“The Mandela Effect has been an Internet meme for almost a decade. It’s always been called that.” – The X-Files
When the governor of Virginia began to realize his gun policy was a mistake . . .
When I was a kid, we lived firmly in the land of controlled media. There were three networks that we could get on our television. The difference between them? The NBC® network showed more science fiction, and also more shows with girls wearing short shorts. Those poor girls couldn’t even afford bras to wear!
She also wonders why the producers keep making her jump on a trampoline.
The daily news came with a similar filter. There was the local paper, the regional paper, and the really big regional paper. Mainly we got the local paper and the regional paper on Sunday. Your choices were limited. Now you can go on the Internet and search from hundreds of different sites showing dozens versions of the news stories of the day from nearly every opinion. Then? You were stuck with one opinion, one line of reasoning. It was like Rachel Maddow lived in your head, constantly telling you what she thought.
Movies were similar – we could drive 45 miles and choose from two movies. Well, two movies if you could get into an R-rated film. The other theater typically had the PG or G-rated film. If the G-rated cartoon The Secret of Nimh (I wrote about that here: Want Dystopia? Because this is how you get Dystopia.) wasn’t your thing, you were just out of luck.
Situation comedy was big on television at this time. Most sitcoms were written from a liberal perspective. However, the most liberal of liberal writing was, of course: The Very Special Episode. This type of episode was so prevalent that it has its own Wikipedia© page (LINK). As usual, if you go to the Infogalactic™ page (LINK) (which forked from Wikipedia® in 2016), you can see just how many Soviets farther Left Wikipedia© has gone in three years. It’s not too bad on this topic.
The Very Special Episode took a typical, lighthearted sitcom that normally dealt with “I spilled ink on my dress for the prom” and then dealt with “Mom has HIV because she donated blood to her narcoleptic father who had seizures after saving abused piglets from a burning barn.” Or spousal abuse. Or anorexia. Author Stuart Millard wrote this about a sitcom having a Very Special Episode: “It was like having your wacky uncle interrupt an armpit fart to tell you about the time he saw a dead body and that’s why he drinks.”
The Fresh Prince wants you all to know he’s really sorry he started the Vietnam War, and he’s learned his lesson.
In the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s, Hollywood® was desperate to make you feel like they feel. They were desperate that you cared, even if the issue they dealt with has nothing to do with you. Spousal abuse? I’ve never even known someone who was an abused spouse. I’ve known a couple of people who dealt with anorexia/bulimia. That episode of Cheers® where Diane can’t keep a burger down probably didn’t save either one of them. But that didn’t matter to Hollywood. The idea was indoctrination.
There’s a sitcom that’s normally about precocious teens getting in wild, improbable and mildly humorous adventures? Let’s have the script show one of them taking an accidental phone call:
(Call from Mrs. Murray down the street, who thinks she’s dialed Midvale High School but has mistakenly called Youthful Protagonist.)
Mrs. Murray: “Is this Midvale High?”
Youthful Protagonist: “Why yes, this is Midvale High.”
Mrs. Murray: “I have a note that the principal wanted to talk to my about Bobby.”
Youthful Protagonist: “Oh, yes, Bobby! One of our teachers said you sure have a little Elvis on your hands!”
Mrs. Murray: “He can sing?”
Youthful Protagonist: “Nah, we found him fat, bloated, and dead on the toilet.”
After that, we’d then have a lengthy episode where Youthful Protagonist learns it’s as wrong to make Mrs. Murray think Bobby’s cold, bloated dead body was found on the institutional tile floor of the boy’s room on the second floor. It will be nearly as wrong as when Youthful Protagonist causes a suicide and then learns it’s wrong to intentionally call a flight attendant a stewardess, which will be the subject of the next Very Special Episode.
It’s Christmas, and if you can’t afford an Elf on a Shelf, you can get a Presley with a Nestlé. The King did have a thing for chocolate.
I recall, thinking in seventh grade that it was a shame that humor didn’t spring naturally from the Right (this was before I found National Lampoon® and discovered that humor was everywhere). After all, every bit of humor I saw on television and the movies was from either a neutral perspective, or, more commonly, from a Leftist perspective. Television and movie humor in the 1980’s and 1990’s was based on moving the opinion of Americans from the wholesome fun of the 1950’s and 1960’s to full blown Liberalism. With the exception of Red Dawn®. Wolverines!
