Picking My Battles

Published retroactively

Generally, I avoid Alternet's comments. The commenters are, by and large, complete idiots - conservative, sexist, and hateful trolls. But, for some reason, I wanted to read the comments for Inside Fox's Latest Anti-Feminist Reality Show. The show is obviously a stupid ploy, a sexist, patronizing view of a completely made-up world. No one should watch it, and I hope that the participants feel much the same way the cast of Manos: The Hands of Fate did after its release.

But first, there were only three comments, all incredibly stupid. Then later, I checked and saw 11 comments. A couple were intelligent, pointing out that this reactionary television crap was a diatribe against Hillary Clinton, and one was the epitomy of idiocy. Some brainless twit argued that feminists think that men are sub-human and that we blame 99% of problems on men. Sigh - the first part doesn't even need commentary, as for the second part..... A. it is more "the patriarchy" and B. uh, who has been calling the shots for the past several milleniums? What a dumbass. I wish someone would reply to that comment to say, "you're a complete idiot". Why don't I?

Why don't I? Is it because I don't want to get caught in the idiocy of the Alternet comment trolls? Yes. Would it even matter? Inaction bothers me, but so does too much action in inappropriate places. I was tempted to take the t-shirt pricing post down because I didn't want to seem like I was putting so much importance on what is one small part of the battle. That is why I made a seperate post about apathy rather than just updating the t-shirt post. And what action is appropriate? I have no desire for any of the t-shirts on sale for that comic, yet, so writing a letter seems premature. I won't be linking to the comic, but since I've hidden my site from the robots, that won't make a large influence. I could link the comic and advise my (few) readers to not purchase shirts, but I think in the end, I'd rather write a letter and speak to the proprieter individually.