It’s Funny, But It’s Not
It’s not easy being a humor writer these days.
There I was, happily working on an essay for my new book, when I happened to glance over at my open Facebook page. Hold up…I know what you’re going to say: Don’t keep your Facebook page open when you’re working! And you would be right. But I do research online, so it’s kind of a challenge for me. Plus, there are two windows in my office that over look my street and even though I arranged my desk to face away from the windows, my computer screen clearly reflects everything that is going on in my neighborhood. (Oh, great! The mailman is here!) So, yes, distraction is a problem for me and there are real steps I can take to prevent (most of) it.
My new book is funny. I’d tell you about it, but I’m keeping it under wraps for now so as not to leak it and give some other humor writer my great idea. But when I finish it and let you know what it’s about, you’ll think it’s funny, too. And I will finish as soon as I can stop getting dragged back onto the Internet with all the darn vigilance I have to maintain. And when I happen to leave my Facebook page open…or Twitter, or Medium or Huffington Post, there is little I can do to keep myself from action.
Take today for instance. A friend liked a post by Breitbart news, one that called Kellogg’s recent decision to pull their advertising from the website an insult to their readers. In fact Breitbart has set up an entire webpage solely for their readers to boycott Kellogg’s with the claim that if one serves Kellogg’s products, they are serving bigotry at their breakfast table. Kellogg’s pulled their advertising because they have different values than Breitbart; some of them include supporting LGBTQ youth, research on climate change and a commitment to animal welfare, among others. Once I discovered this announcement of hate, I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing, could I?
Of course not.
I ditched my research on hip replacement (uh-oh, a little slip there…no pun intended…) and checked out the Breitbart page. Yep, it was truly horrendous. It was nefarious and also, wrong. They changed the definitions of boycott and prejudice in an effort to incite anger. I checked out Google for stories on Kellogg’s and the impact of the boycott and then I looked over Kellogg’s website. It looked pretty legit to me. Their position on social issues is open and educational and from first glance, they seem to be pretty receptive and proactive when issues are brought to their attention. Some folks have concerns about how they manufacture their foods, and that is a practical reason to boycott a company. But boycotting them because they chose to advertise elsewhere is not.
So, rather than finishing up my essay and beginning the next, I looked up articles that called out Breitbart for what they were doing and posted them on my Facebook page. Granted, most of the people who see my Facebook posts already agree with me, or at least sit in my section of the choir. I post them anyway to educate any friends of mine who “Like” such frightening posts as if they are reasonable. I have to believe at some point, between my posting actual information and just plain common sense, the vitriol will become obvious to the once-blind partisan allegiance and large numbers of previously conned friends will remember that just because they don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean they get to hate them. If it doesn’t happen, I might have to keep writing about politics.
Now that would be funny.