“b-but bears are actually dangerous!” Shut the hell up.
I disagree. Clearly the meme is highly effective. It brought a topic that ought to be in the light back into the light. Considering the frequency of SA, this should be something that people are considering how to handle on a regular basis, but that’s not what you see if you watch the news, listen to the city council, or talk with the school board.
Your opening paragraph sounds similar to the expression “All lives matter.” It didn’t sound like you wrote that ironically.
And the final paragraph is classic heckler’s veto. Two sides disagree, and rather than talk about the serious issue, you make a comment about how people should all try to get along better by speaking in less aggressive terms. But the underlying problem is not about aggressive speech. It’s about aggressive action. So maybe we can focus on that.
Clearly the meme is highly effective.
It was highly contagious, that is, it spread widely. But so was the whole “would you still love me if I were a worm” thing and it was “effective” for the same reason: Gals thought “Oh I want a ‘yes’ to that answer that’d be so emotionally satisfying” and guys thought “WTF why would I want a worm if there’s something more behind it why can’t my SO speak plain English”: It spread by exploiting the emotional kick gals get out of tripping over guys for having a particular default interpretation. No, it is not a “wrong” interpretation to think of the question as “rather with a bear or a man like me”. If you don’t want men to interpret the question like that then pose it differently. Simple as that. But then it wouldn’t be as inflammatory and with that not as contagious.
Each and every time one of these things comes around one of two things happens for the average guy: We a) fall right into a trap and then get accused of being insensitive or b) we recognise the trap, lift our hands, walk back slowly, then faster, then even faster, until making a go at the 10km parcour world record. Because yes that kind of shit is a giant red flag.
It’s like those people who are proud of being “brutally honest” but in reality what they care about is not the truth, but the brutality, just from the other side of the gender distribution.
