According to the news cycle, there are a few things you can count on happening every day. Somebody out there is angry about a reboot of a beloved childhood franchise, somebody out there is definitely masturbating in a McDonald's drive-thru, and somebody is (correctly) asking Americans to talk about diversity. Hopefully, we're all taking that last one seriously.

And if we aren't taking discussions about diversity seriously, then it might be because our eyes are glazed over from seeing some of the same bullshit arguments over and over again. So let's take a step back and have a conversation about the conversation itself.

Here are six things everyone needs to stop word-vomiting in discussions about diversity.

#6. "This Is About The Sanctity Of Something!"

Columbia Pictures

Does your heart get angry when a beloved character gets a race or sex change in a movie adaptation? Do you think the sex and race of a character are sacred? Like, "Holy Word of God" sacred? If so, are you five years old?

You're probably used to laughing at hypocritical religious types, like the proprietors of a bakery who refused to serve gay couples, but had no problem celebrating dog weddings. Apparently, Jesus' final commandment was "Love one another as I have loved you, and as my two dogs Buster and Miss Thang have loved each other since their wedding day. Amen."

But at least that bakery was taking a stand about a real religious tenet, and not a sliver of pop culture. Unless we've decided fandoms are religions now, no one should be arguing that a character's race, sex, hair color, or anything is sacred. They're FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

Metro

Just because her name is Mary doesn't mean you should worship her as such.

A lot of people are going to tell you that their biggest problem with the alleged Mary Jane casting choice in the new Spider-Man movie isn't about race, but simply that the character has to be a redhead. And yet these same comic experts aren't going to have a problem with how Mary Jane and Peter should already be married in the Civil War timeline, or that they are supposed to meet in college and not high school, or anything that has to do with her internal character or plotline. Forget everything else; it's the hair color that's sacred.

Blastr

"Oh, what does he know?!"

When Michael B. Jordan was cast in Fantastic Four, the media and fans were more focused on reporting racist tweets than the sheer audacity of turning a movie about a stretchy man and guy made of rocks into something gritty. While we're obsessed with the "accuracy" of the races, shapes, and colors of superhero movie characters ... we don't seem to give a humping shit about the actual stories.

Apparently, "sanctity" only applies to hot-button or superficial details, especially details that grab headlines. Speaking of Ghostbusters ...

Cinemassacre

Columbia Pictures

For the record, I objected to the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot long before there was even a trailer. This is why I sympathize heavily with anyone hand-waved as a "whiny manchild" for not liking the trailer. But I still can't get past the strangely aggressive, often derogatory response the trailer received ...

The Guardian

Granted, every trailer nowadays sucks just as bad, but still ...

What confuses me isn't that everyone hated it ... but that we never got this same level of outrage for the equally shittastic Terminator Genisys or Star Trek Beyond teasers. Leslie Jones, an actress who came the closest to embodying the casual tone of the originals, somehow got the brunt of criticism over the reboot. It was as if the mob raging about Ghostbusters being another soulless reboot didn't truly care about the principle of that sentiment.

Columbia Pictures

Who would've thought this ghost was the nicest monster she'd deal with?

And on the flip side, there were countless tweets and Jezebel comments from people vowing to see the film solely to counteract the first group -- suddenly making a silly movie from my childhood a strange culture war over the holiness of ghost blowjobs and engorged demon mascots. GHOST BLOWJOBS ARE NOT HOLY.

#5. "You're Shoehorning Diversity!"

Ubisoft

Go to any article about adding a transgender, female, or not-white character to a movie or game, and scroll down to the comment section. Actually, don't. You're a busy person, and all you'll see is people criticizing the decision for "forcing diversity," or "shoehorning" in the characters. But don't worry. According to these same people, they're "totally cool" with having diverse characters ... as long as they logistically "fit the story" about magic assassins Forrest Gumping through a series of historical events.

Ubisoft

Oh, come on! Everyone knows that only MEN ziplined around London rooftops.

But here's the thing, friendo: These whiny caricatures of dissenting voices I'm cherry-picking from a sea of internet comments? They aren't wrong. When the top-selling video games are all about war and professional sports, there's going to be a whole lot of creators awkwardly attempting to reach wider audiences. And the same goes with movies, since the onslaught of superhero films we're stuck with for the next two decades were adapted from comics in which the majority of characters were originally white.

