Somebody has her panties in a bunch... Someone needs a clue stick and a fresh bag of sense-of-humor. Urgently. Immediately. Oh, and a wet wipe to remove that attention whore makeup smeared all over her face.
OH NO SHE DIDN'T!
Heh. Yeah I just did.
There is a blogger out there creating a hullabaloo to drive traffic to her site. She calls herself The Feminist Breeder (I hate to provide the link and drive traffic to her site, but sometimes you gotta just see the crazy first-hand). Wha? Okay. Whatever makes you feel empowered, sweetheart. Who am I to judge. I'm a smoking monkey fer cripes sakes. Or is that crepes sakes? Meh. Whatever. It's all a flash in the pan so to speak.
Someone (no, not me) is having a tantrum about a funny Chrome Extension that scans your facebook page for pics of babies and then substitutes pictures of puppies and kittens instead. It's called unbabyme.me
Local (Portland) filmmaker, blogger, and host of LIVE WIRE RADIO Courtenay Hameister recently tweeted about this app and became the focus of TFB's righteous indignation. Courtenay is funny. The app is funny.
Off on a tangent for a moment before the poking starts.
I have mentioned before that I am a mommy, a proud mommy, too! Some might even say a feminist mommy. A rockin' mommy. I'm obviously a breeder, too. I have been guilty of the over share on occasion, but I do my best to keep a bazillion photos of my sprogglings from gracing my facebook page. While I recognize that my kiddos are the most excellent, intelligent, awesomest, baby geniuses in the world (they have stopped eating paper and pulling the heads off of their dolls), I also recognize that most folks don't want to be inundated with millions of pics of "baby looking cute--baby making a face--baby blah, blah, blah", and I don't really like casual acquaintances (no offense) ogling pics of my family. I have a sense of humor, albeit an evil and gallows humor-infused romp through the dark side, but it's there. Oh yes, yes indeed.
I enjoy seeing pictures of all of my friends' children. I really do. Really. It's exciting. It's also funny as hell because these new parents haven't had their spirits broken yet; their kids still have that "new car smell".
But there are folks out there in meatspace who do suffer from blitz-spittle syndrome. This doesn't just happen with babies. Pics of dogs, puppies, kittehsssss, cars, boats, jewelry, piercings, tattoos... whew... (I'm dizzy from just typing all of that!) get over shared on Facebook and Myspace (is that still around?) and Tumblr and Twitter and email chains as long as Latvia. I'm not even going to start ranting about all of the political hoo-ha that shows up or STOP THE SLAUGHTER images that are designed to evoke knee-jerk emotional responses. I mean really, do I care that weird, ugly toads in Australia are being massacred by the millions? It's toad clubbin' time. Or that the old growth dwelling Tree Octopus of the Pacific Northwest is in danger of losing its habitat?
Yeah...I actually do care about that one. Cackle™
Where was I? A SENSE OF HUMOR.
Oh yeah. A perfect opportunity for the Butt Hurt Reporting form. (Yes...you can go here and download your own copy!!!)
Folks need to get a sense of humor. Some people (TFB -- it's an acronym...it refers to the person at the beginning of this post -- point, point ☝ ) take themselves so seriously that if they pooted, Cubic Zirconium chips would come shooting out at a high velocity that could maim or kill. Hell, I died a little bit just wading through her blog. I cried. I hated myself for laughing at that unbabyme app. I soul searched and realized what a horrible, un-baby loving monkey I am. It showed me the error of my ways. It made me want to be a better mother. More tolerant. Kinder. gentler. Able to leap tall changing tables and navigate the world's obstacles with an army of self-loathing, humorless, angry feminist breeder automatons.
Ha.
No it didn't.
TFB equated unbabyme with discrimination. A vile, sexist, racist, agesit, creedist (not someone who likes the band creed-- because who does?) homophobic, misogynist, misanthropic, gassy, petulant, halitosis-harboring, multifarious, bad-dog-no-biscuit, yet-to-be-determined destroyer of the world!
