Facebook and The Rest
Get the fuck off of it.
It’s entirely unproductive. That platform should have become a central online meeting place for people to gather and share in-depth conversations about issues that are near and dear, invite people to your house for parties, share wedding photos and support people who are in need. Instead it’s the Jerry Springer of the internet. Here’s the slugline: Your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is coming for you. Right here, right now, in front of everyone. And she’s looking for blood, “bike racks three o’clock” style. You’re about to lose some hair, bitch.
Seriously: social media is a place for people who are afraid of real life, are socially awkward, loathe actual interaction, and want to lash out at phantoms, continuing their trauma cycles. Not that everyone on there is this way; it’s just that those people own the public discourse with their bullshit. Don’t play that game.
I’ll relay a little story to you about the trigger event that caused me to abandon that platform.
I’m a Louis CK fan. There. I said it. Did that trigger you? That I said I’m a Louis CK fan? It’s my opinion. I maintain my right to have that opinion.
Last year, I posted something on my facebook feed about Louis CK’s show, “Better Things”, a series that he co-wrote and produced with his friend and colleague Rebecca Adlon. She’s incredibly talented and was also in the “Louis” show as a woman that Louis is infatuated with and who won’t give him the time of day. “Better Things” is a show about a working actor (Adlon) who is also a single mother, living in LA and trying to work in the Hollywood industry while raising her three precocious, woke teenagers. The show is excellent. I highly recommend you watch it.
Okay, that’s the background. Now, against the backdrop of the cancellation of Louis CK for masturbating in front of young comediennes who later took umbrage, and for masturbating on the other side of the phone on a business call (highly inappropriate activities but not rape and not illegal), I posted this to my facebook page:
“Fuck the Haters. Louis CK is great, and Better Things is a feminist show.”
I own that. That’s what I said. It was late at night, I’d had a few glasses of wine, and I’d been bingeing Better Things. I was jazzed on that show! And I wanted to open a dialogue about cancel culture. Boy, did I get what I asked for.
Now, there’s a couple of ways to look at this.
One way you could look at this statement is pretty uncontroversial: people are hating on LCK and this dude likes him. He has an opinion that the comedian is a good one, and that the show he made has a feminist bent. Dude is stating his opinion on his own page on facebook. A conversation can ensue with anyone who wants to about the quality of the man’s work, whether the show actually is feministic in its bent, and if you want to get into the weeds, whether we as a society should/can choose to separate a person from their work. All kinds of weird people do great work in their field. Pete Rose comes to mind. Myriad jazz giants. Pablo Picaso. This list is a mile long.
A second way to look at it goes something like this: Wow, what an asshole. This guy is kicking the people who LCK abused while they’re down. He’s supporting a member of the white elite ruling class who act with impunity. He’s supporting white patriarchy and believes rape and sex trafficking are okay.
And the third: You triggered me! I’ve been abused and you are abusing me now too. You are the devil.
Those, as far as I can tell, are the three ways you could interpret what I posted. Bear in mind that I’m not defending my choice of wording. It was controversial, there is no doubt. I said Fuck the Haters. If I was to post it now, I might word it differently. But I didn’t. I said what I said and that’s that.
The Screaming Woke of facebook chose a hybrid between the second and third interpretations. Note that in our current cultural climate, intent is decided by the interpreter, who has zero curiosity about the author or his actual intent. This is the Consequential model for justice, which Jordan Peterson talks about. No questions are asked for clarification of said intent. No interest in understanding why the commentator likes this publicly masturbating comedic giant or his show about professional women’s issues. People came out of the woodwork to attempt to assassinate my character. My “commitment to Sparkle Motion” was questioned (Donny Darko film reference). I was called before a tribunal of local theatre community leaders to discuss whether I should be stricken from participating in leadership activities henceforth. I was likened to the comedian himself for saying that I like him publicly. I was now a rapist sympathizer, which might as well make me a rapist myself--despite the fact that the person in question isn’t even a rapist.
This isn’t at all a “woe is me” kind of story. I own what I wrote and I fully recognize that the wording was controversial. And I’m not telling you this story to somehow vindicate myself. If you thought I was an asshole then, you still think I’m an asshole now.
Here’s the takeaway: The content of my post was completely ignored, and my words were used by a handful of rabid anti socialites to force a popular narrative forward that I didn’t conform to. That’s a perfect example of Newspeakianism in action. Brow-beat people who don’t fall in line until they go silent or conform. That’s fascism.
You’ve had something very similar happen to you, I’m certain of it. Everyone has put something on that platform that some swarm of piranha ate you alive for and it’s into the history of that website; it’s on display for everyone to see forever. You can never redeem yourself from it. All that can happen now is some fresh meat will show up and your faux pas will be forgotten in the frantic effort to obliterate someone else’s social standing. And so it goes: we move from bike rack to bike rack, just like Jerry Springer.
Now. To The actual meaning of my words: People are railing against LCK and lumping him into the same category as Jeffrey Epstein (a convicted child sex trafficker and pedophile), Harvey Weinstein (a convicted rapist) and Kevin Spacey (a child rapist). LCK is none of those things. He’s a weirdo. He masturbates in front of people. That’s a fetish. He is a famous comedian, arguably the Michael Jordan of comedy. He has access to mates everywhere he goes. It’s not like it’s hard for him to find a woman to sleep with. Yet he chooses to do this weird activity instead. It’s his kink. That ain’t rape. It’s not child sex trafficking. And it’s not illegal. It’s just weird, and maybe, it could be interpreted as an abuse of power, and only by those involved. Secondly, he made a show with a long-time collaborator who happens to be a strong female actor in Hollywood. Their show is feminist in its nature, and it’s really good.
Agree or don’t. Argue with me about whether it is feminist, or if he’s a good comedian. Tell me you think what I said was crass and I should not have used the f bomb on the f page. But don’t use my words to advance your conform-or-die social bullying platform. You’ll always, every time, turn your allies into enemies engaging in that behavior.
Social media is good for one thing and one thing only, in my estimation: publicity. Use it to post events that you are hosting from your professional page. That’s it. And try your hardest not to get swept up into some smackdown. Go to rehearsal instead.
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