Shaming. These hyper-sensitive days, any criticism of any kind is shaming. It, like "social justice whiners," or "SJWs," has infected everything we do and are in modern popular culture. As usual, the medium of transmission is the Internet, which affords those who perpetrate shaming – and who whine about it – the anonymity, to make it possible. As is overwhelmingly the case with SJW complaints, most of us would laugh in the faces of anyone who complained about "shaming" to us in person. On the Internet, somehow these ridiculous complaints, this "trivial victimization" (as one pundit put it recently), somehow has credibility. It's not immediately clear why this is so, but the rise of "shaming" culture, double-edged as it is, can be directly traced to the interweaving in our day-to-day lives of the Internet as vital communications and entertainment infrastructure.
Take, for example, the recent viral image of "Fast and Furious" tough guy Vin Diesel. Probably taken by some paparazzo with a telephoto lens, the image shows a man who is a middle-aged father, standing at some kind of railing. He's got a distended pot belly, and he's looking less than enthused; he is, in short, every middle-aged man everywhere. The "dad bod" craze refers to the prevalence of this doughy, pear-shaped physique among men who have passed their physical prime. Vin Diesel, once ripped and muscular, was now pear-shaped and soft. The picture was spread far and wide. "Look what this once-awesome man has become," was the subtext.
Vin Diesel himself took to social media and posted a picture of himself with his shirt on. Body shaming, he said, is always wrong – and in expressing that sentiment he is certainly not alone. The concept is part and parcel of the "body positivity" movement, which teaches, not merely that it's OK to be fat and out of shape, but that women are actually attractive when they are fat. Popular culture has gleefully jumped on this bandwagon. Pop singer Megan Trainor's impossibly catchy hits, such as "Dear Future Husband," typically glorify some aspect of whining, demanding, unreasonable femininity. Social justice types lap up her lyrics, which (among other things) explain that you're beautiful at any size.
The push to make "plus size models" a thing, and to insist that we find unattractive women attractive, is part and parcel of this cultural push. If you don't find an overweight woman beautiful, you are a shallow body-shamer and a horrible person. Rarely does this attitude confer similar body acceptance to men (the widespread Internet shaming of Vin Diesel's "dad bod" illustrates that), but that's not the point. Men will never find unattractive women attractive, no matter how often popular culture demands that they do. And women will never find fat, out-of-shape, dad-bod-having men appealing, either, for obvious reasons. Oh, and Vin Diesel? He published a photo of his once-more rock-hard abs as a follow-up. Take that, body-shamers.
Shaming need not be trivial. It can also destroy lives. The recent furor over "Cecil the lion" is a great example. When American dentist James Walter Palmer shot the beloved tourist attraction in Zimbabwe, he was shamed far and wide across the Internet for his heinous act. Social justice whiners were calling for Palmer to have his citizenship revoked, for pity's sake. They protested his business. His name was ruined. His Internet shaming destroyed his reputation and there was talk of him facing charges in Zimbabwe.
Except that he didn't do anything that was, you know, actually illegal.
While left-wingers panted for Palmer's murder (and oh, how left-wingers love to advocate murder), Zimbabwe announced that, regrettably, Palmer had done nothing for which charges could be brought, and therefore would be welcomed back to Zimbabwe in the future. (They did strongly imply that he would not be given the necessary permits to hunt, however.) Palmer thus joins the ranks of people whom the Internet has destroyed because he did something – in this case, hunting – that was deemed politically incorrect. To the social justice whiners, there is no greater crime than being politically incorrect, and therefore there is no act of retribution, no matter how cowardly or violent, that is not justified.
We're seeing this cowardly retribution now as part of the trend in refusing uniformed police officers service at restaurants and fast-food outlets. Social justice losers are scrawling "#BlackLivesMatter" and "FTP" (for "F–- the Police") on their coffee cups. And every time some low-level employee or manager refuses a cop service, corporate rushes to Twitter and Facebook to claim the employee has been disciplined and, golly, they don't actually hate police, even though it's very fashionable these days to paint all police as racist murderers.
The thing about shaming is that it cuts both ways. One man's victimization is another man's social justice. Well, no, that's not correct. There are no "men" in social justice circles. Social justice whiners are not "men" at all, but children – overgrown toddlers whining about what they think is their due, reveling in weakness and blaming someone else, anyone else, for all their problems.
Social justice types believe that any criticism of them is shaming, but so too is any honest observation of any failing or lack on their part. Point out that a social justice loser doesn't have a job, for example, and you are "shaming" him, even as he blames others' "white privilege," "male privilege," or name-your-demographic-privilege for somehow handing him a raw deal. To the ranks of the ever-victimized, someone else is always unfairly harming and oppressing you, even indirectly, even unintentionally. It's always somebody else's fault. Heterosexual cis-gendered white males are typically to blame.
Without the Internet, the "shaming" craze couldn't sustain itself. As long as social justice whiners can use the Web to foment their mob of mewling cowards, they'll go on performing their virtual lynchings whenever somebody does, says, or believes anything they consider politically forbidden. Whether it's the words you use or the thoughts you hold, the left won't be satisfied until it can censor everything you believe and express. "Shaming" is just one tool in their extensive arsenal of online fascism.
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