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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

YouTube Yanks “God Hates a Fag”

posted by on January 23 at 23:23 PM

godhates.jpg

The video of the day—of the year—has been removed from YouTube. But it’s still available at Evening Service’s website. Enjoy—and if you’re a DJ, get on that remix already! (Video sleuthing via Sullivan.)

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1

I love it when Donnie rocks the power fist in the mixing room. The song's got hooks, baby. Reminds me of Built to Spill.

Posted by Big Wags | January 23, 2007 11:40 PM
2

That's horrifying, yet strangely hilarious!
I need to go wash my ears out with soap and water now -

Posted by Zil | January 24, 2007 1:18 AM
3

That was appalling, but I did like the soft pastels and the come hither smile. Dost the homophobe protest too much?

Posted by Jp | January 24, 2007 1:29 AM
4

My favorite part is how it quotes Oscar Wilde as being a "reformed homosexual"!!

HJSDKFLSJDFHDSHFJKLDSFKJHQWEUQIWLVS

I think the one major flaw that keeps it from being good satire is the subject of its disparagement. Homosexuality? A choice? You mean it'll send us to hell? Now why didn't I think of that? I mean, these things are prevalent enough in this country, and despite the video's psuedoironic intent it just ends up being too damn easy. See, this is why I hate irony.

Posted by Trevor | January 24, 2007 4:44 AM
5

lawlz. I wonder if they yanked it because it's obviously offensive or if because so many people were watching it and laughing.

Posted by JessB | January 24, 2007 5:30 AM
6

So, YouTube will keep the Michael Richards thing up, and terrorists chopping off people's heads, but they take down some self hating fag singing about god's hatred for fags? Someone help me understand this...

Posted by Mike in MO | January 24, 2007 5:51 AM
7

After a day of watching it about 20 times I'm now convinced it's a joke. There's just no way. Either way, it's brilliant.

Posted by Noel Black | January 24, 2007 6:27 AM
8

That is so fucking through the looking glass bizarro. Totally homophobic, and totally gay.

Posted by Jonathan | January 24, 2007 6:33 AM
9

his "molester" moustache is a winner...

Posted by bijoubaby | January 24, 2007 6:59 AM
10

he kept it... after he cut off his mullet...

Posted by bijoubaby | January 24, 2007 7:00 AM
11

"We live not too far from the chemical plants in Baytown and sometimes being so close to that kind of industry creates intense self-reflection, which is what we are all about."

is what the band says the band about their music...

Posted by niemandsland | January 24, 2007 7:06 AM
12

"We live not too far from the chemical plants in Baytown and sometimes being so close to that kind of industry creates intense self-reflection, which is what we are all about."

is what the band says about their music...

Posted by niemandsland | January 24, 2007 7:07 AM
13

It's still on Google Video, if you want to embed it in your blog:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7021202528388041252&hl=en

Posted by Tiffany | January 24, 2007 7:12 AM
14

so is it a joke or not? i am seriously on the fence here.

i mean, pastel shirts, use of the term "backdoor," and check the obvious cock-and-balls imagery in that red candle arrangement! it's gloriously over the top!

but on the other hand, the eveningservice.com site has some design work behind it. they seem to have spent some money and effort getting that site up... seems kind of earnest.

which is it?

Posted by gforce | January 24, 2007 7:46 AM
15

It was probably taken down because too many people reported it as inappropriate. That's how those things work.

Posted by No need for tinhats | January 24, 2007 8:09 AM
16

What a screaming bottom.

I think I'll remix it today - at least the refrain, and probably the knees bit. I wonder if the auteur will oblige me with the vocal tracks? It's worth a shot. On would hate to do a half-assed job given the quality of the original oeuvre and the size of the singers ass.

Posted by kinaidos | January 24, 2007 8:14 AM
17

this is clearly a joke. and even if it's not... it is.

Posted by pffft | January 24, 2007 8:23 AM
18

wow. check out the labels website. it seems to be real. they have no fucking clue what they are talking about, but it may be real.

under safe music to listen to, they include cyndi lauper. if that shit ain't gay, i don't know was is.

Posted by konstantconsumer | January 24, 2007 8:33 AM
19

#17 -

word. i just don't know whether to congratulate the cleverness or be amazed at how inept these people are at making a point.

but of course, i love them either way. y'know, like jesus would.

