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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
June 20th, 2004
ANOTHER BAD NEWS NUTCASE
One of my favorite tasks as leader of the show is dealing with complaints. Most of them are cases of people either misunderstanding the show, or a situation where the topic they're complaining about just happened to hit too close to home. For example, many of the complaints I receive are from people who freely admit to laughing out-loud with the show when it jokes about fat people, Christians and lesbians, but when we have the audacity to stereotype people from the South as dopey rednecks, they are outraged. It turns out of course, that the complaining person is originally from Kentucky and is therefore exceptionally sensitive to the topic.
It usually only takes a few moments of pointing out the hypocrisy of the complaint to talk most people off the ledge. I always use the above comparison and point out that we simply hit a nerve in their case and they need to realize that's going to happen on a show like ours. The overwhelming number of people I talk with are reasonable people who are simply reacting emotionally. Once they are forced to think, they acknowledge the error of their ways and go on enjoying the show with a new appreciation for thick skin.
Not everyone, though. We've got a new nutcase on our hands who is targeting our single, most popular feature; "Bad News over Happy Music." The hypocrisy of her complaint and her threatened tactics are exceptionally amusing to me in this case. Given the un-reasonableness of this woman it seems only fair to share with you the type of whackos I deal with from time to time.
"Bad New over Happy Music" is a satirical feature meant to highlight a number of things, including but not limited to, America's obsession with bad news. We are a nation of sick people who love to hear and see awful things. It's why people rubberneck accidents. It's the reason more than half of all Nascar fans admit to hoping to see a crash. It's the reason the nightly news always leads with horrible stories of shootings, rapes, and murders. The worse the news, the better as far as we the people are concerned. Research study after research study has proven that while many Americans complain that the news is "too negative," we overwhelmingly crave and demand it, and will, in fact, shun positive news in favor of the negative. Sad, but overwhelmingly true... and provable.
Along comes a nut job that has decided that the feature is fine, but she doesn't like that fact that we include stories about bad things happening to children in the segment. No kidding. In her correspondences she has made it clear that she actually thinks the overall tone and idea of the feature is "hilarious and promising," but she insists that we draw the line with kids. Can you believe this woman?
I must have missed the day in class that taught me that it was somehow "hilarious" when a man gets caught in a wood chipper, while not so "hilarious" that a 3 year old gets run over by a tractor. NEITHER ONE IS FUNNY, DAMNIT! That's the point of the feature! Untimely, accidental, awful things happen to people all the time... children included. Whether you hear about it or not doesn't lessen the tragedy and commonality of it. Rather, I would argue that ignoring the occurrences only serves to demean them into irrelevancy. Not in our nut-cases world, though. She's going to draw a line in the sand and jump on the "save the children bandwagon." Please.
Had this woman's argument been that the whole feature was macabre; at least I could have respected her. Instead she chose to highlight her own lack of intelligence and ability of rational thought by arguing that certain forms of death are funny to her, while others are appalling. She also is completely un-interested in the fact that the feature is far and away our most popular one, once again showing that most of these "activists" are not at all interested in protecting people, they are interested in controlling your behavior. You find the feature enjoyable? How dare you, says she. She'll show you.
By the way, her threatened course of action is the dreaded boycott/get our sponsors to pull their advertising campaign. Allow me to say in advance, thank you.
Boycotts never work, they only highlight and advertise the show so please boycott away! (The classic example of this is, and always will be the Fox TV Show Married with Children which had already been cancelled by execs until some do-gooder launched a boycott against the show because she was offended by its' content. 11 years later, the longest running sitcom on TV at the time finally said good-bye. I guess it took a while for that boycott to kick in).
As for those dreaded sponsor lockouts, please knock yourself out. Most business owners are intelligent enough to realize that it's not up to them to define entertainment for their clients, it's up to them to find the way to reach the greatest number of them... and that would be our show, overwhelmingly, hands down. For the few that do choose to cave into the pressure, the beauty of that scenario is that it opens up a much coveted spot to a new advertiser who has been waiting in line dying to advertise on the number one show in morning radio and we'll be happy to sell them the time.
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