Harsher In Hindsight / Marilyn Manson

• Manson's first three albums were hit with this once the (possibly first, as he has said he's working on a second) autobiography The Long, Hard Road Out of Hell came out and context was added to them. Then, Columbine happened a year later, leading to quote mining, misblaming and outright bullshit. One such element in the book is the odd antics and behavior of his mother, talked about in his book, along with their somewhat turbulent interactions, also are tainted by her dying of dementia. Suddenly it's not so funny when she does weird stuff like naming the rats that are supposed to be fed to his snake "Marilyn" and "Manson" and successfully giving one CPR using a plastic bag.
• Former bassist Gidget Gein reunited in 2003 to collaborate in the video for "(s)AINT", which featured a ton of self-abuse and drug use. Five years later, he was dead of a heroin overdose. Any prior references to drugs in other songs (particularly from Mechanical Animals) could also be this.
• Daisy Berkowitz, the co-founder of the band, who after leaving in 1996 due to Creative Differences started a long feud with Manson, with both bashing each other in interviews and dragging each other into court for any reason, died of stage four colon cancer in 2017.
• Tony Wiggins, bus driver for Pantera and someone Manson considers the most terrifying person he's ever known, to the point of actually traumatizing him, dropped out of the public eye after being more public as the crazy guy tagging along with Manson and Twiggy. Over 20 years later, he re-emerged. He's opened a family-owned liquor store in his hometown, the very first, getting news coverage. The Harsher in Hindsight kicks in when you realize that a man notorious for homemade BDSM devices that almost killed people has settled down into a normal life and has kids. Retired Monster, in real life.
• "Rock Is Dead" from Mechanical Animals appeared in the credits for The Matrix, which had a lot of gun violence. Weeks after the film's release, Columbine happened, and the film itself and Manson both got Mis-blamed for the massacre.
  • In addition, the song itself could be considered this, as nowadays, rock music, while still fairly popular, is very overshadowed by pop music.
• The Concept Album and mostly unreleased book Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley of Death) is about a future dystopia parody of America where the populace worships violence and celebrity, is numb to mass murders like school shootings (but the media is more than happy to profit off of it) and is ruled over by an idiot celebrity despot who, in the one chapter of the book released, has creepy incestuous overtones with his daughter. All of those would come true for the real America.
• While Eat Me, Drink Me was already uncomfortable given its nature of being 50% Creator Breakdown regarding Manson's divorce to Dita Von Teese and 50% Mad Love declarations to then-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, it became worse once Manson broke off his engagement with Wood and especially when she alleged in 2021 that he had been abusive towards her throughout their relationship.
  • Similarly, Manson's "Sweet Dreams" cover, particularly the lines "Some of them want to use you / Some of them want to get used by you / Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused", in light of the allegations against him.
  • In addition, many of Manson's features are about or reference sex, such as "The Omen" by DMX, a remix of "Love Game" by Lady Gaga, "Hypothetical" by Emigrate, "Pussy Wet" by Gucci Mane, and especially "Bad Girl" by Avril Lavigne, which once again, can qualify as Harsher in Hindsight.
• Manson having a song called "Pistol Whipped" after he nearly got crushed to death by a stage prop shaped like two handguns in September 2017.
• Seeing all the Ho Yay of Manson and his bassist/songwriting partner Twiggy Ramirez, on pictures or on stage, is uncomfortable after they fell out twice, first when Twiggy left in 2003, and then when after nearly a decade of his return, a sexual misconduct accusation led to Twiggy's dismissal.
• In the movie New Mutants, he is the voice of the Smiley Men who sexually abuse Illyana as a child. Come 2021, allegations of his abuse of Evan Rachel Wood come to fruition.
• For a time, opening Manson's website immediately led to a short video clip of him repeatedly punching an actress resembling Evan Rachel Wood in the face.

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