Shock news: Shirtless violinist is back on Instagram
mainPink News reports that gay icon Matthew Olshefski, better known as The Shirtless Violinist, has been banished from Instagram.
“Your account has been disabled for pretending to be someone else,’ he was told.
Matthew blames it on complains by anti-gay trolls.
UPDATE: Fresh post today from Matthew and his partner, Paul:
We’re back!! One week ago, our account was disabled for violating Instagram’s terms. What was our violation? “Pretending to be someone else”. Obviously, this is untrue (the only thing I’ve ever pretended to be was “straight” for the first 18 years of my life) —but it was alarming to see how easily trolls can have an account disabled.
We work hard to bring quality content to the internet. Not just with our Instagram posts, but the podcast we produce each week. I’m not gonna lie, it’s disheartening to be targeted by hateful people. They’re not just attacking the two of us, but our entire community.
As gay men, we are often left wondering “was this an act of homophobia?” And, unfortunately, I think that’s a question gay people confront all the time.
“gay icon”
icon???
If any violinist were to be a gay icon, I’d say that’d be … umm, Joshua Bell?
Except that Joshua Bell is not gay…
And he’s 53. Past his sell-by date for gay icons, even George Clooney.
Nor is he an icon!
You might want to check this:
https://slippedisc.com/2019/10/weekend-weddings-joshua-bell-got-married/
@MusicFan101 and J Barcelo
1) A “gay icon” doesn’t have to be gay, the ultimate “gay icons” being Judy Garland, Madonna, they just have to be loved by gays
2) That Bell also happens to be gay, albeit closeted, is just a coincidence
Every man who chases after women, or is even married to one, is a closetted gay, as every well-informed woky knows. New scientific anthropobiological research has brought to light that every male is gay, without exception, but that evolutionary pressures forces most of them to suppress such unwelcome sympathies so that this surprising phenomenon remains entirely unconscious.
I wouldn’t know if he WAS a “violinist.”
Rather wimpy and limp for me.
Even worse is the ‘clothes hanger’. Charlie Siem
Perhaps a question of the nature of said ‘quality content’?
Why is it different than Lola or Yuja, besides ‘victimized group protection status’…
Yet Yuja and the wannabe pretender Lola have never been banned from Instagram.
He’s like the male Anne-Sophie Mutter. Nothin’ feels better than a vibrating instrument on your bare shoulder!
We are tired of naked/ ultra sexualized instrumentists of any kind !
There are so much other beautiful things to share.
By sharing that, you are making them free publicity, they don’t need that much ! Please stop !
But it is not ‘free publicity’, it is public embarrassment.
“As gay men, we are often left wondering ‘was this an act of homophobia?’ And, unfortunately, I think that’s a question gay people confront all the time.”
So sad, but so true.
Good luck and best wishes, Matthew. Don’t let the bastards bring you down.
All this group think merely reinforces prejudice and polarisation. Minority banners and labels never define individuals but reduce them to a group identity which covers everything, and that is dehumanizing. All forms of discrimination can only be beaten by education, not by labels.
Getting perilously close to ‘pseudo corner’ …..
Err. Pseuds’ corner
Olshefski added: “We want answers, but more importantly, we want to get back to what we were doing, being our most authentic selves.”
How is not having an Instagram, keeping him/them from being authentic? I’m gay, and I don’t get this.
Oh yes, shocking and very important news, a half naked man appeared on instagram again. What is this, a serious website or a kind of tabloid kind of The Sun?
A bit of both. Whatever triggers clicks.
On the other hand, it is mostly us who have turned respectful tributes to the great Fouts’ong into Lang Lang bashing feasts.
Not me! I don’t believe in collective guilt.
He could substitute wet Y fronts for wet T Shirt ?
Since this has begun already:
OK, so Mozart and Thomas Linley came for coffee, but I really didn’t want to release it from where it was, nice and warm, but probably not piping. So I told them we weren’t open yet. And you always have to do something special for those two, and thus I got out the beets (not the beats from all the beatings in class: “Grand Battement etc. petite, sur les levre me close and all…..) and boiled them to eat the water I used as coffee, but just for Wolfgang, cause Thomas is so in love with him and has no idea what’s going on, he could drown himself to death, skip his funeral swim the English channel and who up right in time for the next visit with his friend. But then Wolfgang sat there, for quite a whole gabbing away, just like they were two old prostitutes, it was soOOOOooo cut. And then finally:
“Heh, why is this coffee so red,” and he takes some on his fingers and rubs it 9the coughee) onto the ground like he’s feeling raisins to pop in his mouth,”
and then
“Is that Jesus blood or something?”
“JESUS strange-word-for-secretary- Christ! “
And I by that time was listening quite intently still and said: “that bitter k’up.”
(to be continued)
sorry *ahem*
And boiled them to eat. The water I used as coffee!
Are you taking a creative writing course?
Clearly not.
Cree Ate if Wrhy-tink, and now you can go to bed….. you really need to work on your capitalization though
I thought “and boiled them to eat the water I used as coffee” was the most poetic imagery in the whole piece. And now I learn it was a typo.
Great. Now I’ll have to do more cardio next year. Thanks for nothing.
That’s quite witty “..the only thing I’ve ever pretended to be was straight for the first 18 years of my life”
Think of all the woke people who pretend to be gay for their entire life, since their ‘real nature’ is too embarrassingly conformist to their taste and that of their pals.
Good for him for finding a way to stand out and make a living doing what he loves. How many capable violinists are out there and can’t make a go of it career-wise? Most musicians will never become a member of an orchestra where they can make a comfortable living, so they have to figure something else out or get another career. It seems like Matthew has figured something else out. Bravo!
Isn’t it a shame copyright infringement, THAT isn’t allowed!
Seth Rogen, dressed in a Speedo, playing the viola.
Yes salad is good!? You know cause you said “dressed.”
Is everything OK here? Reading through this blog’s cementing interior pretension of attempts at conversation, one would think that it has something to do with everyone having been splashed with Jesus blud after God threw him saved-your-souls!
Or is that lovesick lamb called Joshua Bell supposed to do everything, again!? KNOCK IT OFF, and perhaps there WON’T be a violin within reach of anyone in the orchestra anymore, ye’ll see! And he’ll (rhymes with ye’ll) and (heal rhymes with yield, and then those two again! eye before IE from yield) anyhow……
You’ll see that there won’t be a violin within reach, for everyone in the orchestra to get cancelled again, he’ll have to go on vacation. Mr. Bell will. Anyhow I can’t tell the difference between him and Matt Damon, and wouldn’t care if he completely disappeared forever, and let Matt take over.
Nice body on the violin.
Such a bunch of pompous, puritanical, pearl-clutchers in the comments. This is precisely why classical music struggles to still be relevant in the 21st Century. Unless an artist conforms to ancient, stale, black-tie norms from the19th Century, they get mocked and viciously judged. Let the shirtless violinist be. Either you’re all jealous of how good he looks, or a bunch of homophobic church ladies. Or just boring.