Recently, some evil bastards have uncovered some Tweets I made that were in poor taste. They date back to the early tens, back when we could basically say whatever we wanted. Remember South Park? There was a talking piece of poo called Mr. Hankey, and the fat kid made fun of the Jewish kid for being Jewish. It was typical Generation X comedy, is what I'm saying. From the late nineties on up to the early tens, all you had to do to be a comedian was say something outrageous and claim you were being ironic. So you could tell racist jokes or sexists jokes without actually being called a racist, even though it's kind of hard to tell why people were laughing at such comedy. Were they laughing at your gumption? The breech of social mores? Or were they laughing at the racist/sexist/homophobic content of your joke? See, nobody really gave a shit about all that until just recently.
Look, it might sound as though I'm making excuses, and I guess that I am. But you have to realize how much the world has changed since the early nineties. I've changed and for the better! Should I have taken those Tweets down? Sure. Everybody should be minding their internet footprint, lest it be weaponized against them. Kids these days are growing up connected to the net 24/7, and let me tell you, kids are just as stupid as they've always been. They're putting things up on the net that are never going to go away. I guess what I'm trying to say is that kids, you are going to say or do something stupid and you better damn-well make sure that you keep that idiocy to a minimum on the internet, or you will reap the consequences.
The difference, of course, is that I'm a grown-ass man apologizing for my mistakes. The internet would like you to think that there is no virtue, that everyone pretends to have morals, that all of us are irredeemable sinners putting on a show for our own personal benefit. That's a dangerous attitude to have, and really, you can trace that sort of cynicism back to Generation X. Cynicism is what powers the internet. The internet takes something that I said out of context and puts it next to racist Tweets that Rosanne Barr made and says "See, they're the same!" Are they, though? Roseanne made those comment in the present, in the context of our current political situation. I said my stuff back when we were all idiots. Spot the difference?
What I'm saying is: have pity on me, and the subsequent generation of idiots. Some of us will grow as people, and some of us will not. Keep in mind that we all should have the right of reevaluation of self before you grab your pitchforks.
Sincerely,
Generation X Guy
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