Monday, July 23, 2018

UNDER THE GUNN - INTERNET HISTORY WILL BITE YOU

UNDER THE GUNN - INTERNET HISTORY WILL BITE YOU

Disney, apparently after two successful Guardians of the Galaxy films, realized it hired the director of Slither - a horror movie about phallic creatures that turn you in to zombies with dildos sticking out of your body, and then promptly fired him. A strange turn of events. I wonder how long it will take for them to realize that their main actor is the fat dumb dude from  Parks and Recs before they recast him.

Okay, it was more than that. It was very poor rape and NAMBLA jokes, which, let's be honest, Jon Stewart was making NAMBLA jokes on the daily show for yours. In fact, calling many of the daily correspondence NAMBLA experts.  Were the jokes in very poor taste... yes. very much so. They were low brow as low brow can get. I'm talking dead baby jokes poor taste. But they were from MANY years ago and, let's be fair, the man is a comedian... soooooo. I dunno. I'm willing to just say you had a long time to sort through this landmine before figuring out it wasn't to brand image.

The lesson you can learn from James Gunn's firing is simple - the internet is the best tool you will ever need, but it is also the means of your own destruction. Anything you have written on here. Anything you will write on here... well, it will come back and bite you in the ass. I'm just waiting for the day till my geocities site devoted to Neon Genesis Evangelion gets revealed and my pipe dream of a writing career comes to a crashing and sudden end.

Kind of funny that after keeping Song of the South locked away for years - while still having a ride based off it in the parks, and editing out the insensitive centaur scene, that they never actually did anything about the other two photos in that meme



I sort of wonder how long it'll be until we are forever marked by our actions in a damaging long lasting way. The whole notion of something going on your permanent record was a constant fear growing up until we realized it was bullshit. Now with the way the internet logs just about everything and never lets you forgot a single thing, it is more important to know what it is that you are leaving in terms of a mark in what you say and do.

Was this an overreaction. I would say yes. Is the subject not appropriate? Of course not. It's stupid jokes from a comedian made a long time ago and Disney had the proper methods and long enough time to vet this stuff. So I'm really surprised that it coming out now, after two very successful films really matters. No one was accusing him of any misconduct towards themselves.

If making snarky comments in your past will doom you from being a productive creator in the future... well, shit. I'm just fucked. Not to mention that a lot of the things you have enjoyed in the past.... made by people with questionable moral character. I have posted a solid 2,600 articles. I have 2,000 yelp reviews... which, I guess I don't give a shit about, but the creative writing I have used in those can basically also be used against me. What I'm saying is that the paper trail on the internet that you leave behind yourself is pretty damning.

Also, I'm beyond fucked because I have left very little in my wake except snarky ass commentary. Hell, whenever someone meets me in person and they know about me online but I don't know about them at all, I usually assume I have insulted them or given them so much shit that it's time to pay long over due check of getting sucker punched.

Look, I just don't think this is a problem with not keeping up with the progressive moral. In fact, this was a targeted attack by a notorious right wing troll who dug up the past and weaponized morality with his legion of fans. It's like, nobody who identifies as progressive called for Gunn to be fired and those who toss around the phrase snowflakes are the ones completely being the offended party here.

The grand take away from all this is you better scrub your post and internet history pretty well, because someone will find it and in an age were we are all connected and the dirt you just don't want to see is stuff you inadvertently posted yourself all that time ago.

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