Dear Internet: Nobody’s Trying to Sodomize You (or Your Childhood)

Pop culture enthusiasts have it pretty easy today. Remember those clunky things made of thinly sliced wood we used to lug around in our tie-dye JanSports? We’ve got e-readers and tablets now. Remember sitting near an FM radio all day just to catch your favorite Boyz II Men ditty on a Top-10 list? Universally available MP3 downloads only take a few seconds these days. Remember how helpless you felt after missing a mid-season episode of The X-Files? Well, if DVRs are too bourgeoisie for your tastes, thanks to websites like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and myriad torrent hubs that no respectable Unreality staffer would ever touch, you can watch new episodes of virtually any show less than a day after they air. Your move, 1996.


Touché.

It’s truly an age of cultural convenience, and one we take for granted all the time. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, anyone born in 20th– or 21st-century America should consider themselves lucky—and not just because they get to experience the glorious Era of Kate Upton. Thanks to the Internet, it couldn’t be easier to keep up with your favorite movies, TV shows, and celebrities, not to mention all the related content that comes along with them. But that isn’t enough anymore, is it? As the Web evolved, its denizens have become increasingly persnickety about what amuses them—like homeless vagabonds who insist on imported foie gras for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“We deserve the very best entertainment that those in charge of feeding us said entertainment have to offer in the ever-expanding universe of popular entertainment, dammit. Now fetch me my truffle oil!”

And if we don’t get what that universe owes us, holy shit do we get pissed. Sometimes our complaints are justified, of course. Raimi’s Spiderman 3, for example, simultaneously ruined the terms “trilogy” and “double time” for me, and even though I don’t plan on producing a 50-minute diatribe on the matter (strap in for a wild, ginger-y ride!), I can sympathize with hardcore fans who felt they deserved a more satisfying conclusion to this particular story. Spider-man has always been my favorite superhero (I’ll save that introspection for another article), and I may discuss this movie’s faults if you engage me in person. But more often than makes logical sense, broadband-enabled consumers take their bitch-n’-moan fests to the cloud,  and goddamn if I’m not proving my own point: actively enjoying the Internet while simultaneously complaining about it. I think I just incepted myself.

This isn’t me requesting the Internet to tone it down in the complaints department, by the way. Far from it. I like my half-empty glasses just as much as the next cynical Googler, and somebody needs to keep the entertainment industry honest. But come on, guys, pick your battles better. Too many of us are comparing unsavory pop culture goings on with stuff that doesn’t make much sense in context. Stuff like nonconsensual sex. And a funny thing happens when you attempt to attack/defend trivial shit on the Internet by casually accusing it of rape: you run the risk of coming off as a completely unauthoritative douche.

OK, time for a couple of case studies.

The hyperbolic complaint: “Michael Bay is ruining my childhood.”

Sounds something like: “Is nothing sacred anymore?! First this explosion wizard single-handedly ruins the entire Transformers franchise with his explosions and the explosion explosions, and now he’s rebooting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? And they’re going to be aliens?? From space??? Do they even have teenagers and explosions up there? Michael Bay may as well be gang-banging my entire childhood at a family reunion while Mother Earth and Father Time cry softly in the corner. I’ll never watch another Michael Bay movie again!”

I sort of enjoy listening to these people talk, because few things are more hysterical than grown men attempting to initiate serious conversations about imaginary turtles from the ‘80s that were also teenagers, mutants, and ninjas. And I’ve legit tried to wrap my head around the whole “this movie will ruin my childhood” thing, but how can a movie franchise outright defile someone’s childhood (let alone sodomize it)? When you watch a movie you hate that has a similar name to a movie you love, do the memories from one cancel out those from the other? Does your brain just let out a fart noise and scream, “Uuungh! But which movie do I cherish and respect forever? No time! Delete old file.” Lord, I hope not.

My point is, I can be as anti-reboot as the next cinephile, but I’ve found an incredible solution for avoiding shitty-sounding reboots: I avoid shitty-sounding reboots. Sometimes I even pursue interests that, you know, I genuinely enjoy. Crisis averted.

And then someone brings rape into the mix…

Hmm, I’m not sure how this bespectacled 12-year-old Chia Pet’s childhood was affected by TMNT in the first place, but I’m not sticking around ten minutes to find out. Good luck with your life, kid.

httpv://youtu.be/TfCiK2OgMZs
I can’t tell if this is funny or not. [Ed. note: Not particularly.] 

httpv://youtu.be/71NDcq1sqW8
And the award for “Most-Self-Righteous-(and-Punchable)-TMNT-Fan” goes to…

OK, moving on. Here’s another (allegedly) sodomy-provoking entity that should ring a bell: Netflix.

The hyperbolic complaint: “I can’t believe Netflix raised their subscription rates by 60%. How dare they!”

Sounds something like:  “I’ve been with Netflix since the beginning, and now they’re just going to pull the rug out from under me like this? Do you have any idea how much more expensive Netflix is with this new rate increase? 60% more expensive, that’s how much. 60. Percent. That’s highway robbery! Rape robbery! By George, that does it: I’m dropping Netflix out of principle.

As a longtime Netflix user myself, I was less than thrilled when this news hit last year. Nobody likes to pay more for stuff that used to cost less, and I expected some kind of backlash from fellow subscribers. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was for Netflix to lose 800,000 customers that quarter, or $11 billion in shareholder wealth over the next year. I get that the company’s strategies sucked, and the whole Qwikster thing was retarded, but all I remember hearing from the Internet at the time was how dare we have to pay six whole dollars more for this service. Per month. People really latched on to that $6 part. Oh, and the “out of principle” thing. In retrospect, I’ve really got to hand it to Netflix: in less than 24 hours, they made an entire nation forget what it was like driving to Blockbuster at 10pm on a Thursday night to pick up a VHS of Eraser.

