Analysis by Kyle Lohmeier
As the creator of a blog no one reads, I know first-hand the feeling that blogging is a waste of time and the Internet is already full-to-capacity with superfluous nonsense and opinion pieces penned by those whose opinions are of very dubious value. Like mine.
Today, I discovered an “American digital media company” whose target audience is “males ages 18-34.” I don’t think the fact I’m “too old” for the site is the real source of my problem with it. Rather, it’s the utterly idiotic article I found linked on one of my news apps that makes me think Uproxx might be more pointless than the New Mercury – even if it is more recognized and better funded.
Something called “Shutuptrescom” penned a brief piece for Uproxx titled “President Obama and VP Joe Biden Will No Longer Visit Universities Who Fail To Address Sexual Assault.” I was in the process of scrolling past it when I suddenly found the savagely-written headline and bizarre premise of the story irresistible.
At the very least, Uproxx has saved me from writing about the Hildabeast’s free pass from the FBI, so, there’s that, anyway.
The first sentence of the piece is basically the same as the headline, although the “who” is corrected to a “that” when referring to “universities.” So, that was refreshing, and a nice intro to the amazing second sentence.
“In a display of support for survivors of sexual assault on the part of the White House, one that has no real point of comparison in any other administration, President Obama and Vice President Biden have made their stance on sexual assault abundantly clear.”
I think most presidents’ stance on sexual assault, save Bill Clinton’s, has always been clear – they’re against it. Like most people. It kinda goes without saying; even in the 2016 land of perennial victimhood.
The “author” then went on to praise Biden for his “stunningly emotional letter” written to the anonymous survivor of a sexual assault; because, again, in 2016 emotion has officially replaced logic as the brain function to be used when setting policy.
It’s the third and final ‘graph of the piece that is generating Pulitzer buzz.
“The President’s stances on issues like LGBT rights and gun control are becoming something he is increasingly vocal about, and with a forwardness indicative of a man desiring to crate as much positive change as possible before his final term ends. That the office of President is taking such a hard stance on colleges addressing sexual assault and educating their students on its dangers and how to prevent it will hopefully create some forward momentum on the issue.”
This is what passes for “analysis” in the post-newspaper age, apparently. I actually don’t know what this is. Am I reading a press release fashioned by a White House summer intern? Seriously, what the hell is this and why the hell did my Apple “News” app put it in front of me as though it is news? Hell, how can I get this thing on their app?
I digress.
That last ‘graph is, however, a bewildering re-writing of very recent history, always a ballsy move. Obama’s stance on LGBT rights is nothing more than a direct reflection of national polling data that shows at least 51% of Americans support equal rights for homosexuals. When that milestone was reached in 2015, Obama’s view on same-sex marriage quit “evolving” and he came out in support of it (meanwhile, I published my first column in support of same sex marriage just after Michigan voted to ban it in 2004, based on principle, not polls).
And, to clarify, his “hard stance” against sexual assault is his refusing to go to campuses that haven’t “addressed” sexual assault. What the hell does that even mean? As far back as 1994, college freshmen coming in to at least one directional school in Michigan were treated to a very rigorous series of admonitions against sexual assault in the form of pamphlets, speeches, presentations and even a poorly-acted skit. I’m rather certain that in the intervening twenty-some years, colleges have gotten more, not less, aggressive in warning students about sexual assault. It just turns out that the combination of thousands of 18-22 year-olds living in close proximity with a lot of booze and party drugs thrown in tends to lead to circumstances favorable to the commission of sexual assault. Educating students is the only thing campuses can do to “address” the problem and, to my knowledge, all of them do just that.
I have never in my life been more utterly bewildered by three paragraphs that were built out of sentences that were actually reasonably well-written from a grammatical and punctuation perspective. In fact, had a reporter presented this to me as a column back in my editor days, one of the few red marks I would have made is one giant question mark over the whole thing.
As a die-hard supporter of free speech, pieces like that one leave me conflicted. In a way, they’re dangerous. I don’t know who the hell relies on Uproxx for their news, and I hope there aren’t many, but to the typical, low-information American citizen, reading something idiotic but presented in such a way as to seem authoritative is typically enough to fool said American into giving undue credit to what they just read. The ideas presented are shallow and easily accessible, and the corresponding lack of any depth or context makes them all the more digestible. The dearth of details gives the mind of the reader no loose ends to pick at; just so long as they don’t think too hard about the entire piece, as I have. Indeed, my criticism of it is far wordier than the original piece.
Why didn’t the author dig deeper? I personally can’t help but think that if sexual violence is such a problem on college campuses, shouldn’t the president do something a bit more substantive than snub some schools? Again, if he considers sexual assault on campus to be such a widespread problem that it needs addressing from the Oval Office at all? Couldn’t the President, either through fiat directed at the Department of Education, or through pressuring Congress, threaten to suspend federal funding to schools that don’t have some sort of “adequate” sexual assault “prevention program” in place? I mean, as long as we’re just making feel-good gestures at solving a problem, wouldn’t that one at least be a bit more substantial? Wouldn’t that look more like “forward momentum?”
The piece is worse than pablum. At three paragraphs it is too long. Editing for space has become a lost-art in the digital world because it is unnecessary. It used to take real skill to reduce the wordiness of a piece to fit the available column-inches for it without compromising its meaning or ruining its flow. Today, 0s and 1s are essentially infinite, so, there’s no point in editing for space. Just for fun, however, and to keep my skills fresh, I have edited the entire original piece for space; masterfully doing so without altering one whit the meaning or the author’s intent:
Obama is awesome.
Yep, I still got it.
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