Sometimes an issue comes around that is more personal to you than you intended it to be. We all manage to avoid addressing certain things for a very long time because the answer one comes to contradicts what “the greats” think. This is that issue for me.

On my social profiles, I call myself a “satirist and weirdo.” But if you just read my essays or tweets, you might not even know I attempt to make humorous web series. I don’t really endeavor to be “nothing but funny” outside my craft, nor do I consider Twitter to be part of my craft. This seems to really bother people who wish to confront me about my opinions. It’s apparently offensive to certain people that someone who tries to be humorous in one medium just talks like a human in another. It is apparently quite the affront for one to go from “Very Important Documentaries” or “Adversaries” to my Medium account.

My philosophy on comedy has changed quite drastically from when I was younger, too. My comedy used to come from the idea of provocation — I’ve always been a fan of pushing buttons. If “troll” didn’t mean something very different now than it did then, I would say I was one. In fact, I still find the idea of posting videos purporting to contain links to “leaked scripts” that really just are me writing “I tricked you!” on a whiteboard and laughing maniacally to be hilarious.

The way I enjoyed pissing people off, though, was to engineer things I believed to be totally harmless to anger people. Who gives an actual shit if someone who was looking for a leaked Twilight script didn’t get it? Who cares that I was dancing with traffic cones? Does it hurt anyone? No. It does not. It made a point about how people have different, sometimes superfluous priorities.

However, that kind of stuff just has no meaning to me anymore. The ignorant, well-intentioned, “I’m mature and I disapprove” busybodies of the world have no real power. As a target for making a point of any kind, they are the softest. They’re annoying and often loudly attempting to push the conversation in the wrong direction, but they are not the Final Boss.

To expand on why I think people are hung up on this battle, I want to bring up South Park. The show has painted the Mr. Mackeys of the world as “the real problem” for 20 years. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, because I think the creators are aware there are worse problems in the world — though, I’d guess at least sometimes it is. I do, however, know for a fact they’ve returned to Mr. Mackey’s smugness repeatedly since 1997, implying a certain level of importance. South Park has a lot of massive blind spots, and prioritizing smugness as one of the world’s main problems is definitely the origin of at least a few of them.

I agree entirely that the simplistic “____ is bad! Don’t do ____!” way of defining and handling problems immediately renders conversations useless. I agree that Twitter has a massive population of Mr. Mackeys, telling you things and people are bad without telling you why — and often not things and people who the problems of the world can be attributed to.

But in making busybodies the “Big Bad,” the implication is that they are the at least partially the source of the problems in the world — if only they’d just shut the hell up! SJWs need to stop complaining! Socialists need to stop complaining! Social scientists need to stop complaining! Economists need to stop complaining! If they’d just shut up, we’d be fine; their “complaining” is the problem, not the things they are talking about — because we wouldn’t have to think about those things if they would just stop already!

I’m right there on the idea that constantly saying “this is bad, mmm’kay” repeatedly is unproductive. Certainly, there is a class of people that does nothing but that — and it includes lots of people I am on the same “side” as. But that’s an approach — not an ideology. The idea that everyone who has something to say about the injustice of the world — that everyone actually cares about things — approaches everything in an unproductive, reductive manner and can therefore be lumped in with the Mackeys is incorrect.

Caring about things that are happening in the world isn’t The Problem With The World™️. Having ideology is not the problem. Speaking up is not the problem.

A problem in the world is believing that people who aren’t actually accomplishing anything symbolize everyone who cares and that they are The Problem With The World™️.