So yes, comic book movies like Fantastic Four and this new Spider-Man are absolutely shoehorning in diversity ... but only because the people in charge aren't fucking idiots.

The Grio

The Atlantic

Slate

The people hiring the people in charge, on the other hand ...

There's a reason nearly every Stephen King character is either a professional novelist or monster-faced sociopath -- writers write what they know. So when you have an industry that is predominantly one demographic, there's going to be a visible and sometimes-awkward push for more diversity. Because not only does diversifying your characters do better with audiences, but it also makes the story way less boring.

Naughty Dog, Konami, Activision, WB Games, 2K Games, Rockstar Games, Capcom, Square Enix, Quantic Dream, Ubisoft

There are only so many times I'm willing to play as this one dude.

That's why anyone accusing movies and games of "forcing diversity" isn't wrong ... but they're still missing the point if they think the solution is to do it less. Because if we want to stop shoehorning diversity, we first have to see more of it behind the scenes ... which we can't do without appealing to a larger spread ... which we can't do without shoehorning in characters who appeal to a more diverse audience. Otherwise, we're doomed to a world in which white guys talk down to people about racism.

On a totally unrelated note, anyone interested in writing for Cracked can sign up here.

#4. "PC Culture / Oversensitivity Has Gotten Out Of Control!"

20th Century Fox

Clint Eastwood recently said that we were living in what he called the "pussy generation" -- an overly PC era of "walking on eggshells" and an inadvertent pitch for Kanye West's next album title. As he puts it, the world's definition of what's considered racist has changed since his childhood -- an apparent jaw-dropping revelation for the 86-year-old millionaire. But it isn't only Space Cowboy who's harping on the times. There's a whole slew of old, straight, white comedians also complaining that people can't take a joke anymore -- as evidenced by a new documentary called Can We Take A Joke?

Samuel Goldwyn Films

Sure. If it doesn't suck.

That's right, guys. Even comedy innovators like Jim Norton, Gilbert Gottfried, Adam Carolla, Penn Jillette, and Lisa Lampanelli are speaking out about this totally new, in-no-way-indicative-of-the-natural-progression-of-society problem that's never before plagued a nation. How else would you explain that the parrot from Aladdin isn't knocking it out of the park anymore?

Nathan Hadley / YouTube

It's a bad sign when you're reduced to competing with spiked Faygo for the attention of Juggalos.

And it's more than comedians from 20 years ago who are feeling the sting of PC-fascism, as many people on Reddit have also taken to reminiscing about the good ol' days when shows like The Simpsons and King Of The Hill totally "nailed" the outrageous outrage culture that society has devolved into.

reddit

reddit

Truly, these caricatures of dumb middle-aged men were prophets of their time ...

Because obviously it's the modern world that's off the mark, and not how the people posting these share the same ideology as a bunch of rich writers from 20 years in the past. But for some hilarious reason, we still get completely oblivious headlines and observations like this one from Daily Caller:

The Daily Caller

Six if you include "David Spade is a smug dick that everybody hates."

The Jeremy Piven '90s comedy PCU wasn't some Blade Runner-esque vision of a dystopian future, but an observation about the annoying PC college culture happening in the '90s.

The Los Angeles Times

The New York Times

Which started in the '70s, and had roots in the '40s. So you'd think we'd be used to it by now.

And you know what? Thanks to that anti-racism/sexism "meat is murder" pussy generation in the '90s, we're now living in a world in which LGBT Americans have equal marriage rights. We have a world in which different ethnicities are better represented in the media. The food we eat has become more diverse. And that's why it's so hilariously insulting when someone acts like we've "gone astray" from the good ol' days when people could say what they want. Because anyone nostalgic for the '90s probably doesn't really remember what it was like. Just like how anyone criticizing the "violent" Black Lives Matter for not living up to the Civil Rights movement is taking part in historical irony.

The Birmingham News

He had a dream, but other people needed to wake the fuck up.

But perhaps MLK's cause was much more dire than BLM's today. After all, modern America is all a part of the same big rainbow of unity ... if only these PC knuckleheads would realize that ...