The Countdown
I love my wife. Every morning I wake up and I take a moment to enjoy how beautiful she is as she lies next to me, her arms wrapped around our overweight pug puppy. And when my wakefulness wakes her I say, “would you like some coffee?” and she says “I would love some coffee”. I waddle into the kitchen and go through the long and scientific process of properly making coffee and since my wife is unpredictable and changeable when I ask her how she’d like it I try to come up with a new loving nickname every morning. “Milk and sugar my sweet baboo? How do you want it my angel girl?” It’s the same little play every morning. Our little ritual. I know It’s silly, but it’s ours.
I take pictures of her constantly. Just to have on my phone. Just to scroll through on the train. I talk about her constantly. When I meet people at a convention or a live show I rush to introduce her. I can talk about her art, her hobbies, and her achievements for hours. I tell you this not just because I want to share it with you. I do. I wish this blog was just a love letter to her. No, I tell you this so you’ll understand how much what comes next frightens me.
I cannot TWEET about my wife. I can never put her in a youtube video even when she wants to be. I can never share her or the way that I feel about her with the world in a medium I can’t control.
Because…I am in a countdown.
There is a countdown until someone. Some little shit. Some internet edgelord. Some Teenage immortal feeling broken half human gets a hold of a picture or a video of my wife and uses it to try to embarrass or hurt me.
Steve Shives, a youtuber who seems to have garnered hate simply for being uninterested in the opinions of his harassers and talking about the same things I do was tweeted a picture of his wife covered in cum. I’ve watched a video about him made by a person who disagrees with him in which his wife is a fat cartoon witch. I can’t imagine how that feels. The thought itself burns me. I’ve said it before in discussions and debates. What possible thing would Steve have said to warrant this? I ask people and their answers are absurd. Name calling. A too flippant 40 second clip about divorce law in one of his videos. They shrug.
And more horrific still there are those who pretend, I must believe they pretend, to not understand the difference between my show…and that. Worse still these people at least claim to listen to my show. How is it possible people hear my joyful roast of the mediocre and the bigoted in the same way they hear takedown videos of feminists? Is my twitter, more or less, the same a picture of someone’s wife covered in cum? Its ugly, right? That sentence. I’ve typed it twice now and each time I do a tiny wave of revulsion washes over me.
Now, to me at least, the differences are obvious. I don’t send my review show too David A. R. White. Hell, I don’t even let people mention him in tweets.
There may be, in fact I know there have been, entire podcasts dedicated to saying nasty things about me. But if I’m never tagged in them, if the people who listen to them are never sent my way to make my life worse, I can’t imagine being bothered by them except in that vague way that all performers want to be liked universally.
And still, there is a countdown. I’ve had four “takedown” videos made about me so far and, by my count, three podcast episodes dedicated to not liking me. I’ve had one major attack by a popular troll and a retweet of a conversation she wasn’t tagged in by christina Hoff Sommers all of which resulted in the same day and a half of horrible tweets and comments which, ignored or screencapped for the humans in my life to enjoy until they faded away. It really only does take about 48 hours.
There have been attempts.
After my first appearance on Cognitive Dissonance talking about safe spaces a three page email and in the middle “I hope your wife gets raped”
After our election day podcast in which I mentioned that my wife cried when hillary lost a tweet
“I have your wife’s tears to cheer me up”
I was wild. Stomping around my apartment in a tantrum. My wife rolled her eyes unbothered, picked up an instrument, and continued life
But someday, someday someone with a large enough and vicious enough following will come for me. I’ll say something they don’t like or talk to someone they don’t like and one of their followers will come for my family. My darling Anna. The center of my world. And reach her, bother her in a way that matters, in a way that had they done it standing before me I would tear them in half like paper.
And when that happens. I’ll post this again. I’ll post this again to remind you that whatever cartoon I’ve been made by whichever villain I am just a man who loves his wife. Who does his best to make people laugh and tell the oppressed they are welcome, that someone with power and a platform will stand up for them. That it’s going to be ok. You, who reads this, might think I’m wrong, hell I might be wrong but I’m a human being like you and I’m simply trying to make the world a better place.
And if someone on your side of this thing. If someone you admire sent someone after me. Sent someone after my wife or worse shrugged their shoulders because caring about me and mine was too much work.
Then you should abandon them. Leave them to the villainy of history or join them there because the heros never tweet people pictures of their wives covered in cum.
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