehemently disagree with or find dangerous. But, if the art is good, I'm happy to consume it but try to avoid funding it. Of course, I'll inevitably fund someone awful whether I know it or not for sure.
I think that it's easy to empathize with the viewpoint that separating the art from the artist is almost required to consume a lot of art, considering how many awful stories are consistently pumped out of Hollywood and how many artists have a checkered past (or even present). I think where most people lose my point of view is that I don't mind consuming media that promotes a disgusting ideology; I'll just try not to fund it in any meaningful way.
This is an area where I'm happy to learn more about people's opposing opinions, where they draw their lines, and what their rationale for those boundaries is. But for me personally, my mind is made up: if I like it, I like it, regardless of whether or not it promotes an ideology that I find dangerous or abhorrent.
As for the specific videos you posted:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T79Pb1qHeII
Well, I've listened to Crimewave probably over a hundred times in the last year or so, and I'm a huge fan of HEALTH. I love this song and I don't think it has anything to do with war. As for the video, I don't know the context of any of these clips. For some comparison: people grab music and throw together anime clips showcasing a character slaughtering a bunch of bad guys; but I don't know anything about those bad guys, all I see is a guy blowing a bunch of people away John Wick-style. "Look at how cool this looks" is all I get out of those videos, and "look at how cool this looks" is all I get out of this video. I don't know the context to any of these military clips in the same way that I don't know the context behind an AMV (or whatever those anime music videos are called). Not really my cup of tea, but it isn't upsetting to me in any way.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyiW3acN2ug
Love this song as well! It isn't clear what we're supposed to think about Desert Storm from the context given, but if you said "it's supposed to be celebratory," I would only be able to ask how you know for sure. And very well, it could be! I think that only its creator can say for sure, but we'll talk about him later.
In any case, this is one of the highest voted comments under the video:
i know this is posted in a sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but i think the gulf war and subsequently other middle Eastern conflicts are important to consider as a part of the 90s aesthetic. This was by all accounts the first "modern" war that we are currently familiar with today. It managed to shed a decent amount of the moral baggage associated with Vietnam. The war was presented as a heroic intervention, stopping a tyrant's invasion of his small, helpless neighbor. The validity of this narrative is certainly debatable but what isn't debatable is the more innocuous portrayal of the war which later evolved into coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the early 2000s, which i view as primarily view as a continuation of the 90's aesthetic but with the trauma of 9/11 thrown into the mix. Of course this is all conjecture but I thought it was an interesting way to add to the content of the video itself
At least a good amount of people watching this video are agreeing with the premise, or at least finding this interpretation to be interesting, that this is "a sort of tongue-in-cheek" type of video. This doesn't prove good intentions of the video's creator of course, but it's clearly a comment made in good faith that doesn't insist that the conflict itself was good. I said earlier that I don't personally need the audience's opinion to validate or invalidate my enjoyment of a piece of art, but it's interesting to consider nonetheless. This video also isn't exactly my cup of tea; it's still more of the same "look at how cool this looks" but with context that I can quickly dig deeper into. Hell, I wouldn't have even looked at the Wikipedia page for the Gulf War if I didn't stumble across this forum thread linking me to that video. Onward!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCbMXOICY8
I knew I recognized this one, as well! Reminds me that I should revisit Danger again. I love this song, and that marching drum beat is, well, a marching drum beat! War fits 100% with the song, and the only context that we're being given from the video is a bunch of planes flying around in various formations and pulling off different maneuvers, some primitive 3d-modeling of possibly a war zone, the date 6/8/86, and the "War Aesthetics" intro. Maybe this video is in reference to the 1986 bombing of Libya that was in response to the West Berlin discotheque bombing, but the timelines don't seem to match up. It seems to just be, "look at these cool planes!" with music that perfectly fits the "war aesthetic." (edit: I somehow forgot to add the "AGGRESSORS" title to the context. It's worth considering, but I'm done typing for now after writing all of this, lol)
My conclusion?
None of this is my cup of tea, but I don't see any of this as an "issue" in any way. I find the more interesting story to be in the comments section: from what I can gather, the channel that originally created and uploaded these videos ended up under the threat of being doxxed and deleted the channel because his personal life was being affected. Now
that is what makes me uncomfortable, and a lot more uncomfortable than some songs that I love being played over some war footage. The message is clear: the mob decides what art is acceptable and what art isn't; either keep it to yourself or face the consequences. I can't say for sure if any of this is true, however, but searching around online all leads to the same story.
Happy to hear different perspectives, but this is mine. I recently had a conversation with some close friends that was kicked off with the question, "is it okay to create 'fascist' music that isn't outright condemning it?" We all agreed that this was acceptable and didn't really have any disagreements on the details, but it was interesting to explore anyways. To summarize our conclusion, I think it would be something like, "fiction is fiction." I'm always surprised that people on the left take a huge problem with violence being showcased in art and fail to acknowledge that it was mostly people on the right who wanted "shock rock" and rap gone in the 90's. It never feels like a principled, morally righteous, or virtuous position -- it always feels like people want to attack ("cancel") anything that they disagree with or don't like, and choose to latch on to the same arguments that they were fighting against not long ago.
Just my opinion! Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.