Have you noticed how social media brings out the very best in our moral superiority? We’re never so sure of anything as we are when we’re taking out someone (most of the time someone we don’t even know personally), with a precision-bomb of a tweet or reply, letting them know what scum they are for having an opinion or a sense of humor. More on the precision-bomb thing in a minute.
Granted, it’s social media, so potential ridicule comes with the territory if you’re going to post something. Just ask CBS Sports commentator Jay Feely. On Saturday, the former NFL kicker tweeted a photo of himself standing between his daughter and her prom date. Feely is holding a handgun, pointing it downward, and his finger is not on the trigger. His tweet reads, “Wishing my beautiful daughter and her date a great time at prom.”
Predictably, Feely was lambasted for everything from being an irresponsible gun owner, to being “out of touch” with gun safety, to being anti-women for treating his daughter as his “property.”
Okay, maybe Feely should’ve saved that one for the private family photo album rather than inviting the world to judge his parenting, gun-handling and sensitivity skills. But anyone with just a thimble-full of common sense understands that Feely was joking, because they’ve heard some iteration of this father-threatening-his-daughter’s-date-with-a-gun-thing forever. It’s not like Feely is breaking any new comic ground here, and he knows it.
Hyper-sensitive, progressive, PC, safe-space culture has neutered the sense of humor.
But, hyper-sensitive, progressive, PC, safe-space culture has neutered the sense of humor, common sense and ability to put things in perspective of a lot of Americans.
So, yesterday Feely tweeted the obligatory explanation/apology for the snowflake half of the country who just couldn’t make it through the rest of their weekend knowing that such a gun-toting jokester is allowed to parent.
Of course, some fathers get more of a pass than others when it comes to threatening would-be suitors with violence in defense of their daughters. Remember this from the 2010 White House Correspondents Dinner?
Okay. Got it. Apparently, the humor of this ancient dad joke about defending daughters just depends on who you are and which side you’re on.