Matty Healy Sparks Outrage After Doing Nazi Salute

Graphic by Anika Dua

At this point, every fan of The 1975 knows the sinking feeling of seeing the name “Matty Healy” on Twitter’s trending page. From being called out for making out with fans on stage to his most recent offensive rampage on Adam Friedland’s podcast, fans are familiar with – and at this point, unsurprised by – the singer’s love for “moral ambiguity” (to put it in very vague terms). One of Healy’s recent social-acceptability protests, though, very obviously crossed the line that he oh-so loves to blur: doing a clear Nazi salute on stage.

Matty Healy, 33-year-old lead singer of The 1975 and TikTok’s new White Boy of the Month, is known for getting himself into moral spats with the rational population of the world. A lover of “stirring the pot” in the name of art, Healy has managed to offend almost every marginalized group you can think of, and he’s been doing it since 2013, with the release of the 1975’s debut album and their burst into success.

Matty Healy’s semi-annual angering of any (or, all, as demonstrated by his most recent escapades) minorities are often written off as his dry, satirical criticism of the world we live in, and simply a reflection of the morally-ambiguous identity he’s curated for himself – but where do we draw the line? Fans have continually excused his actions because of his alleged good intentions, but have failed to consider one key fact: intentions do not necessarily ensure end results.

Longtime fans are mostly unfazed by Healy’s attempts at poking the bear of political correctness, but his actions took a turn for the significantly worse in late January when he unabashedly did a Hitler salute to the crowd during the song “Love It If We Made It” at a show in England. There are two general sides to this debate. On one hand, fans of The 1975 insist that his actions were justified by the context. The salute was done during the line “Thank you Kanye, very cool.” The song is very satirical, utilizing 2018 news headlines to call attention to the absurd state of the world. Many fans believe that his intention was to do nothing more than call Kanye West out for his recent antisemitic remarks. The alternate viewpoint is one that we at Jerk align more closely with, and that is this: no matter the intention, no matter the circumstance, doing a Nazi salute to a massive crowd of people is never okay.

The alt-right pipeline is already one of the quietest yet scariest threats to our generation. And though satire is certainly a respected – and more often than not, effective – way of communicating messages through art, it relies heavily upon background knowledge of the subject at hand and an attentive audience. It’s far too difficult to ensure the awareness of an entire arena to be able to effectively use such a vulgar expression in a satirical way. Expecting everyone to understand your intentions behind it is wild considering everyday people hold these sick beliefs genuinely. The bottom line is this: satire and art do frequently go hand-in-hand. But understanding your audience and their values is a large part of whether your message gets communicated effectively, and we know one thing for sure: if a Nazi salute is ever well-received, it’s a problem.