TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

#74 – Shut Up About SpongeBob

#74 - Shut Up About SpongeBob

Seriously, shut up about SpongeBob Squarepants already!

I'm feeling very anti-pundit this morning. I just read the umpteenth columnist making wisecracks over some family group asserting that "SpongeBob is gay". When I first read about this about two or three weeks ago, I remember thinking to myself "Oh, geeze…here we go". I knew that this was going to be a staple of the talking heads for days or weeks, I was right. The irony of the situation is gargantuan.

We, meaning the news-reading or –watching public are subjected to this on a regular basis. A group of "family advocates" makes the assertion that some innocuous TV show is at the root of societal ills. TV stations pick up on it because, hey, it's free advertising for their programming. There's an unspoken message just floating above their heads: "Come see the TV show they don't want you to watch". People on the other side of the argument appear on radio and TV talk shows to articulate endlessly how dumb the original side must be to come up with that argument.

I feel like I'm standing on a hill, watching a battle. Only it's not a great battle fought with guns, swords or bows and arrows. It's a battle where fat, dumb people waving banners for their particular worldview come charging down the hill and just stand nose to nose, screaming at each other. They don't change anything, they never do. Remember Tipper Gore appearing on television almost 20 years ago to talk about how dangerous rap was? Know what she was railing against? The Licensed to Ill album by the Beastie Boys; that album is considered a classic now. Nobody remembers that, nobody even remembers that Tipper Gore said that stuff unless you watch some retrospective TV show about the year she did it. Remember Rock the Vote in 1992? Part of the concern was that having Tipper at Al's VP'ing side would represent a threat to aural debauchery. But nobody remembers that now…they've moved on because their attention span is about the length of a ratty shoestring and they have all the strategy of a loser who drops $100 on Three Card Monte.

So, you smile and shake your head at the recurring theme. "TV Show is Worse Than the Holocaust" is the rallying cry. No, it's not. And we know it's not. But what I'm getting tired of is listening to the other side of those arguments. The side that is supposed to represent the more balanced approach to civil discourse. It's not. It is neither balanced, nor civil, nor discourse. Reading pundits who rant and rave about these "loony Right-wing family advocate groups" don't make me feel that they present the opposing side of the argument any better.

Now, pause with me a moment and chew on this: It is not my intention to discuss SpongeBob, the Beastie Boys, Tipper Gore or politics in general. I'm out of it – out of my personal religious beliefs and out of pure disgust if that makes it any easier for you to understand – I refuse to take a side on issues like that.

Spending your time and energy to react to a stupid argument does not make you smarter. Insert the old saw about arguing with a fool. It's beyond rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It's like standing on the deck of the Titanic and making fun of the guy who's rearranging deck chairs. The deck becomes more and more slanted…you see that maid slide past you and into the water a la James Cameron. Yet, you still stand there just so you can make fun of the guy who's rearranging the deck chairs. Are you smarter? Are you hoping to convince me that you are more intelligent than this person and that this is a worthy use of my time? Sorry, pal – I'm elbowing Granny Astor out of the way and jumping into a lifeboat while wearing a dress. You guys can become a small, skeletonized part of history – I just happen to like breathing too much.

Guys like Mark Morford or this guy or even this guy – they're all wired into this knee-jerk reactionary mode of thinking and talking. Somebody says something stupid, we can't just nod our heads and go "Yeah, yeah…I know. Just keep sensing the irony." And believe me, there's irony afoot in the focus on SpongeBob and his alleged homosexual agenda. I'm not going to point it out – just take a look at it and then look around at the rest of the world. Has the world solved problems so well that this is something even worth our time? Or is it a sign that people are so unable to resolve the major problems vexing mankind that they must focus on silly, stupid problems to anesthetize themselves to the fact they are looking at a very cold sea and there are no more lifeboats?

People on either side of these issues-of-the-minute get so gleeful about explaining why the opposite end are so stupid, so racist, so homophobic, so ignorant as to not immediately subscribe to the morally, intellectually, patriotically, humanly superior argument. They spend two minutes discussing the actual tenets of their point of view and 58 minutes running down the other guy. I used to do this when I was a kid, fighting with my brother. I can see why my dad eventually got tired of it and smacked us both. You aren't proving to me that you have a good argument or that your argument is based on solid facts. You're just proving to me that you don't like the other guy and I knew that already. If you can't voice your opinion while speaking about the opposing point of view in a derogatory fashion, then don't be surprised at my less-than-enthusiastic reaction. If you can't just be right and let the facts speak for themselves, I can't help you. I won't help you. I can't even believe that this much anger, vitriol and energy is focused on a cartoon that isn't even that good to begin with. SHUT UP!

Life is too short to listen to the bickering of grown men.