Just Don't Be a Pussy
the "vibe shift" is a great opportunity to stop being afraid all the time
That piece is, indeed, very good, very very good. It’s a more effective pro-abortion rights message that 90% of what those with big platforms put out there during last year’s presidential election. I don’t have a big platform for reasons that are mostly my fault, but the remainder that does not fit into that “mostly” springs from the same place as the soggy cowardice that motivated this person to drape his endorsement of my piece with a prophylactic disavowal of me personally. It’s bizarre, and in fact quite embarrassing, to work in an industry that’s supposedly all about the exchange of contentious opinions where this sort of thing is so common, where so many within the industry still find it necessary to engage in the moral hygiene of preemptively declaring allegiance to the right social group before actually getting around to the ideas part. And while I acknowledge that using the term “pussy” in this context is a bit of an edgelord move, still, allow me to say - Jesus Christ, don’t be such a pussy. Our industry crashes down around our ears every single day. If we are going to go down, please, please, stops being such pathetic, inveterate pussies. It’s so tiresome, pointless, and unseemly.
Like, yes, this random Bluesky post, whatever, who cares. But the whole point is that there’s nothing random about the way that people in media become enculturated into this kind of performative deference to social-professional norms. One thing that has not changed in all my years of doing this has been the degree to which people who argue professionally for a living soil their fucking diapers at the thought of accidentally associating themselves with someone unclean. This tendency defines the trash-strewn sea of utter social cowardice I’ve been forced to swim in for almost twenty years now, simply to exist in this industry. And I just marvel at how deeply ingrained these behaviors are in this business, the absolute addiction to making sure that everyone knows that you are Good and that you know the Baddies are Bad and that you MOST CERTAINLY AREN’T praising a Baddie, you’re just maybe kinda sorta agreeing with some small part of a Baddie’s point, temporarily. Honestly, what is the fear here? What rational human being would ever look at this guy saying “Freddie makes a good point about abortion here” and then say “Ah, he’s endorsing deBoer as a human being in his totality, he must truly love Freddie deBoer and side with him on all matters of controversy?” It’s absurd. It’s asinine. It’s flagrantly inspired by fear of one’s peers. It’s constant in this world. And it never, ever changes.