Over-Sensitivity

Today is Christmas Eve for me. It is a time to spend with family. I'm supposed to be relaxed and have a good time performing all the traditions that are associated with the Serbian Orthodox Christmas. What am I doing instead? Blogging. Why am I blogging? Do I have anything to gain from it and couldn't it wait a few days, until all my festivities are over? In most cases, yes. However, when I see something as appalling as I did today, blogging about it, unfortunately, cannot wait.

The thing that I am referring to is this article that I saw today when I opened Yahoo! Mail to check my email. The article, written by Caitlin McCormack is on Yahoo!'s home page. It is like a giant eye sore of the face of Yahoo!. Let me make myself perfectly clear, it is not so much Yahoo!'s article that I am annoyed with; rather society's reaction. Yahoo! has made it's job to post/re-post the news. In general, they post -in my opinion- banal articles about pop-culture, i.e. the things that most of the people in North America care about. So, if we look at Yahoo!'s track record, we can assume that they would post an article explaining something that has caused quite a large public up-roar. That is exactly why I am appalled. If I had seen this exact article on my friend's blog, I would've laughed and brushed it off as a "one-off". The sad part is that I saw this article on one of the most visited websites in the world. Due to so many people complaining, Yahoo! felt inclined to post about this article, and put it on their homepage.

So what was the article about? The article was about -if you haven't read it from the link I provided already- a new shirt from Urban Outfitters, which had the word "depression" written over it in a bunch of different font sizes. It talked about how people had criticized Urban Outfitters, how their was a social outcry -once again- over the message that the shirt contained. Sorry, I may be the most insensitive person in the world, but I don't see what was wrong with the shirt. In fact, I saw something wrong with those people that were complaining. By complaining, they were putting down the artist's work, and they were trying to peer pressure people out of buying the shirt. In a way, they were saying something along the lines of, "if you buy that shirt, you are being a bad human being - someone with no ethics." Was this right on their part? No, in my opinion it was not. They may talk about how their statement is them expressing their opinion, them using their right to free speech - but is it really? In one way, yes, but in another it is that person making a contradictory statement. They are giving themselves the right to expression of opinion and to free speech, but at the same time, they are putting down another person who expressed him/herself.

So, what do I want to discuss? I want to discuss the oversensitivity of people in today's society. Why did these people all find this shirt so horribly offensive? Was is because they were/are all clinically depressed? Probably not. Was it because they just hated Urban Outfitters? Maybe, but probably not. (For the record, I own a few garments from Urban Outfitters. None are so controversial, but they are nice and I really like them.) So why did the public find this shirt -along with a flurry of other Urban Outfitters- so offensive? Because they are, quite frankly, too sensitive. In fact, I am trying to hold my tongue to not say that a lot of the these people are simply brainwashed. They are a brainwashed to believe that if something is not "politically correct" according to their neighbours standards, that then that thing is wrong and deserves to be publicly shamed, flogged and exterminated.

These people don't realize that by all going out to insult the same thing, they are simply demonstrating their brainwashed-ness. They cannot think for themselves, they cannot tell right from wrong for themselves - all they can do is listen and mindlessly nod their heads in agreement. Now, I am getting off track and thinking of things that are unnecessary. Let me get back on track to the topic of oversensitivity.

Let's assume that these people who scrutinize every little thing that is done, these people who consider themselves God, these people that think that they need to be the ones who regulate what can be shown to the public and what can't, aren't brainwashed. Let's assume that these people simply have their own opinion about what's right and what's wrong. Why do they find something like this one word SO offensive? Why do they see the people who made this shirt as antagonists? Why are they willing to spend such a large amount of time on expressing outrage against an issue that does not affect them? I believe that it is because they have nothing better to do with their lives, and because they are raised through the media and through society to be way too oversensitive. This is the only explanation that I come up with.

As for why they paint the creators of the shirt as antagonists, it is probably because they are too envious that these people have the boldness to write that on a shirt. They know that they cannot do what the creators of the shirt have done, and they thus think that they should shoot down those peoples' ideas. All of these folks think that they have earned the right to play God. They think that they should be able to express their opinion and shoot down anybody that proposes any idea that opposes theirs. These people need to be shown that they haven't earned the right to criticize their fellow man so closely. These people need to stop being so hypocritical.

Most of all, these people need to take a look around them, and stop being so sensitive to every little issue, especially those that don't affect them personally. Just chill. Stop freaking out at one word that it written on a shirt. If the same shirt was put on sale to the public by the Mental Health Association, and if it was said that 30% of proceeds will go to benefit patients of depression - I guarantee you that people would praise the shirt. Why are these people so easily swayed by a brand name? Why do they wait for every opportunity to jump and attack a person, who simply wants to demonstrate artistic freedom? Because they are simply bad people, or at least stupid people.

I have so much more to say, but by now I really should be getting back to the festivities. Thanks for listening to this rant!

N.B. Urban Outfitters was also criticized at one point for blasphemy and stereotyping. In the near future, I will be posting about how these issues of stereotyping and blasphemy were grossly exaggerated.