Thread by @fozmeadows

We don't talk enough about how the stated morals of classic South Park episodes include:
- hate crime laws are bad b/c all crimes are hate crimes
- schools shouldn't teach sex ed
- big businesses are better than small businesses
- being colourblind is better than seeing racism

Like. Never mind the casual antisemitism, racism, fat-shaming, misogyny and homophobia, which was all terrible enough - this stuff was *explicitly the narrative point* as often summed up by the "See, I've learned something today" speeches at the end of various ep.

South Park started in 1997, when I was eleven. It's *still airing*. From 1998 - my first year of high school - onwards, my entire peer group was obsessed with it, such that I ended up being talked into watching it, too. And I often enjoyed it, because I was 12/13 -

- and because, even though it was a cartoon, it was a cartoon with SWEARING that also talked about political issues from time to time, and that made you feel like the show was treating you as an adult, instead of (as was actually the case) feeding you shitty propaganda.

The Chinpokomon episode? We were obsessed with that while still, at the same time, being fans of pokemon! And because of that, me and my white friends happily copied the joke about Japanese men having small penises, complete with racist accent. Because Chinpokomon was funny!

South Park is what paved the way for other, shitty shows like Family Guy, cementing the cultural idea that anything could and should be mocked; except, of course, the idea that awful white dudes should be centered in the narrative. THAT shibboleth was, funnily, never challenged.

It's bitterly ironic that a generation of shitty centrist/libertarian dudes who got their start watching South Park are able to "take a joke" about anything EXCEPT the idea that "lol chill it's just comedy" is a shitty position. They learned to mock everything except themselves.

That's the lingering cultural toxicity of South Park and its successors: the total inability of those who think they mock & challenge everything equally to see that "everything" excludes themselves and the value of their (often violently bigoted) mockery.

It's why you get conservatives now who'll call liberals snowflakes for making a basic political claim like "X group deserves human rights," then with zero irony melt down over cashiers saying "happy holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!". No self-awareness.

I'm struggling to articulate this point concisely, but it's something so fundamental to the seeds of alt-right bullshit in the modern world that I think it's important to get the wording right, so bear with me.

The type of toxic comedy embodied by South Park & others says, "Nothing is sacred!" while quietly but purposefully sanctifying straight white maleness. This taught too many straight white men that being straight white men isn't an identity, but an objective, neutral viewpoint.

"Identities" are for non-objective, non-neutral groups whose insistence on being non-objective and non-neutral - that is, not straight white men - is their problem. "Identities" can't understand why laughing at them is funny, because they lack neutrality and objectivity.

There's more I could say on this, but I'll leave it here for now. I just... get really tired, sometimes, when I think about how much vitriol and bullshit ultimately stems from the unconscious assumption that a particular group shouldn't or can't be criticised.