Posted by gforce | January 24, 2007 8:36 AM
20

maybe it's like gunther, where it's totally a joke, but he's completely serious about it.

Posted by seattle98104 | January 24, 2007 8:48 AM
21

It's not real. It can't be real. As an actual evangelist has pointed out, the website looks like an evangelical website, but only to people who haven't looked at evangelical websites very closely. There's no contact information, for starters; just a gmail account, which means nothing. There's no Bible quotes. The photographs are all meaningless, generic praying hands. Some would say that the design skill itself is an indication that it's not real evangelicals.

But the band lists are the kicker. There is a zero percent chance that they are real. There is a zero percent chance that ANY real "recovery from homosexuality" loon anywhere in the world has ever heard the name "Morton Subotnick" or if they have would associate it with dangerous gay-making music.

It's a very well done parody.

Posted by Fnarf | January 24, 2007 9:06 AM
22

fnarf, you make a good point about the dearth of bible quotes and meaningful images. and cyndi lauper is on the safe list.

Posted by gforce | January 24, 2007 9:28 AM
23

So does anyone know why it was yanked?

Posted by Matt from Denver | January 24, 2007 9:53 AM
24

Also, you figure that such an artist would have other songs too, and have some traceable history online via other Christian music websites looking in Google. All you see are 1) other Donnie Davis's, and 2) just 2-3 days of the one we're talking about.

Not to mention the amateur quality of the content outside the video itself. It was all recorded or put together in no more than a day I gather. A couple of domain names, some hastily gathered quotes and HTML, and the cheaply recorded mission statement that is Donnie's other spoken video.

That said, the victory with this video is how well it emulates the Praise Channel aesthetic down to the atom.

Donnie Davis could have become the "Is he or is he not?" icon of the year. The problem is: that would have required a lot of research on his part. Actually An Evangelical pointed out all these holes that would need to be filled. Furthermore, Donnie would have to make other songs, most of which weren't nearly as controversial as "The Bible Says" in order to be still undecipherable by even third-rate skeptics.

And had Donnie done all that, imagine the repercussions! Imagine all the legit homo-bigoted religious right organizations that would have handily accosted Donnie. Imagine this going on for even a fraction of a year, and then have it all blow up once Donnie was "outed" as being a fake. With some media attention, this would have been rather damaging to the religious right.

Donnie could have been a more effective religious version of Bob Roberts. Instead, he opted to be an amateur, fun-for-a-day-in-the-blogosphere Bob Roberts.

Parody or not, I still feel like punching Donnie in the fucking face. Perhaps it's a sign of how secular Western society has become, but any groomed artist looking at a camera singing "Faggot" in a negative context with a smirk makes me extremely angry, whether it's a joke or not. While it certainly is a compliment to "Donnie"'s ability to parody Christian rock in a video, it still doesn't make it funny, necessarily -- stressing "necessarily".

So, my final question is: why? Why did Donnie, or The Guy Playing Donnie go to all this effort to make a really convincing Christian Pop Rock video attacking homosexuality only to provoke reactions for a day in the blogosphere? Was it really worth it?

Posted by matthew fisher wilder | January 24, 2007 9:55 AM
25

Matt, see @15. Youtube has a little button on every video that says "flag as inappropriate". If enough people click it, the video goes away. It's probably even automated so that no one at Youtube even had to do anything. I doubt they watch their own videos, certainly no more than a tiny fraction of a percent of them.

Posted by Fnarf | January 24, 2007 9:57 AM
26

I kinda figured it was something like that. Gracias Fnarf.

Posted by Matt from Denver | January 24, 2007 10:10 AM
27

Oh, he's serious. Check out his website: http://www.donniedavies.com/

Here's part of his bio: "I am in fact a Reformed Homosexual and I'm trying to let people know that there is an escape from being Gay. By letting people know that "God hates a Fag" I am doing Gods work, I'm preaching.

When I was in highschool I kept having feelings for the boys I was in school with. Often I would let these feelings take over. I got into lots of trouble when I was Gay."

