During our most recent season of filming Now See This Here Now Then, we received a wonderful letter that I addressed on air during Episode 9: Tucker Carlson. I have decided to go into further detail with my response here and allow you to read the full letter in its entirety before I respond.
Dear Mr. Cranium,
Let me first point out that your very presence on YouTube is deeply offensive. The anxiety that your melancholy show produces forces me to journal for at least three hours each day I am thrust into one of your enlighten-less rants. I then have to meditate for an hour before going to Starbucks where my friends and I deconstruct your appearance, your personality, your lack of care of poor unwed immigrant motherless children, and how your very presence is insulting to vegans. Then, after going back to my two-bedroom apartment over my parent's garage, having my nightly cleansing avocado shake, two slices of avocado toast, and half a Godiva avocado chocolate bar while listening to my racially sensitive noise machine, I am able to relax and purify my mind of your racist ramblings and ignorance of the plight of real people like myself.
The very tenor of your voice is an affront to the social plight of millions, ne, billions of individuals who are finding their own light in the newly realized power of TikTok wokeness. The very fact that you chose to be born white shows how little you care about our black brothers and sisters who have long fought to establish equality against the very thing your skin represents.
Being a former Caucasian myself, I cannot truly understand why you have not rid yourself of your biological tone and joined the rest of the former Caucasians by using the skin toner tubes that have helped to change our natural color from pasty white to luscious brown. You need to be purged from our culture and removed as soon as possible.
And so, with the power invested in me by Twitter, I pronounce you canceled as an enemy of the real, hardworking people of America like myself who grew up in an upper middle class home, went to college and received a bachelors in sociology with a minor in racial inequities of the 17th century west indies, and now works at a small startup that is producing a world changing app that measures how many steps you take when walking your rescued Iguana.
To repeat, Mr. Cranium, you are canceled.
Signed, né, dictated by a woke non-binary millennial social justice champion.
In my original response, I pointed out that being so-called canceled would hold more weight if there were more viewers of my program to pay attention to me. As of now, the average viewership for Now See This Here Now Then ranks among some of the lowest numbers on YouTube. Being cancelled really doesn’t hurt someone who barley registers above 11 viewers a video, but activism is activism and I commend this young person for their moxie.
What I really wanted to address here, however, is the questionable reasoning behind this letter. Apparently, my very existence is offensive to this young person, which reminds me of something my father told me as a child when he said, “Richard, your very presence insults the entire family line. Go somewhere and die.”
My father was a great man.
I am aware that the topics we covered during that inaugural season were ones that were unpopular for some, but to the extent that looking at my handsome face and debonair dress were offensive is puzzling to say the least.
I am often struck by the younger generation’s insistence that they are superior in recognizing the faults of thousands of years of human evolution. To be honest, though, I am pretty sure that my own generation did the same thing. I remember another of my father’s nuggets from when I was an adolescent when he told me, “Richard, your generation couldn’t find their own asses if they had a road map and a flashlight. Go somewhere and die.”
That man’s wisdom was beyond comparison.
However, I can see a difference between their activism and ours. They are a bit more forceful in their problem-solving attempts. Forcing a cancellation on a small media upstart because the viewer did not necessarily see eye-to-eye with the conclusions of the argument being put forward is a bit…hasty, in my opinion.
I could go into multiple examples of debate and how it has been handled in the past, but it appears that the journey into social memories is a fruitless exercise in the current environment. Instead, I will focus on the outcomes of the dialogue regulation that has taken over our culture in ways that are quite disturbing.
I would like to focus on this one portion of our young warrior’s letter:
“The very fact that you chose to be born white shows how little you care about our black brothers and sisters who have long fought to establish equality against the very thing your skin represents.”
There are several puzzling moments laid out here that I just cannot wrap my head around. Being born white was not my choice. As my father pointed out to me, it was not even a choice I had any say so in when he told me, “Richard, thank your mother for your existence because if I had my way, you would have gone the way of a coat hanger. Go somewhere and die.”
My father’s love was like sunshine on a cloudy day.
The other issue I find within this little nugget of youngster activism is that the so-called choice to be born a specific way immediately puts me in the camp of degrading another group who I did not know before my own conception. A wise man once said, “Richard, you will make choices that you have no control over the consequences. Sometimes, those are called mistakes. You were my greatest mistake. Go somewhere and die.”
My father. What a man.
I guess that what this little incident has taught me is that the younger generation sees a world they can conquer through their inspired activist stances and own view of what they want the world to look like. Education has not been lost on these kids as they have taken the education and applied it as we were also taught to do. Their methods seem a bit in the extreme, and it is true that the results of these actions have real consequences that will leave a lot of pain and confusion in the wake. But when the time comes that they open their eyes to adulthood and life lays out its harder lessons, they will have 20/20 vision to see the course they have laid and hopefully consciousness will win the day.
At least, by that time, there will be a generation behind them who appear entitled and on the wrong course. At that point, they will see what my father saw when on his death bed he looked at me and said, “Richard, I did the best I could. This is your shit storm now. Go somewhere and live.”
I’m doing the best I can, father.