About
Lauren Mayberry “Leave a Trace” Controversy is a debate in which posters of the music board of 4chan, /mu/ attacked Lauren Mayberry, lead singer of the band Chvrches, for her appearance in a music video for the band’s 2015 single “Leave a Trace.” The controversy spread to Twitter when a board poster invited Mayberry to join.
Origin
On August 17th, 2015 the official Chvrches Vevo uploaded a music video to the song “Leave A Trace,” the second single off their album Every Open Eye.
On the same day, a thread on /mu/[2] was created showcasing the video. Much of the comments in the thread focused on two criticisms: firstly, that Lauren Mayberry was being sexually provocative in how she was clothed and styled in the video, and secondly, that the other Chvrches members Iain Cook and Martin Doherty were barely featured in the video, despite Mayberry’s previous claims that she was intent on not focusing on being a female figurehead for the band.[8] Before it was archived, the post received 819 replies.
A few hours after the post went up, after it had accumulated several hundred replies, one poster tweeted a link to the thread to Mayberry(the account who did this has now been banned due to multiple reports from users). She responded by blocking the user who sent it, retweeting the link and writing: “Dear anyone who thinks misogyny isn’t real. It is and this is what it looks like.”
Spread
After Mayberry tweeted the thread, multiple news outlets, including the Mirror[3], Music.mic[4], Daily Records[5], The Sidney Morning Herald [6] and The Independent[7] wrote opinion articles commenting on the misogyny and abuse of the 4chan users, as well as their sexual objectification of Mayberry. The official Chvrches Twitter tweeted in support of Mayberry on the same day, along with fellow Chvrches member Martin Doherty, and Stuart Braithwaite, the lead guitarist of the post-rock band Mogwai.
PSA: apparently wet hair makes you a "slut". Nice work, 4chan / humanity. https://t.co/66cch5WWeW
— CHVRCHΞS (@CHVRCHES) August 17, 2015so over these clowns. https://t.co/YGMMQZDaxm
— Martin Doherty (@doksan) August 17, 2015
@laurenevemay what a bunch of utter arseholes
— stuart braithwaite (@plasmatron) August 17, 2015
External References
[2]4chan – New Chvrches video
[3]Mirror – Chvrches singer blasts online trolls after sexist abuse: ‘Misogyny is real and looks like this’
[4]Music.mic – Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry Shuts Down Sexist Trolls on 4chan
[5]Daily Records Lead singer of Scots band Chvrches slams online trolls after sexist abuse
[6]The Sidney Morning Herald – Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry labelled a ‘slut’ for having wet hair in new video clip
[7]The Independent – Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry responds to misogynistic 4chan abuse over new music video ‘Leave a Trace’
[8]The Guardian – Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry: ‘I will not accept online misogyny’