October 13, 2015
Source: Shutterstock
Until earlier this year, when I started detecting the unmistakable odor of social justice worker-ry wafting off Cracked.com. Labored, unfunny, finger-wagging screeds about Confederate flags (boo!) and gay “marriage” (yay!) began popping up. Old classics got face-lifted (note the removal of “retarded” from this headline…). Other fans noticed too.
Then, over the weekend, someone I”d turned on to Cracked.com sent word of an outright fan revolt:
Having agreed to participate in one of Reddit’s notorious “Ask Me Anything” forums, David Wong quickly got pissed that the “anythings” were mostly variations on “What was the catalyst that began Cracked’s transformation from a witty satirical site to a second-rate version of Salon?”
He tossed a tantrum, and got kicked out of his own interview, but not before getting whacked by a virtual armada of ax-wielding Annie Wilkeses.
Wong, of all people, should be able to comprehend the profound attachment total strangers can develop toward media properties, be they Saturday-morning cartoons, talk-radio shows, or, in this case, a satirical website: “They raped my childhood!” was a commonplace cry of betrayal”about sacrilegious Scooby-Doo and Star Wars reboots”in the Cracked.com comments until management, well, cracked down on that insensitive expression.
Call this fan fury irrational, trivial, and immature”then ask yourself how you”d react if Taki’s turned sharply left tomorrow. In these increasingly suffocating times, Cracked.com was one of the last online oases of politically incorrect fun, fact-checking, and even wisdom of a sort. That’s not nothing. Watching helplessly as it transforms into just another scolding, SJW-snatched body is the eighth reason the 21st century is making me miserable.
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