Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Making Bad Into Worse

Ferguson.  What a clusterfuck.  As always, my blog posts are rants based mostly on the idiocy that I’m bombarded with on social media.  This rant is no different.

So we all know what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri right now, therefor I won’t waste my time typing the backstory. I should also note that this post will not be about picking sides in this mess, either.  I have negative opinions about both people involved in the incident.  This post is about how everyone is handling it…which, in true American form, is immature, null and void of common sense, and mostly attention driven.

Once more, we have a story that unequivocally polarizes our nation.  I just wish people understood that it’s okay to be mad about something, as long as you handle that anger properly.  Unfortunately, many of you don’t handle it properly and I have to end up writing about your dumb asses.  In this case, I’m talking about the “protesters”.  I put that word in quotations because, in my opinion, there are only a small percentage of these mobs that are actually protesting for a cause.  The greater percentage, on the other hand, can be split into two groups:

1.     People who are already violent with criminal tendencies, who feel like they’ve just been given an all-access pass to get buck wild and do whatever they fuck they want (you see this with all of the assault, looting, theft, arson, etc), and
2.   People who just want their 15 minutes of fame.  I’ll get to them in greater detail shortly.

The people in both groups mentioned above are douchebags.  I, for one, am sick and tired of people condoning their actions.  I’m talking about people on the far left, of course.  I should mention that I am a progressive liberal, too…and these far left liberals are getting on my fucking nerves.  It doesn’t matter whether you are liberal or conservative in your views, but when you venture so far to one side that you lose sight of common sense or decency, you become part of the problem, not the solution.  I fully understand that a great injustice has been done, but violence and criminal acts are NOT the answer.  It helps nothing.


Now let’s get back to group number two that I talked about earlier.  They are the inspiration for this post.  The social media generation of today knows that you can become famous, or at the very least, popular at the mere click of a mouse.  This generation also has the attention span of a hamster, and they will completely forget about a fad just as quickly as they jumped on one.  I witnessed this during the infamous “Ice Bucket Challenge”.  If you haven’t seen my thoughts on that topic, you can see it here: Yes, We're Fully Aware  Most of those people were pretending to be kind and charitable, but let’s face it, they were jumping on a bandwagon for popularity and “likes” on social media.  These are the same people that are pretending to be “protesters”, not only in Ferguson, but now in cities all over the country.  People are actually forming a human blockade across main highways and interstates, bringing all traffic to a halt.  When I read about this and watched the videos, I was floored.  I couldn’t believe my eyes. The scene in San Diego is an example:


Once again, that’s in fucking San Diego.  What possible good is this doing?  How is this helping any situation?  All these people are doing is taking a bad situation, and making it exponentially worse.  That’s it.  And for what?  Well, they knew that by doing this, the media would flock to them like flies to shit. They got to be on tv.  They got their pictures taken…a lot.  They were plastered all over social media.  They got to fill that popularity void that was left when the Ice Bucket Challenge became irrelevant.  They now get to tell everyone on their friends list that they are bravely and diligently fighting for a cause. They accomplished absolutely nothing towards righting a wrong in the Ferguson case. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.  But hey…they sure are popular.  Now take a look at that video again.  Look at all of the people who were caught in the wake of this selfish act of stupidity.  Think about all of those people stuck in that massive traffic jam.  There are people that will lose pay because they were unable to make it to work….maybe even fired for missing work.  That is people’s fucking livelihoods that you are toying with.  There are people that needed to get to a doctor appointment that was scheduled 6 months ago.  There are countless problems that could have stemmed from that one single act.  That same act is going on all over the country. 
These people are blindly swinging from bandwagon to bandwagon, like the little social media orangutans that this generation has become.  And in this case, their ridiculous popularity stunts are simply making bad into worse.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “But Marcus…that’s the whole point of protests.  They’re supposed to get all of that attention to get the message across!”.  Well, I understand that, but blocking main traffic arteries is NOT it.  Stand on a street corner or sidewalk and hold your goddamn signs.  They will still get seen.  Go stand in front of a tv station if you want to be on tv.  Just get out of the fucking road.  The point of protests is to make a problem get rectified, not to generate many more problems caused by your thoughtless actions. But again, I firmly believe that these people are doing it for the wrong reasons...just like the Ice Bucket Challenge.  I bet most of these douchebags couldn’t even point out Missouri on a fucking map, much less Ferguson.  The social media generation: taking one single issue and treating it like the end-all be-all of existence, at least until they see something shiny and drop it like a cat that’s bored with the dead mouse.

You want to protest? Fine.  Protest.  Just stop doing it at the expense of those around you.  People have lives to lead.  Have some fucking respect. Cheers.


P.S.  Since I brought up the Ice Bucket Challenge in this post, it made me think of a question:  Since that fad has passed, how often do you see people on your social media feeds express their “concern” for ALS patients?  Food for thought.

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