Nirosta Steel Shares Statement After Social Media Activity Raises Concerns

Steven Hall, the veteran musician and Arthur Russell collaborator known as Nirosta Steel, experienced breakout success this year with the release of My Skyscraper, an album comprising recordings from across the past four decades, on the boutique indie label ULYSSA. But increased attention has led to increased scrutiny.Last week the Twitter/X user @simonwestgate posted alleged screenshots of Nirosta Steel's account on the Chinese social networking app Xiaohongshu, aka RedNote. In the screenshots, Hall appears to be following numerous accounts belonging to children and AI-generated shotacon accounts. Shotacon is a Japanese slang term referring to attraction to young boys or manga and anime featuring erotic presentations of pre-pubescent or pubescent boys. After the screenshots began to circulate, @simonwestgate posted a follow-up indicating that Hall had deleted his Xiaohongshu account.Hall addressed the social media situation today in a statement shared with Stereogum:I want to give my response to some speculation swirling around on the internet recently.A few weeks ago my husband told me people on Rednote were getting into my music, so I went on to take a look and followed a bunch ...