America had been taught that things like values, strong parental relationships, and strong marriages and strong families were good. Look at any episode of The Beverly Hillbillies® or Green Acres™. Both of those shows managed to be hilarious without preaching about, well, anything. Yet these shows showcased loving families that genuinely cared about each other without being so sickly-sweet that you wanted to choke the writer with a garrote woven from fluffy kitten tails.
The Left began the takeover in the 1970’s. The slide began when situation comedies emerged that centered on divorced women, shattered families, absent fathers, and infidelity. All of this sounds amazingly like the Clinton household on a Thursday night.
It was, at first, easy to make fun of the Right. In 1970, the Right controlled several institutions important to society – military leadership, many college administrations, big business, some older Hollywood® stars, and at least some church personnel.
It’s no coincidence that the high point of enrollment in the Boy Scouts of America™ on an absolute and percentage basis occurred in 1973. It was an institution of the Right. It was a target, and it was attacked because it was “square” and wasn’t cool, wasn’t progressive, wasn’t modern enough. “Boy Scout” went from something one aspired to be, and instead became a put-down for someone with a values structure that didn’t match the new progressive standards where “morally straight” was an indictment, not a virtue.
Thankfully it’s 2019, so girls can be Boy Scouts, and Boy Scouts can be fathers.
But the march of Leftists through institutions continued throughout the decades. Colleges went Left. The news media became openly Leftist. Hollywood went from a Left-Right truce to the full-blown Leftism we see today. And when the Leftists won control of so many institutions?
Comedy ceased to be funny to them at all. Comedy is making fun of The Man – it’s their weapon. It is edgy. Most of all? Comedy is used as a tool of the Left to make fun of leaders and institutions of the Right. When the leaders are of the Left? Comedy isn’t tolerated. Comedy is an attack. Thus? Free speech attacking the Right is to be fought for. But when the Right wants to use free speech to attack the Left? That is clearly hate speech, and not protected. Liberal dads get really mad when you wish them a happy mother’s day.
“Heck, Greta, you know why? Because ice cream doesn’t have bones! Would you like to stroke my leg hair?”
This is the rule when the Left is in charge:
Stalin had hundreds of people arrested in the Soviet Union for making jokes that the state found to be offensive. Even as late as 1983 a woman was jailed for making a joke the Soviets didn’t like. I can’t find statistics, but I did find a report that at least some people were executed in the 1940’s for making jokes in Germany. China? It’s going on right now – people are spending up to five years in prison for making jokes about Chinese leadership in chatrooms. I’m pretty sure the Left in the United States is envious of that sort of power.
“Soon,” they think.
The Left knows that people making fun of its authority is the ultimate risk. A Leftist regime can be treated solemnly. A Leftist regime can be feared. A Leftist regime can stand riots. It can stand disorder. But a Leftist regime cannot stand being mocked. Back when Saturday Night Live® was funny, they had this gem (LINK), which sadly I can’t embed, but it embodies the Left to me today.
That’s why it’s really fun to watch when their mask slips. Greta Thunberg, the recently anointed Ayatollah of Climatecontrolla said, “We will make sure that they, that we put them against the wall . . . .” Of course she corrected herself later that what “put them against the wall” meant was for them not to be summarily executed, but for them to be taken to fun and challenging carbon-neutral “leisure camps” that she’ll set up along with Uncle Soros.
And we’re worried about the Russians influencing our elections?
Greta herself is a prime example of the humorlessness of the Left. After placing a mentally challenged girl on the public stage, they note that it’s awful to challenge her. It’s even worse to make fun of her, heck they said only schizophrenic people make fun of Greta. We’ll show her!
Essentially, the Left likes to robe its spokespeople in a protected class status, like a +2 Cloak of Political Invulnerability. Mock Greta? It’s because you hate little Swedish girls with mental issues. Make fun of Obama’s policies? It’s obviously race. Ridicule Hillary? It’s not because she was obviously suffering from some sort of debilitating disease. It’s because you don’t want a woman to be president.
To them, it’s simple: Leftists can’t take jokes, so the Right can’t be allowed to make jokes.
Leftism is a religion. That’s why Marx hated religion – it was an ideological competitor to communism. And the biggest crime in religion isn’t being an unbeliever. The biggest crime is heresy, and all Leftists view mocking Leftism and Leftists as the single biggest heresy.
Reprinted with permission.
Leftists can’t meme – it’s because they’re in the thrall of religious ecstasy.
Maybe we can make a Very Special Episode about that?