This young man needs to be pitied. He has no influence on society; he is just a gay boy whose self-loathing and confusion have spilled out onto the web. I've been reading comments and web info about him since I read Dan's first blog entry about this guy, and the overriding feeling I get is that he's just a sad young man whose sexuality has him so frightened that the only way he can deal with it is to decry it as loudly as possible.

Mostly I am reminded of the child who sticks his fingers in his ears and sings the Lalalalalala song to avoid having to face the awful truth.

Posted by ChillyMama | January 24, 2007 10:23 AM
28

I think it must be a joke. That line about heaven having "no back door" gave them away.

Posted by Jim Demetre | January 24, 2007 10:51 AM
29

ChillyMama@27:

Sure, there's an odd chance that this is the case.

Now, I have no clue exactly what goes on in de-homo-fication camps, and I really don't want to know. But I'd expect that a graduate of such a program, even if it was a house-arrest-with-family operation, would be equipped with stock quotes from scripture and basic talking points that would be transparent prose but prose nonetheless.

There's really nothing of that sort in Donnie's web content. There are more clues that this is a hoax than not.

If it is a hoax, I'll be very surprised. Then again, much stranger has occurred.

Posted by matthew fisher wilder | January 24, 2007 11:10 AM
30

Sorry!

If it is NOT a hoax, I'll be very surprised... etc.

Posted by matthew fisher wilder | January 24, 2007 11:12 AM
31

ChillyMama, you are completely daft. Did you not read any of the previous comments? It's a fake. Did you see the rosary on the label website?

Posted by Fnarf | January 24, 2007 11:13 AM
32

Further thinking about ChillyMama's comments...

In the case that Donnie is indeed real, it would truly be an incredibly sad but incredibly powerful counter-argument to the whole idea of Reformed Homosexuals. In which case, Donnie would be putting himself out there to be ridiculed only to show that his actions are embarrassing to this general practice.

It's one thing for a Phelps type guy to go around and make himself to be a media ogre because he felts strongly about his hate towards homosexuality.

It's another for this hate to come from someone who has been recently "saved" from being a homosexual via horrific deprogramming practices. There's a sense of innocence here, as there would not be with Phelps. For a video like this to be made and publicized, it really paints an ugly picture of de-homo-fication in general, even to those who may not have thought too strongly against it at first i.e. the "I like gay people, I just don't think it's really natural" types. In which case, bring it on.

I still think it's a hoax, but just pondering the alternate reality here.

Posted by matthew fisher wilder | January 24, 2007 11:23 AM
33

Daft I may be, Fnarf, but I'm still on the fence about Donnie's veracity.

OK, let's presume it's all one big flipped out joke and Donnie is having us all on. What has he accomplished? A tempest in a teapot? He pissed off a few bubble-off-center commenters on YT and sparked a small but mostly one-sided conversation on the Slog.

I admit readily that there are so many indicators that this is a huge larf that it's difficult to believe it could be anything else - but I have personally had enough dealings with religious fundies to know that even though they act like complete and utter nutball lunatics, they are still dead serious.

Until and unless Donnie is truly outed in the mass media - or better yet, by Dan the Man right here in the Slog - I am going to believe that Donnie is one serious and seriously messed up boy.

Posted by ChillyMama | January 24, 2007 12:34 PM
34

I can't get YouTube at work so was bummed when I got home to look at the video and it was no longer available. Thanks for the new link.

Posted by Thanks | January 24, 2007 1:46 PM
35

totally, obviously a joke.

Posted by craig | January 24, 2007 2:26 PM
36

umm, seriously how can anyone think this is serious?

I'm LOVING lovegodsway.org
on the list of gay bands:

Morrissey(?questionable?)

hahhaa

Posted by craig | January 24, 2007 2:36 PM
37

yeah "Morrissey(?questionable?)" is a give away.

Posted by seattle98104 | January 24, 2007 5:01 PM
38

"The B(ull)ible S(hit)ays"

Posted by Aqua | January 24, 2007 7:25 PM
39

DONNIE DAVIES HAS TO BE A HOAX. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNJtVAMkjSU

Posted by ChillyMama | January 25, 2007 12:58 PM
40

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Posted by bwyeri rdji | February 7, 2007 8:15 PM
41

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Posted by lheqbtpgi riuyhz | February 7, 2007 8:15 PM

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