Really?
Okaaaaaay.
Maybe it's because she's a doula and a childbirth educator. I know a few doulas. None of them are like TFB. But I digress. This blogger latched on to that tweet like a rabid squirrel gnawing on a pirate's peg leg.
Hmmm. That makes me wonder what she thinks of the app that changes your FB page into pirate speech for International Talk Like A Pirate Day?
SCANDALOUS!!!!!!!
How does she feel about Baby Alive dolls?
Mood rings?
Does she hate kittens?
That must be it. She hates kittens. And puppies, too.
I bet she even puts her toilet paper as an under pull. HEATHEN.
Personally I think she simply has too much time on her hands. According to her blog, she was up way past her bedtime last Tuesday night (trying to install new software on her laptop) when she came across Courtenay's tweet. Because Twitter is an integral part of any operating system. Of course.We all know that.
TFB saw that tweet and became the defender of all that is right and pure on teh interwebz.
Would someone please hand TFB a towel? Maybe a warm, snuggly, fluffy towel to dry her off. It must be hard living under that black cloud of suspicion. By her reckoning anything could be twisted and used for evil.
Smurfs.
Okay, that's a bad example.
Kittens. Yes. They are truly an instrument of evil.
What about babies eating kittens!!!!!!!
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Whoa.
I popped a bag of popcorn and dove right in to read the comments. I laughed until I realized the folks were actually serious. There were some diamonds in the ruff, some level headed responders who called BS on the the blogger's suppositions. But the good were definitely crushed by the sallow-cheeked, ass kissing, smug mugs who dove right in and rode on TFB's coat tails. An indignant cow. That's what my darling hubby called her. Snerk.
That woman needs to relax. In the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka (Our glorious Big Toe), "Lighten up, Francis."
It's an app. Just an app. It's not Pinhead's puzzle box. It's not Pennywise creeping in a sewer. IT'S FUNNY!
In that illustrious blog to which I keep referring, TFB wrote:
Really? This is funny? For those who aren’t quite clear on this – BABIES ARE PEOPLE. Human Beings. Let’s try this little Plugin with any other group of people and see if it’s as funny:
and then she proceeds to add "UN" to various segments and groups in society that are targets for hatred: blacks, gays, muslims, women, the elderly... (oh boy!)
But wait, the tantrum gets better! She then says:
Do I need to go on? Or have I properly illustrated how un-fucking funny it is to replace a picture of a HUMAN BEING with a picture of an animal?
This blog must drive her nuts. Who uses a smoking monkey as an avatar???!!! Who would replace human beings with pictures of animals???? WHO? WHO???????????
WEll, let's just try that out. Shall we?
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| My beloved Ernest Borgnine! I loved this man! |
Presto Change-o!
Awwwwwww! So cute!!!! It's Mr. Puggles Borgnine.
See? That's some funny stuff right there.
TFB then wrote: I’m really sorry all those babies are annoying you. It’s a good thing you were never a baby. Oh. WAIT.
How did she know???? That's just scary. Yes, yes I did spring fully formed the head of my maker!
I guess I should say THANK YOU, TFB, for being a shining beacon in these humorless times. Thanks for making a simple little app that I can use on my own page, MY OWN PAGE THAT DOESN'T AFFECT ANYONE ELSE'S PICS, into that dreaded monster in the closet. Thanks for being the PC POLICE. Thanks for making your agenda the most important thing on the internet. Thanks for pointing out the slippery slope of a sense of humor into "ism" chaos and madness and anarchy and bad stuff, mmmm'kay?!
I'm going to get my tech savvy friend to create an app for folks like you. When I see smoke from a drama bomb, with one click of the mouse I can cover the conflagration with this:
I'll call it the ass hat app.
My gift to you.
Cha cha cha, darlings.
