Planet Kayfabe: No Apology Necessary, Bellas
Planet Kayfabe: No More Public Apologies Over Social Media Outage
By: Paul Matthews
email: kcanodq@gmail.com
Hello, America. Your birthday is coming up soon so, my gift to you is this editorial. The gift of remembering how to take a joke and I’m going to help you. Oh, and to the rest of the world, don’t you nod and giggle. I know you’re just as guilty. Every modernized country that has a mass of citizens tweeting their outrage really needs to read and learn instead of always being offended and not just being offended but LOOKING for things to be offended by and digging up old tweets, jokes, podcast clips, photos or talk show interviews as a way to hunt down famous people and get them to publicly apologize just so you can sit in your basement and hang their head on your wall like a trophy. A world we live in where a bunch of geeks with an inflated sense of self-importance tweet “be better” at people as if they’re already perfect and fully evolved individuals themselves. I’m calling for no more public apologies over every last bit of social media outrage the occurs on a daily basis. Especially — ESPECIALLY over stuff that was said years ago.
This past week an old clip from 2013 resurfaced of the Bella Twins on some stupid talk show. I don’t know, but in the 13-second clip shown, they are looking at pictures of wrestlers. One is Chyna. Nikki says something, obviously joking, that she didn’t know if Chyna is a man or a woman. Joan Rivers, an insult comic who would die the following year at the age of 81 piled on with “her vagina has a penis”…. and everyone, including those on stage and in the crowd laughed.
Ya know who else laughed? You did. Yes, you. Whether you watched this live or not I know at one point you or someone else made similar jokes about Chyna in the past and you laughed. Your friends laughed. I laughed. Do you know what else? There’s nothing wrong with that. Of course, now that Chyna has died it would be incredibly inappropriate to make these jokes. So, as always, Twitter digs up old trash and looks at it with 2021 eyes and listens to it with 2021 ears, and say “what were you thinking?”
In case you’re unaware, the clip was made viral by an account that if you look up, this person is pretty much every person that makes me hate social media. Some super fanboy account that spends his day virtue signaling, pretending like his life is all pure and clean, and going out of his way to look for ways to destroy people from his keyboard all under the guise of trying to rid the world of “hate”. No, people like you aren’t spreading love and acceptance. You’re just living and dying by making your miserable life better by trying to get a rise out of famous people. Again, hanging public apologies on your wall like a trophy to show off no different than a deer head mounted above a hunter’s living room sofa. The world is not a better place thanks to fanboy thirst accounts who dig through the garbage of the past looking for attention. It was a better place when we took a joke and when apologies, when necessary, were done in private and accepted. Today we live in a world where apologies are not enough for the social media mob. So why offer them? In a world with no forgiveness, why do we change?
Nikki Bella said she was embarrassed by her 29 year old self in the video and I believe her. However, all you young people on social media should really pay attention to that. She was embarrassed by her younger self. Guess what… You will be too. Our lives are a constant state of evolving, just as our society is. We are never perfect and there are things that you accept and laugh at right now that in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years will make you cringe when you look back… and if things don’t change on social media, you will be the one having to deal with some teenage weenie with no life going “what were you thinking?” and “yikes! This didn’t age well.” That’s why I believe her. We have all been there and you will be there, too. The only difference is you likely won’t be a rich and famous celebrity on TV subject to constant scrutiny in an age where anything you say can and will be used against you at the whims of the constant goalpost shift woke social media mob. No, the jokes you made about Chyna are long gone. So you’re lucky and can pretend like it never happened and that you were always perfect and never said anything even mildly offensive to anyone or any group of people ever.
Here’s a good analogy and story for you. As a kid, I used to watch old TV shows and movies and wonder how everyone could be smoking. I’d see pictures of my grandmother when she was younger and every picture of her featured her proudly posing with a cigarette like an old Golden Age Hollywood actress. It was just the way the world was at the time. My grandmother began smoking at the age of 12. Yes. Twelve. She smoked until not only did social attitudes on smoking change, but also the public became more educated on the dangers of smoking. She quit smoking in 1981 before I was even born. Any of you current or former smokers know its not easy, but she made a change for the better and such a thing should be applauded.
Instead today we live in a world where someone can smoke from 12 until the age of 53, never pick up a pack again, and instead of saying “hey, great job. Good on you for recognizing a problem and bettering yourself” we go “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THOSE OTHER 41 YEARS WHERE YOU ALLOWED YOURSELF TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE OVER AND OVER AGAIN?” and constantly point out the negative and the error of someone’s past ways instead of recognizing that none of us are born perfect and we are all products of our time.
In the 1950’s no one would have looked at my grandmother with a snarling look or a gasp if she lit up a Chesterfield in the middle of a restaurant or on an airplane. The same way if in 2013 if you make a joke about Chyna being a man not one person ever said “poor Chyna” like the person who dug up this footage did. Again, life is a constant state of evolving. “Evolving” a phrase former President Obama used when he came around to supporting same-sex marriage in his 2nd term. Something Hillary Clinton didn’t support until 2013. However at the same time Donald Trump as early as 2000 expressed support for civil unions and celebrated Elton John’s gay marriage in 2005…. but, I’m sure these same virtue signalers and far-left woke keyboard activists aren’t about to cancel Obama and become big time Trump supporters, right? (and yes I am aware of his flip-flopping or ambiguity on the issue once becoming a presidential candidate) No, just like how Obama should be applauded for coming around on an issue that ensured the equal rights of same-sex couples, we shouldn’t dig up old footage on others and expect them to publicly apologize for their past self when it was something that was widely or even universally accepted at the time.
Remember kids, not all speech you hate is not hate speech. To be clear, I’m not against all apologies. Its just that this era of public apologies because some few geeks on social media got upset need to stop. Nikki did the right thing and apologized to the person who runs Chyna’s Twitter account. However, the public apology was unnecessary and only acts as a trophy to the blood-thirsty social media mob of whiny woke jokes.
One more lesson, when you see headlines like “Twitter is upset” or “the internet is furious” or “social media is fuming” over something, its not real life and these are not a real significant portion of people worth spending your time of day on. If you said something in the past or present and people got offended on Twitter and even if it trends for a few minutes it still doesn’t matter. It’s not real life. These people are going to pretend to be outraged. Tweet out their anger. Demand action. Then they’re going to move on with their sad and pointless lives that they spend all day on social media trying to search for a purpose of these sad lives. Their chosen purpose is to get you and they got you Bella Twins.
So, for the next victim out there, I hope you’re reading this. Don’t give the mob what they want. Let them cry. Let them bitch. If you want to apologize, do it privately to the appropriate person or party. That’s all because your pinned tweet apologies are nothing more than a feather for these low-life geeks to pin on their cap.
Thanks for reading everyone. Happy 4th of July, America. I’ll be out of town so here’s a special Tuesday column for you. Take care and God bless and don’t be afraid to laugh once in a while. We need more of that and less walking on eggshells to meet the constant demands of woke social media mobs changing the goalposts daily and meeting their sensitive, urgent needs. Either stop starting shit over things that don’t concern you or you too can get in line right behind The Bellas, as well.