Douchebaggery, public temper tantrums, and other reasons to put baby in a corner

Nation, at this tumultuous time in history, ask not what you can do for your country, but ask where the hell are your manners, young man?

Look, I can be a totally rude person, even for the extraordinarily low standards set for my generation. I burp. I fart. I praise other people for burping and farting in my presence. (This makes me very popular with children.) I have no issues with bluntly discussing any and every function my body or any body does (hemorrhoids? Bring those puppies on), or various orifices and the things people do with them in almost any company.

But I do have standards. I say please and thank you to everyone. I hold the door. I say “bless you” to strangers in public locations and “excuse me” if I bump into them. Most importantly, I do not interrupt people when they’re speaking, especially in an extremely rude manner. And if I do, because such things do happen by accident, I apologize.

So why doesn’t anyone else?

I’m willing to have some latitude when it comes to unfortunate outbursts. When Serena Williams lost her cool at the US Open, I was willing to let that slide. Sure, it’s irregular for tennis, but as someone who grew up watching baseball, that kind of yelling and threatening seems quaint to me, sports-wise. (So few expletives, Serena? Your mother clearly raised you right.)

There’s that, which was at least at a semi-appropriate time and place, and then there’s taking that level of vitriol and using it at the wrong place and really, really, really wrong time. Like Joe Wilson’s outburst at President Obama during  his speech to a joint session of Congress. (Made especially stupid by the fact that he shouted “you lie!” when Obama said any health care plan would not cover illegal immigrants which was… a lie. Now if he had shouted that when Obama said something about the health care plan being totally paid for by current inefficiencies, which is probably not exactly true, that would at least make his actions slightly less completely ridiculous.)

And then, of course, there was Kanye West at the MTV VMAs last night.

For the five of you who didn’t see what happened before Viacom went on a copyright deleting spree on the Youtubes, Taylor Swift got on stage to accept her Best Female Video win, at which point out of nowhere Kanye West comes, takes the microphone from her, and proceeds to tell the audience that Beyonce was totally robbed because her video was pretty much the greatest video of all time. No, wait, I’m sorry, the century. Some large amount of time.

Now at least in this instance, Beyonce acted with total class. She looked horrified at Kanye’s shout-out and, upon winning Best Video of the Year, brought Taylor Swift on-stage to finish thanking who she wanted to thank. Hell, Kanye even apologized. Sort of. And then he took it down.

It isn’t just the fact that these two things happened that bothers me. What bothers me is why these two things happened. Both Joe Wilson and Kanye West threw verbal tantrums. With both of them, we’ll never really know if it was because some higher power (like MTV or John Boehner) egged them on, or they spontaneously decide themselves that it was a good idea, but both of them did it. Both Kanye and Joe Wilson have a history of going on inappropriate rants (though Kanye’s are more famous). And so both of them know, just like every toddler knows, that when they do it, they get attention. It would be ridiculous to suggest that we ignore these outbursts the way we ignore a child kicking their feet and screaming. The whole point of these is that they are impossible to ignore, that they inspire shock and gossip and instant reactions and accusations thrown left and right of things like, oh dear lord, racism. The second racism gets added to a discussion, the resulting explosion goes nuclear.

What I don’t understand is why anyone, anywhere, would ever be so attention-starved that they thought to themselves, “you know what would be a good idea? To throw a giant public hissy fit at the expense of someone else.”

For shame, you two. You’re full-grown men, and you should know better.  You’re grounded, misters. Now go to your rooms and think on what you’ve done.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Sep 14, 2009 @ 17:00 EST5EDT