The Outrage Industrial Culture REALLY Hates Woke Culture
When being a self-absorbed asshole is your default, this is the best you can expect
Wow…this whole “woke culture” thing is spiraling of control, isn’t it? Just when Fox News had almost convinced America that being an insensitive, self-absorbed asshole should be our default, compassion made a comeback. Who coulda foreseen that one, eh??
Well, actually compassion didn’t make a comeback. The talking heads at Fox News lost their shit (again), and it turns out that being an asshole really should be our default. How sad is that?
First it was M&Ms, who lost their fat, lesbian, woke spokescandies. Now A&W’s “spokesbear,” Rooty, will be wearing pants. It’s so he doesn’t offend those good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual pearl-clutchers who are infuriated by (maybe) seeing his bear-bits.
So, before we get further along, repeat after me: WTactualF?? Are these people serious? Has the Outrage Industrial Complex lost its f*****g mind? Do they seriously believe a cartoon bear’s naughty bits are worthy of legitimate outrage? Is this what passes for being worthy of outrage these days? WTF??
Why do I have an almost irresistible urge to juggle razor blades in my bathtub??
So now Maria Bartiromo’s morning panel is bemoaning the “Woke Police Cancel Culture” as if it’s an actual thing…and, yes, this is the stupidest thing you’ll read- until the Outrage Industrial Complex comes up with their next target.
And there will be more to come, because they and their angry, White, older, middle-class, and under-educated viewers thrive on meaningless crap like this.
Because what Bartiromo’s panel was too dense to discern was that A&W was having fun at Fox News’ expense:
Yesterday, [Bartiromo] and her panel collectively fell for an obvious joke made by A&W Root Beer, which claimed that after many years of being allowed to wear no pants, its bear mascot "Rooty" would be covering up its bear bits.
"Quit yer cryin!" raged Bartiromo. "I mean, what is your problem?" she asked, after her co-panelist Cheryl Casone said, “First it was M&M’s, now a bear has to wear pants,” and “This is the woke police. Cancel culture has gone ridiculous!"
Yes, something has gone ridiculous.
Anyone (ANYONE!) could see that was the root beer company making fun of the pretend (Fox News) outrage that the new M&M mascots don't get Tucker Carlson and the rest of the Foxers aroused in their underpants like the old ones do, we guess. Tucker does not like how there is "obese purple M&M" that he's pretty sure is a lesbian. (It is the peanut M&M. Tucker thinks it's some kind of CIA-level op to encourage obesity.)
Anyone (ANYONE!) could see that A&W announcing that its pantsless six-foot-tall bear was "polarizing," just like the M&Ms announcement about replacing its mascots with Maya Rudolph said the new mascots were "polarizing," was a joke.
It would seem someone’s figured out how to manipulate the Outrage Industrial Complex to garner free publicity AND make a few cartoonish “journalists” look like horse’s asses (which was surprisingly easy).
Way to put that B.A. in Marketing to good use, eh??
And Bartiromo wasn’t the only denizen of Bullshit Mountain (apologies to Jon Stewart) to fall for the gag:
Ah, yes…WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE- that Fox News is a punch line for a long-running shitty joke. And yet I’d wager my firstborn that you’ll never hear a correction, much less an apology, from anyone at Fox News. No, they’ll carry on as if nothing’s amiss because Fox News doesn’t admit mistakes. If they did, it would become the Fox Mistakes Channel.
Oh, wait…I don’t have children. It’s still a good bet, though.
PSYCH!!!
When you consider that Conservatives are born without the humor gene, there’s probably never going to be a good time to mention it, but screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke, right?
When I was but a wee lad growing up in tiny, forlorn Walker, MN, there was an A&W drive-in just a few blocks down Hwy. 371 from our humble lower-middle-class hovel. We burned peat moss for warmth and shot squirrels for sustenance. Every now and then, a tourist would take pity on us and throw a family-size bag of M&Ms our way. We were grateful and never thought to worry about the dress or sexual orientation of the candies.
One of the biggest treats we could get was when Dad gave me money to take my bike down to the A&W and pick up dinner for the six of us. I can still remember how good all of that tasted. To a kid from a town of less than 1000 in the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota, it may as well have been a Michelin five-star gourmand’s Paradise.
And none of us cared- or even noticed- whether Rooty’s naughty bits were uncovered. I just wanted my cheeseburger, root beer, and onion rings.
According to Mediaite's reporting, the Fox Business website appears to have fallen for it first, in an extremely credulous article about the bear whose cartoon junk was no longer visible because of wokeness….
The article has now been amended at the top to say that A&W "later admitted it's a joke," as if there was anything people of average intelligence needed the company to admit….
Of course, you have to remember that the “journalists” at Fox News, along with the angry, White, poorly educated target audience, will never be nominated for Nobel Prizes…for anything.
No, the Stupid is strong and permanent.
Contextualizing the issue, the article stated, "M&Ms is one of many companies in recent years that has overhauled or modified its branding in the wake of political backlash," as if M&Ms was not itself trolling them with its decision to get rid of the M&M characters that apparently don't give Tucker a boner anymore.
And before you knew it, Maria Bartiromo and the rest of the halfwits took the football and ran with it. To be entirely fair, Mediaite says Bartiromo did ask her co-panelist James Freeman if he thought it was a joke.
“Freeman and the rest of the panel went on to speculate that A&W’s statement was a play for attention.”
Yes, well, that's called marketing, children.
And sometimes marketing involves getting in on making fun of the brain-addled dipshits at Fox News who have been spending large blocks of their news coverage on how M&Ms just aren't hot enough for them anymore.
And the beautiful thing about “marketing” in this case is that it probably didn’t cost A&W a thing save for the time and effort of the marketing staff involved in pulling the legs of the maroons at Fox News. To be honest, that probably could’ve been done by a 7th grader with a sense of humor and a laptop.
Remember that this is all because the good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexuals at Fox News REALLY hate “woke.” And what is “woke?” That’s right, y’all; it’s just (repeat after me) “having an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.”
That’s it. That’s all.
In other words, being “woke” means giving a damn about the world and people other than yourself. It means not being a self-absorbed, self-focused asshole who’s unconcerned about social injustice. It means treating others with dignity and respect.
Those are bad things? If you’re a Conservative, particularly a “journalist” who draws a paycheck from Rupert Murdoch…absolutely.
Being our brother’s keeper isn’t a bad thing. Compassion isn’t a crime. Kindness isn’t proof of moral weakness. Inclusion isn’t evidence of one’s depravity. We SHOULD care about one another. Why does that seem so much to expect to those who toss “woke” at us as if it’s a pejorative?
As someone who’s proudly “woke,” I don’t see what this fuss is about. I’m going to eat M&Ms, whether or not they’re fat, lesbian, or woke. And I think I can get through life without worrying about whether a cartoon bear’s “naughty bits,” which in 60 years haven’t been an issue, are covered up.
How about we start losing our shit over things that matter for a change? Surely, that shouldn’t be too much to ask of reasonable people?
Or is a lack of reasonable people the problem?
