When Filkers Go Bad

Obviously anthropomorphic fandom has been having its turn in the barrel for a really long time, as the nice people who just liked drawing Disney’s Robin Hood-type characters got to watch their fandom turn into a fetish and then a haven for pedophiles. (And the petty criminal Robert “Beto” O’Rourke.)

Now it’s time for filk to feel public shame.

Now, we should have been publically shamed over not correctly identifying the ongoing abuse of children in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s household. (And good on Moira Greyland for living to adulthood, getting her own life, and getting the truth out.) But for whatever reason, filk was spared public obloquy.

But apparently the Wizard Rock movement from Harry Potter fandom has birthed its own Umbridge, who actually uses her own filk skills as part of her gig as a mini-Goebbels or mini-Pravda-ite.

Her name is Nina Jankowicz, and she used to be part of a singer/songwriter duo called The Moaning Myrtles (which even I had heard of, from outside the fandom). Jankowicz also performed solo as “Nina Myrtle.” They were doing comedy songs, which is fine. Here are their three albums on Bandcamp. You can also buy songs on Apple and Spotify.

In her adult life, she has been appointed head of the Disinformation Governance Board. And just look at that Umbridge smirk in her official portrait, as she gets ready to send people to the gulags. As a Russian/Eastern European studies type. Ugh. She previously advised the old, pro-Russian government of Ukraine, and then later announced that Hunter Biden’s laptop was totally untrue disinformation. (For her own sake, I hope she didn’t ever meet the child-prostitute-user Hunter Biden during his Ukraine gig; but honestly, the chances are good that she did in fact meet and know him. Biden circles are kinda tight.)

The really sad thing about her fannish past is that she’s not a bad singer and they’re not badly done songs. When people don’t have any art within them, you can say to yourself, “Oh, maybe this person just doesn’t have the cognitive ability to understand that she’s being evil.” But no.

This is someone who is going to unironically ruin the lives of young men and women, who are exactly like her old fannish friends, for opposing the official line with actual factual information. And we know that, because she has already unironically sung songs about what she thinks disinformation is.

She also thinks that if anybody doesn’t like her or her opinions, it’s because they’re sexist against her. (Not because her opinions are cray-cray or evil. No, of course not. Umbridge thought is righteous.)

Here’s some examples of the Moaning Myrtles’ work.

“And Then I Died” performs the remarkable feat of giving a dead victim of murder a “villain song” that makes her less sympathetic. There’s vulgar language for basically no reason, but of course it’s realistic for a junior high ghost to think it’s cool to swear, and Myrtle’s not the nicest ghost.

“And Then I Died” lyrics video. Same song from MM appearance at Wizard Rock Festival.

“I Was There,” another song from ghost Myrtle’s POV.

“Sitting on the Toilet”: the trials of Myrtle’s love life, or death.

There are a ton of these on the YouTube channels “Julia Weinstein” and “WrockingGirl“, and even some nice song videos using clips from the films or background art. (Wrock = Wizard Rock.) There are also a few of Jankowicz’s “muggle songs” such as “Vacation for Free.”

Werner Von Braun’s rocket fandom friends at least had some kind of excuse of scientific/engineering naivete, for getting enmeshed in a system that oppressed and killed people. Jankowicz is jumping right in, happy as a clam.