The internet loves a good pile-on. Greased with a hot button topic that no one can reasonably argue against, it makes for a swift coming-together of minds. Discussion, memes, outrage, all of that swirled together into social media outrage paste.

Ed Sheeran found this out himself the hard way. In the midst of the controversy, and despite not being the instigator, he very soon became the public face of genocide denial and Palestinian / Israel conflict politics.

Robert Kraft, the owner of Gillette stadiums gave Ed an ultimatum to remove Macklemore for his comments on Palestine or lose the venue. ES deferred the decision to Kraft and chose to keep out. In doing this, public perception shifted. A large fanbase of supporters who resonated with the pro Palestine message, and by extension, anyone else who supported this cause riled up. Whether this was entirely organic or not is up for debate. However ES became the focal point of the message.

ES was essentially painted into a corner, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Appease the billionaire and remove the artist, or defy and lose the venue.

When it rains, it pours. Every word from a follow up apology was scrutinized to ensure compliance with a particular ideology. Every past affiliation pored over for evidence of hypocrisy.

Robert Kraft would be the obvious choice to disagree with in this instance. The problem is, he doesn’t have the name, popularity, relatability and ubiquity that Ed Sheeran and his music has.  Say what you want about his tunes (I think they are awful!), ES has a “brand recognition” that goes beyond a relatively unknown crusty billionaire does not. People can size up and relate to a pop-star, a business-man not so much.

Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”, ES found himself in quite a scenario. Thrown into situation and needed the chutzpah to swim out of it and keep his career, fans and business partners intact. Staying neutral was the tactic employed, but the cat was already out of the bag at this stage. It is hard to stay neutral with topics such as genocide. Once your in the thick of it, you must tread ever so carefully.  Playing Sweden was not the right tactic.

Though who was to blame depends on who you ask. To the public, ES was to blame for being spineless and not standing up for atrocities. To ES the blame was directed at the stadium owner, a suspected “Zionist” who asked for removal as a condition of using the venue. Again to others, Macklemore was perhaps to blame, with notable shock jock Kyle Sandilands weighing in with the comment

Don’t piggyback on someone else’s career to push your own political nonsense. No one cares about that

In hindsight this particular gambit did not work out well for Ed Sheeran. He has now become a laughing stock for his supposed weak morals and ethics and capitulation to a billionaire with a loose grip on humanitarian issues.

To flip the coin, ES claims that he doesn’t involve himself in politics. “a place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open.” But that is not strictly true. He has positions (most or all of them are frankly good) on Ukraine v Russia, Brexit and the equality act.

Damage control mode has begun after Macklemore goaded both Sheeran and Kraft into matching his $1M donation – they quickly followed suit.

In the grand scheme, paying over 1M each is a PR appeasement fee, with an altruistic good cause tacked on. One has to be a bit concerned when they mention “region” rather than Palestine directly. Robert Kraft is not one who would lightly go into an arrangement to fund a group/region/cause whatever that he fundamentally doesn’t believe in.

So the end result is, all support acts have left, and his entire backing band has packed up in disgust. The tour starts imminently and it has been reduced to shambles. Tickets have been sold, but the resale value has dropped significantly. Even if the tickets have been sold, there is the ill-will that Ed now must contend with – with many radio stations and even countries (?!) disowning him. See https://www.newsweek.com/ireland-disowns-ed-sheeran-over-macklemore-12454999

What can be the takeaway from all of this? Sometimes you are put in a position by force where you need to make a choice. What is your ethical framework? If it is a utilitarian choice. Do you stand with the many or the few? What may seem to be a small appeasement to one party can snowball into a something many times more in magnitude. Add the internet and it’s over.

To paraphrase Ed Sheeran: Would it hurt your reputation if I put it on wax?