Again, I’m not denying that the whole situation sucked (and I guess sort of continues to suck), but we’re talking about a $6 monthly increase on a frivolous service that could easily have been mistaken for magic a few short decades ago. As one of my mentors would say…

httpv://youtu.be/EL8e2ujXe8g

And then someone brings rape into the mix…

I’m no expert, but it sounds like this jetsetter simply has terrible luck as a frequent traveler. If the poor fellow can’t avoid sodomy at gas stations or plane ticket lines, I suppose he’s earned this little brand of paranoia.

In conclusion, Internet, nobody’s getting sodomized over Netflix or TMNT. Not on my watch. So please, stop blowing your rape whistle every time you see something you don’t like.

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16 Comments

  1. Nice article TJ, I couldn’t agree more!

    However, if Michael Bay were to use some musical score from a decades old movie? Well, that IS rape, buddy.

  2. One could argue that this is a case of people not able to aptly express themselves so they resort to hyperbole and shocking terms.

    Honestly, I was irritated about the Michael Bay TMNT thing. You know what I did? I said to myself “Welp, ain’t gonna watch that.” And then i moved on. As a consumer, when I buy something, i’m saying “give me more of this.” So if Michael Bay puts out a movie and you go and watch it, you are saying “give me more of alien ninja turtles.”

    As for the Netflix thing, people blew that out of proportion. They’ll bitch about having to pay $6 more a month for a service that’s honestly pretty freaking awesome, but they’ll go and pay $30-60+ (whatever cable and sattelite cost nowadays) for a service that will jack it’s price up whenever it wants, and you only watch 3-4 hours a day, if that.

  3. Seriously, man. The NF backlash was unbelievably stupid. How much does cable cost a month? How much on there do you even watch? NF gives you all the DVD’s OF YOUR CHOICE you can watch and and rapidly expanding nigh-infinite supply of streamable films (some of which are not available on DVD at all) and tv shows from every era and you are mad that the price went from $15-$20 over the last several years. Eat a dick. Eat them all, in fact. Every last dick on planet earth. That’s still the best goddamn bargain in entertainment. Try taking your family to watch the latest blockbuster one fine evening and see how that value pans out…especially considering the movie is likely to SUCK.

    On a different note, this politically correct word police thing is becoming cancerous on the internet. I haven’t been to Cracked in weeks because I’ve become so sick of the focus on finger wagging at their readers instead of making them laugh. This is the goddamn internet: it’s not that serious. Also the word “rape” has multiple meanings, more than one of which does not imply sexual assault. Just as the bellyaching over ninja turtles and wars in the stars raping their childhood is over the top and unnecessary, so is the white knighting all over the place telling people which words they can and can’t use in what way.

    “Don’t say ‘rape’! People have been raped and it’s not nice! Also don’t say ‘crash’ because people die in those and it’s not very nice either! And don’t say ‘drink’ anymore either because there are recovering alcoholics out there you may offend!”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

  4. I’m not going to get into the whole rape debate here – people who use it to complain about their lives and then defend their use of it are just abhorrent people, full stop.

    I do find it interesting that this whole article takes the view that comparing to rape is a bad thing, but is happy to say that the qwickster thing was ‘kind of retarded’? Where does one draw the line? Retarded as an insult/everyday term is surely no better than casually talking about being raped?

  5. I see where you’re coming from James, but I think this issue was essentially put to rest by one of America’s greatest minds:

    “You don’t retarded people retards, it’s bad taste. You call your friends retards when they’re acting retarded.”

  6. Lots of solid points in this whole thread; I don’t really have anything to rebut here. Just a couple things to add:

    I’m not really going to weigh in on the ‘rape debate’ either, but for the purposes of this article, I think using that word as part of a legit argument you’re trying to make is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot. I’m not offended, particularly, but if you throw the word ‘rape’ around in casual conversation on the regular, I’m probably not going to take you seriously. It’s also poor form, as Cpt. Hook would say.

    And as for using the word ‘retarded,’ I don’t have much of an answer for you, @James. Words only have as much power as we give them, and that particular word wasn’t considered that offensive in my hometown.

    @DocDoom Well quoted, sir.

  7. As aNetflix user I was not irritated at the price increase. What I pay per month is more than fair for the service I am getting. But, I would not pay more than I am now because then it would be cheaper to get movies at redbox. That said my main irritation, one that was often overlooked, was that they were going to split the service and I foresaw them turning the DVD rental part over to a 3rd party company. That I would not have went for. As of late I have dropped the DVD part as it is harder to watch enough DVD’s per month to justify the additional cost (due to work not “throttling”.) I really enjoy the streaming service, mostly tv shows, and do sorely miss the Starz movies. All in all I think Netflix is trying hard to keep up with changing technology and are being hampered by other companies and policy’s (e.g. not having new releases until later). As to the people that complain about Netflix slowing the turn around rate of DVD’s that has never happened to me I got movies in a 3 day turn around and if one ever ran late Netflix sent my next selection right away most people are probably to stupid to realize the mail does not run on Sundays and will cost an extra day.

  8. When I was five, I loved Astroboy. 20 years later they made a movie about him, that by all accounts, sucked. I didn’t watch it, why would I? I wasn’t 5 anymore. And it got terrible reviews, so why would I make it my business?

    As for the Transformers movies, well, Transformers were always kind of dumb. We liked it because there wasn’t anything better. So they made a dumb movie about them, what’s the problem? Personally, it wasn’t the explosions, but the “personalities” given to the robots and the human characters that made me hate it. But I only hated it because it was awful, not because it messed with my childhood.

    You know what really messes with your childhood? Watching the actual shows you used to watch as a child and realizing they were actually super lame. That and finding out you’re adopted I guess.

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