Yesterday, my Chief of Staff informed me that I am apparently in danger of being cancelled.
My offense?
In my blog There Are Some Things We Were Never Meant to Know, I wrote that women’s poop stinks.
Apparently this was controversial.
I wasn’t aware we had reached the point in civilization where fecal odor had become a protected political position, but here we are.
And apparently I’ve been warned before.
Ten or twelve years ago, I wrote something on Facebook that my daughter considered sufficiently inappropriate that she immediately called me.
“Dad. You CANNOT put that on Facebook.”
I don’t even remember what I wrote.
Which probably means it was spectacular.
My response then was exactly the same as my response yesterday:
I cannot be cancelled.
Cancel me from what?
Am I going to wake up tomorrow and discover I’ve been removed from the neighborhood?
“Sorry, Joel. The committee met. You have 48 hours to leave Atlanta.”
Is Delta going to revoke my SkyMiles?
Will American Express send someone to my house to physically confiscate my Centurion Card?
Will Resy place a scarlet C next to my name?
CANCELLED. DO NOT GIVE THIS MAN THE 7:30 TABLE.
Because here’s my problem:
I say what I think.
Sometimes I’m right.
Sometimes I’m wrong.
Sometimes I’m spectacularly wrong.
Sometimes I change my mind.
And sometimes I say something because I think it’s fucking funny.
What a concept.
I also think political correctness has become ridiculous.
For example, I believe biological men should not compete in women’s sports.
That’s my opinion.
Other people disagree.
Wonderful.
Welcome to America.
We used to have this fascinating system where one person would say something, another person would disagree, and then—this is the incredible part—
BOTH PEOPLE CONTINUED TO EXIST.
Nobody had to issue a statement.
Nobody had to lose their job.
Nobody had to post a black square.
Nobody’s employer had to announce that they were “deeply disappointed.”
Nobody had to enter a six-week residential rehabilitation facility for incorrect thoughts.
You just disagreed.
It was fucking amazing.
Somewhere in America, there apparently exists a secret group of people whose full-time job is replacing perfectly understandable words with words that require an explanation.
Take:
“Birthing person.”
What the fuck is a birthing person?
When I was growing up, we had a word for that.
Mother.
It worked incredibly well.
Short.
Efficient.
Everyone knew what it meant.
Hallmark built an entire holiday around it.
Then somebody apparently walked into a conference room and said:
“Guys, I think ‘mother’ may be problematic.”
And nobody had the courage to say:
“Steve, shut the fuck up.”
Then there’s:
“Unhoused.”
Apparently “homeless” needed a rebranding.
I have absolutely no idea how changing the word fixes the actual problem.
If I’m sleeping under a bridge, I don’t think my first concern is terminology.
“Excuse me, sir. You’re no longer homeless.”
“Really?! Did I get an apartment?”
“No. You’re unhoused.”
“Oh. Fantastic. For a second I thought my life had improved.”
It’s linguistic Botox.
Same problem.
Different face.
You aren’t short.
You’re vertically under-resourced.
You’re not bald.
You’re follicularly liberated.
You’re not broke.
You’re experiencing temporary liquidity non-abundance.
You’re not drunk.
You’re sobriety-divergent.
You’re not lazy.
You’re productivity optional.
You’re not an asshole.
You’re interpersonally spicy.
You’re not old.
You’re chronologically experienced.
You’re not fat.
You’re gravitationally significant.
You didn’t fart in an elevator.
You initiated an involuntary atmospheric redistribution event.
And apparently women don’t poop.
They experience digestive closure events.
Which, for the record, still fucking stink.
That’s what I want to know.
Where is the headquarters?
Is there a building somewhere outside Washington with 4,000 people sitting around a conference table?
“Okay, everyone. Today’s agenda:
9:00 — eliminate another adjective.
10:00 — determine whether ‘grandmother’ remains acceptable.
11:00 — lunch.
12:00 — rename lunch because it marginalizes breakfast.
1:00 — determine whether dogs can still be called ‘good boys.’
2:00 — issue apology to cats.
3:00 — CANCEL JOEL.”
And who appointed these people?
I certainly didn’t vote for the Secretary of Words.
Yet every six months I discover that another word I’ve been using since 1972 has apparently become unacceptable.
Nobody tells me.
There’s no email.
No push notification.
My iPhone doesn’t say:
IMPORTANT LANGUAGE UPDATE AVAILABLE. INSTALL NOW?
So inevitably I’m at dinner talking like a normal 63-year-old man and suddenly one of my kids looks at me like I just assassinated Gandhi.
“DAD!!! You can’t say that anymore!”
Since when?
“EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT.”
Apparently not everybody.
My concern isn’t really words.
It’s that people seem increasingly terrified of saying what they actually think.
People read the room before they read their own brain.
Before expressing an opinion, they mentally calculate:
Will someone be offended?
Could this end up online?
Will someone misunderstand it?
Could someone screenshot it?
Could someone screenshot the screenshot?
Could somebody I’ve never met in Portland become furious about it?
And eventually the safest opinion becomes:
No opinion whatsoever.
That sounds miserable.
I’d rather somebody tell me I’m completely full of shit than sit across from me nodding while secretly thinking I’m an idiot.
Tell me.
Argue with me.
Make me laugh.
Change my mind.
Or don’t.
That’s called being alive.
I sometimes wonder whether we’ve created a world filled with extraordinarily sophisticated technology and increasingly programmed human beings.
Wake up.
Phone.
Algorithm.
Work.
Phone.
Approved opinion.
DoorDash.
Netflix.
Sleep.
Repeat.
I don’t want that.
I want weird people.
Opinionated people.
Funny people.
People who occasionally say the wrong thing.
People who laugh so hard something comes out of their nose.
People who disagree with me.
People who think for themselves.
People who aren’t constantly terrified that the Human Resources Department is hiding behind a ficus.
Apparently it could happen any day now.
And when it does, I assume someone will notify me.
Hopefully by email.
Dear Joel,
After careful consideration, society has decided to discontinue your membership.
Reasons include:
— Unauthorized opinions
— Excessive profanity
— Failure to update approved vocabulary
— Repeated questioning of stupid shit
— Making inappropriate jokes
— Saying women’s poop stinks
— Refusing to apologize for saying women’s poop stinks
— Writing another 1,500 words about women’s poop after being specifically advised to stop talking about women’s poop
Your cancellation becomes effective immediately.
Fine.
I’ll appeal.
And if the appeal doesn’t work, I’ll start my own society.
There will be wine.
There will be inappropriate jokes.
There will be absolutely no language committee.
You can call yourself whatever the hell you want.
You can disagree with everybody.
You can offend me.
I’ll probably offend you.
Nobody gets cancelled.
And if somebody says something stupid, we’re going to use an ancient conflict-resolution technique that somehow kept civilization functioning for thousands of years:
We’re going to laugh at them.
And then we’re going to dinner.
Because life is way too fucking short to spend it terrified that somebody, somewhere, might not approve of you.
So to my Chief of Staff:
You may be right.
Maybe I’m going to get cancelled.
But before that happens, could somebody please answer one question?
Who the fuck do I have to call to cancel my cancellation?
Because I guarantee you they’re going to put me on hold.
And when the recording finally comes on, it’ll probably say:
“Thank you for calling the Department of Inclusive Social Accountability. Your call is very important to us. Please remain on the line while we connect you with your cancellation experience coordinator.”
At which point I will hang up.
Because I have absolutely no fucking idea what that means.
Fuck them and the colorful unicorn they flew in on.
Directive 17