Simon-Olivier Fecteau sows controversy with a Facebook post that defends Elon Musk’s gesture

Director of Bye bye for nine consecutive years, Simon Olivier-Fecteau got his foot in trouble on Tuesday by trying to clumsily defend Elon Musk’s controversial salute on social networks.

The actor and director of Bye byeSimon-Olivier Fecteau, strongly provoked his subscribers with a Facebook publication that he published the day after Elon Musk’s gesture during the inauguration of Donald Trump.

“It’s tempting to say that Elon Musk gave a Nazi salute, but he was awkwardly offering his heart to the public,” wrote Simon-Olivier Fecteau.

“There are plenty of things to criticize about future policies, but it would be good not to distort reality for clicks and start debating with facts. And yes, the media, you are part of this problem. Let’s stop making the mistakes of the past if we want a different future,” added the director of both Bye bye of RBO in 2006 and 2007.

This publication raised the eyebrows of more than one Internet user and comments against it multiplied under it.

Realizing that he had gotten himself into trouble – according to the hundreds of comments from outraged people – Simon-Olivier Fecteau chose to withdraw his message.

He then tried to qualify his remarks in a second publication, without much success.

“Well, to finish it off, if ever Musk really did a Nazi salute, voluntarily, it is unforgivable, indefensible. It’s really serious. But we all agree on that,” he wrote.

“I just wonder if sometimes our fears amplify our collective division. We tend to blow everything out of proportion when the reality is often, not always, but often more nuanced,” he continued.

Paradoxically, the director stressed that social networks “are the worst place to discuss, because we always imagine the worst of the other”.

This mea culpa was not enough to ease the shock of people who were hurt by his first publication.

““Social media is the worst place” – he said defending ELON MUSK who made X the most polarized it has ever been, and allowed the hate-speechetc.,” writes one of them.

“Three Nazi salutes and the defense of the German far-right political party AfD, frankly daring to say that it is a gesture of love, you have to do it,” adds a woman.

“What scares me the most is this naivety, this softness when it is time to name the extreme right for what it is. When someone encourages Nazi publications on their social network, when this person offers to finance the worst far-right parties in Europe, when they praise the AFD party for weeks, do we really have any doubts about where she is staying? Why do we take white gloves with trash and always want to give them the benefit of the doubt?” notes another subscriber.

“Sometimes before defending the unforgivable, why don’t you find out a little? why do you have to give your opinion on the internet right away? Stronger than you, do you need this showcase?”, a man asked the director.

Not his first online escapade

Simon-Olivier Fecteau sparked outrage in June 2021 when he published a status regarding his definition of toxic masculinity.

Faced with the horde of negative comments, he withdrew his message… before adding a second publication. The director returned to his first publication and underlined the fact that it is “difficult to have discussions on sensitive subjects, without falling into attacks”.

His third publication – in which he denounced the treatment he had suffered – sounded the death knell for this “discussion”.

Author and screenwriter Kim Lévesque-Lizotte said she was shocked and “deeply shaken” to read his words when a few hours earlier, we had just learned that a twelfth feminicide had been committed in Quebec since the start of the ‘year.

Last December, Simon-Olivier Fecteau raised the possibility that the Bye bye 2024 will be his last Bye bye.