John Foster
Social media has empowered an awful lot of people to believe their opinions more than matter. Toss in a reading audience where facts or truth aren’t important and you have the perfect scenario for daily “brush fires” that sweep the modern media landscape.
There’s no such thing as “fire prevention” online. It’s just a whole lot of pieces of lint and paper that a dropped match sets ablaze constantly.
I only monitor today’s internet for the clever and funny stuff, and I do a whole lot of head-shaking when I see folks trying to conduct meaningful discussions there. It’s like raking leaves in a hurricane.
Some of the world’s best comedians would starve to death today because “society” would never stand for their “un-woke” stuff.
This is when I like to defer to the famous quote, “Humor plays close to the big hot fire which is truth.” E.B. White’s full quote reads, “Humor plays close to the big hot fire which is truth, and the reader feels the heat.”
Lest you think Elwin Brooks White was some sort of fierce radical, he penned “Stuart Little” and “Charlotte’s Web”.
But White’s quote, to me, points to the real problem in America: we’ve lost our sense of humor.
As soon as I say that, some will chime in with, “It’s all so mean-spirited today.”
I grew up with Don Rickles, Jack E. Leonard, Redd Foxx, George Carlin and so many others who made us laugh at the absurdities of our beliefs and feelings.
Heck, “Blazing Saddles” is one of my favorite movies! Mean-spirited? Perhaps. Or Maybe satirical.
Satire is a genre in which exaggeration, irony, humor or ridicule are used to criticize and expose flaws in human nature and behavior.
That’s why I chuckled at the recent story of an Ohio woman who is going to court to legally change or name from “Karen” to “Kat”.
The Urban Dictionary defines a “Karen” as a “blonde woman who strives to make the lives of others miserable, especially minimum wage workers, and only feels anger and will not rest until her wrath is felt across the entire Big Lots, Walmart, Target, etc.”
There are currently about one and one-half million women named Karen in the U.S. As recently as 1965, birth records said Karen was the third most popular name for girls.
By 2021, Karen fell out of the top 1,000 names for the first time in almost a century. In 2022, only one baby girl born in the U.K. was named Karen.
Why?
Because we allowed a humorless bunch of Cheeto-eating basement dwellers to do so.
Women changing their names is nothing new. When it’s done for the right reason. Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson. Audrey Hepburn used to be Edda. Reece Witherspoon used to be Laura.
Did I consider a name change when folks used to say “john” in reference to the bathroom? No.
I’d remember I was the third in a line of “Johns” in our family.
I was proud of that name even if some thought I belonged in the bathroom, so it will take more than someone making fun of my name to make me flush it.
John Foster anchors “All-News-in-the-Morning” weekdays on 1010 WCSI-AM and 98.1 FM. You can read his weekly blog at johnnyonthespot1950.com and monthly in The Republic. Send comments to [email protected].
