The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Via Vlogs; or, Against “Fuck You”

Supposedly this video has been making the rounds today on the internet; and I’ve been told that, in particular, this was THE Facebook video for the gays.  I’m not sure precisely sure what it is other than painfully frustrating, but give it a go and see how far you can make it.  I made it 41-seconds in before I had to stop it.  Let’s see how much of it you can take (oh, and by the by, the language is definitely not safe for work):

Insofar as this video is making a statement against homophobia, that’s great.  I’m glad to see that the internet is being used as a tool to connect members from various parts of the world into a digital community.  The interwebs are exciting, and this is the future y’all!  These young queers are certainly making the most of it, and that’s a wonderful thing.  Metaphorically speaking, these kids are like Queer 2.0, and I’m just running on Homos ’95.

So then why then am I so bothered by this video?  Is it the fact our operating systems might simply not be compatible, so to speak?  Or perhaps is it the fact that watching people vlog makes me quite uncomfortable with the extreme exhibitionism of it all?

Whatever the case, let’s discuss:

I don’t get this video as it is or means to be.  At all.  I’m well aware that, as generations become further absorbed into the internet as social sphere and public forum, that we require ways to respond to the binary-coded slings and arrows we’ve all suffered when we make our voices heard.  Not everybody will agree with what we say, and there’s an unfortunate number of people out there who simply express their disagreement by throwing out snide comments as opposed to opening up an actual conversation in which people can share ideas.

When thoughts and ideas are continuously being broken down into the smallest pieces of digestible information we can take as we surf the internet, it’s easier to strike back at opposing opinions like we were idiot mean girls instead of grown adults.  This is called snark, and we’re all guilty of it.

And this clip, as I see it, is guilty of just that.  To organize a group of people through the vast expanses of YouTube connective tissue and put together a video response to such (homophobic, as is the case) snark is admirable only in its desire to respond and defend.  As an actual and articulate response, though, it’s buying into the same precise conversation.

In this video we have a variety of people of race, sex, gender, class, ethnicity, and orientation that have all come together to speak out against bigotry on the internet and in society.  So why is their best response a simple and inarticulate “fuck you”?  And why are they lip synching?  Are their own voices and personal experiences somehow not worth hearing?

I look at this video and see the faces of a generation with stories to tell of their own frustrations.  Each and every one is in a world that’s boxed them in with mores and standards, rules and regulations and expectations that they neither want nor even perceive as their own.  I see kids getting teased on the playground and getting their books knocked out of their hands in the hallways.  These are kids that are mocked in the lunch rooms as being “too fat” and taunted in their P.E. class as being a “fag” or a “dyke.”  These are the kids that probably have to fight  for their identities in the public, at school, and perhaps even in their very own homes.

In that sense, the easiest and most understandable reaction indubitably becomes “fuck you.” It’s the instantaneous response and the inherent battle cry for the outsider; however, the fact is, putting yourself out there is more profound and significant than those simplistic words will ever be.

Take whatever label you want, but own it proudly and wear it in every way you can.  You become irrefusable and unavoidable, and in that way you a create change for the better.  The people in this video can be leaders towards a radically different and  infinitely more just future.  They deserve to be heard, and this present video does them little justice.

Every time we begin a conversation or respond to one with a “fuck you,” we’ve automatically ended that discourse and simply entered the language of animosity.  We become “fags” and “niggers” and “chinks” and whatever the hell else they care to throw at us.  We become “ignorant” and “ugly” and “Godless,” but we’re none of these things.  We’re something much better.

At worst, “fuck you” has been our only defense to a world that hates us.

So let’s be done with it.  Should the world despise us, we still exist in spite of its disgust, and as such it must simply learn to deal.  We’re not leaving any time soon.

And, at best, “fuck you” has become the simple response to swat away the words that never bothered us anyways.

Let’s be done with that as well.  We know ourselves enough to encounter prejudice with the knowledge that it shall always fail.  We’re in ourselves our own best weapon, one of real discussions and not cheap retorts.

So let’s be done with “fuck you,” as both a literal phrase and an ideological concept.  Let’s abandon the language of cheap retorts and empty arguments and instead create something better and new.  After all, those past  conversations were never really built on listening to anyone but themselves, where they?

We’ll slowly and inevitably find open ears willing to hear our own earnest voices.  That’s for certain, and that’s all that ever really matters.  And until then?

Let’s not begin or end with the easy “fuck you.”  Let’s just listen.  We can respond, politely and intelligently and forcefully, for sure.  But let’s always continue to listen.

Given them enough time and they’ll exhaust their petty, foolish arguments.  They’ll have no sentences nor even words to defend their hatred, and that’s when we’ll win.  It’s inevitable, when you think about it.  It’s simply a matter of time.

‘Til then, we only need to keep an open ear.