(this is something I’ve been working on for the re-design of this site. But I felt like it warranted posting. Plus, if you were offended by something here, now I’ve got a good place to refer you!)
I’m sorry. Really. I don’t make things with the idea of hurting someone. That’s not my goal.
That said, I would also say that making things that everyone will like and are totally inoffensive is also not my goal.
I have a very strong belief while working, which is you have to kick people out of your head. Great books would not get written if the authors felt the presence of their parents standing behind them. Funny jokes would be fewer and further between if every comedian had the ghosts of people who might be offended standing in the room.
People aren’t wrong for feeling offended. Just because I wouldn’t say something to my mom that I might say in a short story doesn’t mean that she’s a bad person, or incorrect, or stifling. By that same token, it doesn’t mean that something I wouldn’t say to my mother is something that shouldn’t be said. Or can’t. My mother isn’t the right gauge by which I should decide what I make. Neither is your mother. Neither are you.
Comedy
It’s especially hard with comedy. What I find funny, someone else will find intensely unfunny.
We spend a lot of time arguing about whether or not something is funny enough to “earn” being offensive, and I think that’s a silly argument. That’s taking an opinion (whether or not something is funny) and shaving it down to an even finer matter of taste (HOW funny is something?). We will never get anywhere with that.
We argue a lot about whether intent matters, and that’s also a ridiculous argument. If I spin around on a dance floor and punch someone on accident (which I have TOTALLY done), it’s not the same as standing in the middle of the dance floor, motionless, and then just punching someone because I want to punch someone.
When I punch someone on a dance floor, I feel bad, I apologize, and I buy the person a drink. The punch doesn’t vanish. And in the future, I can watch myself a little better. But every once in a while, someone on the dance floor is getting punched. I’ve been on a dance floor like 10 times in my entire life, and believe me, if people are properly enthusiastic, someone is ALWAYS getting punched.
All that said, I do think it’s comedy’s job to say things that aren’t always acceptable. Or, perhaps not comedy’s job, but one of the privileges of comedy. One of the things comedy can do that other angles cannot.
Like I said, you’re not wrong to be offended. But rather than talking about the larger issue of comedy and what have you, I’m more inclined to apologize, buy you a drink, and then both of us can keep flailing around on the dance floor.
Ghosts Of The Offensive Past
Sometimes I’ll make a choice to say something or write something that could hurt someone. And sometimes, I’ll make a choice one day that I wouldn’t make the next.
The thing is, people change, and there’s something approaching 10 years of my personal history on this site. It’s buried deep, but it’s there.
A sad thing about the internet is that I think it’s made it really difficult for people to change their minds. When Roger Ebert was in newspapers and on TV, he could hate something like animated movies, and then turn around. There wasn’t this whole archive at the fingertips of every person that could then be thrown back in his face.
The archiving of everything makes a change of heart into a suspicious thing, something that makes a reader say, “Are you lying now or were you lying before?”
But both things can be true.
I can write the word faggot in a post from 2007, and 8 years later I can say that I wouldn’t make that decision. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t. My opinion has changed. It’s true that I did it then, and it’s also true that I wouldn’t do it now.
I could also take down the post. And I might.
I know how it looks. How you could search the site for offensive terms, bring up those posts, and they look the same as they did when they were created. It takes a lot to put it into your mind that things have changed and I’ve changed. That although this material still exists, it expresses only whatever I thought at that time, and whoever I was at that time.
Frankly, I’m proud of the person that I’ve become, and the person I’m becoming. I could choose to wipe the past and make it seem like I’ve been the person I am today all along. But I don’t choose to present myself that way. I choose to present myself publicly as someone who has changed, and for whom change wasn’t always easy. As someone who continues to change. Change is problematic and difficult, yes, even for a straight, white man. I don’t think I’m doing anyone any favors by pretending that I’m perfect and have always been perfect. It’s my belief that presenting only this unscarred version of the truth is not only disingenuous, but alienating.
Retribution
Believe me, I spend a lot of time beating the holy bejeezus out of myself in my mind. Things that happened decades ago. This stuff doesn’t just go away. I’m not asking for a pass here. I’m letting you know that the mental Batman inside me, the guy who can’t let anything go, will do a thorough and complete job of making me feel like shit. There’s no way you can punish me that’s worse than what I do to myself. I don’t believe in myself all the time, but in this capacity, I’m unrivaled. I’m better at making me feel like crap than you are.
Your kindly-worded email will have an effect. Believe me. You don’t have to slam me or try and make me feel the way you felt when I hurt you. I WILL feel that way. And in all honesty, I’ll feel it moreso if you’re kind.
I guess the summary here is, don’t lower yourself to my level. Leave that to the experts. Who are me.
One Other Thing
Don’t give off even a whiff of you being offended by me in order to create content for something else. If you send me a kind email about your feelings, expect a kind message in return. If you post a diatribe on your web site or ask a pointed Twitter question that’s a lot less clever than it sounds on first ring, my reaction will almost certainly be along the lines of “Go Fuck Yourself.” Which will be dissatisfying for both of us.
Asking me to check myself or reconsider is always welcome. Vilifying me for personal gain is not.
It’s like beefs in the world of early-2000’s hip-hop. 90% of dis tracks were about a mid-tier artist saying talking a bunch of shit about a big-time artist in order to get a little fame and notoriety.
It’s like that, except talking shit about me, that would be like making a dis track about…hell, I don’t know. Who did the little rap breakdowns in the Evanescence songs? That guy. It’s punching down. Respect yourself more than that. At least go after Papa Roach or the dude form Linkin Park or something.
The real problem with it, I’m pretty likely to dismiss you entirely if it feels like this is what you’re doing. Whether it’s fair or not, that’s what I’ll do. I know myself. That’s how I roll.
Don’t give me an easy out like that. Make me sit with it.
How Do We Move On?
I’d recommend reading Jon Ronson’s book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. And if you feel hurt, I’d ask that you recommend a book to me.
A thought-out book is a lot more likely to change my mind than a tweet that calls me a name. Not because I’m incapable of respecting a twitter nobody, but because the depth of experience from a fully-formed work makes it easier for me to get into the head of the person I’ve hurt. It makes more sense to me. A novel is what changed my mind about the word faggot.