Remember the “Stop Snitching” Craze of the early/mid 2000’s? Who can forget that time Cam’ron went on TV and said that, if he knew his neighbor was a serial killer, he’d opt to move , rather than inform the authorities. While I always felt taking it that far was detrimental , I did somewhat agree with the over all theory of people minding their own business.
With that era behind us and snitching being common place on many different levels, it would seem it’s trickled down to a very low level. A pathetic level. Social networks.
Now, there are certainly things that need to be regulated on social networks. I don’t think anyone wants mass amounts of bullying, child porn or ultra violence in their time lines. As with most things, the rules of common decency should be respected. The problem is that when you let regular dipshits police the internet by giving them a “report this for offensive material” button, you’re letting anyone who feels some sorta way about anything control what the rest of the world sees.
So, the other day, I posted this picture on my instagram

With a caption that read: The stripper at my brother’s bachelor party is really mailing it in
Within 20 minutes, someone had reported it and it was taken down , accompanied by this email

Now, right after I posted it, someone had commented “Report this”. I assumed they were kidding cause, well, it’s a picture of a cute baby, being cute, with a joke caption. I recognize that the caption could be perceived as risque but, gimmie a fucking break. But just to be sure, I responded “Hey, this is my nephew. He’s not a stripper. It’s a joke #noNAMBLA”
10 minutes later, the picture was taken down and all I wanted to know was which dumb motherfucker saw that and was like “Oh my heavens! That is offensive to my pussy soft sensibilities!” and reported it. I wanted to know so i could ridicule that fucking loser but also so I can block them.
There’s a few point to be drawn from this:
1)Instead of reporting stuff like this (when instagram is literally full of half naked 14 year olds who probably should be reported), just unfollow. It’s so simple. I love that people feel entitled to make judgment calls on behalf of everyone , even though those calls are based entirely on their myopic life view. In this case, a person was offended by a baby’s bottom and an obvious joke. What an asshole.
2)We’ve reached a point where there is a level of puritanical thinking that a 9 month old child’s butt is offensive to someone. If it’s not that, than that means it got taken down cause of the caption, which is even crazier. There’s no accounting for bad taste and, perhaps, my joke was treading those waters but, at the end of the day, it was clearly a joke. And if someone couldn’t see that, that means that a person read that and actually thought I had hired a 9 month old baby to strip at my brother bachelor party. Forget the moral decay that would have to exist for that to even be a thing that people do. Do you know how hard it would be to even teach a baby that can’t walk to use a pole? Come on, son. That’s like teaching a dog how juggle. Regardless, either reason behind reporting a picture like that shows so many layers of “not getting it” that I feel as if trying to explain it to the person who did it would be pointless.

Also,
it should be noted that baby butts are not porn. Not even close. If they were, they probably wouldn’t show them in diaper commercials during day time tv. While there are some truly awful people out there who might turn it into something terrible in their heads, there are also people out there who fuck trees. So, let’s try and not report all those salacious pictures of forrests cause it made some dude in oregon’s dick hard.

I’ve only had one other picture ever taken down from instagram. It was early on in my posting. I was in my dads art studio and he had this crazy old bulletin board covered with awesome past cards. On it were funny sayings, pictures of art and random old doodles. One of those pictures was a photo of a post card of a DRAWING that had a nude woman on it. Specifically, her hairy bush. It wasn’t even the focal point. It was, however, a postcard of a famous painting that no doubt hangs in one of those most respected museums on earth and it’s probably worth more than the apartment I live in. but, nope, it had a naked women in it so it got reported and taken down. Keep in mind, this wasn’t even a real naked women but a drawing of one. It blew my mind at the time but then I thought about it and it made sense. Everything is porn to some people. It reminded me of this awesome David cross bit about when John Ashcroft felt necessary to cover up the nude chest of Lady justice:

It’s ridiculous. All of it. But this is the world we live in. Ironically, I’m sure there is someone telling their friend how he saw a picture on instagram of a 9 month old stripper and he’s very likely finishing his statement the same way: “This is the world we live in”. The difference is, the world that guy lives in needs to be safe guarded to a point that he might as well live inside a fucking marshmellow. So to that person and people like him/her, stop. If you don’t like something , turn it off, change the channel or unfollow it. Whatever the case, leave me and every other marginally sane adult the fuck out of it. There are real creeps out there doing creepy things all over the place. You’re busy turning people in for jaywalking. Pick your battles but, most of all, mind your business. It’s really not that hard.