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MEDIA FARM: GONE WITH THE WIND

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We would like nothing better than to forget that Barstool Sports has ever existed, but recent events keep putting them smack in the middle of our face. The anguish over their retardo-tour 2012 Blackout parties has wormed its way up the proper journalist flagpole to that halcyon of cluelessness: the Boston Globe opinion page.

When we last left Joanna Weiss, she was grousing about Twitter, how there’s “No hierarchy, no ring to be kissed, no gatekeeper between the powerful and the power.” Dear lawd! But to Joanna “This winter is messing with my head!” Weiss, the uproar over Barstool’s rape jokes and runaway misogyny was not controversial as much as it was a good thing.

Weiss points out that, what? Yes, she says it’s a good thing that Barstool is making fun of rape because it … wait for it … provides for an opportunity to change the culture. We are not making this up.

Under a dramatically posed shot of Barstool publisher Dave Portnoy, Weiss was making the claim that the roguish man could change his ways. He could even be a so-called “agent of change” by getting his masses of troglodytes to stop with the racism and sexism. How did Weiss ever come to believe such a ridiculous idea? What could have possibly convinced Miss Weiss that Portnoy is a soft lovable feminist?

Only Portnoy himself.

Indeed, at some point last week, Portnoy cornered Weiss … somewhere … and … looking deep into her eyes … touched a part of her soul. Brushing back his tuffy brown hair, he thoughtfully looked away, careful not to let his eyes well up with tears. Weiss, enraptured by his soft breath and teddy bear frame, slowly leaned in. Instead of being chanted down by protestors, Portnoy had “stayed silent and watched” the rally. “It was kind of emotional,” Portnoy said, his voice quivering with sensitivity. “We’re just as anti-rape as they are,” he said unironically of the Knockout Barstool protest.

“It’s not our intent, with jokes, to poke fun at rape victims.”

Weiss, flush with pangs of new-found love, dashed away to her Morrissey Boulevard enclave, rushing to print what she had found. He had opted not to speak at the rally. Indeed, he was a quietly heroic agent for change.

No would [sic] ever mistake Barstool Sports for a bastion of sophisticated humor. Still, Portnoy’s defense is the same: Barstool satirizes a certain type of guy, and our readers are much smarter than our content.

Our readers are smarter than our content! Here was the answer she had secretly longed for, the kind of insider knowledge that had to be shouted from the rooftops. Barstool readers are actually very smart, and Portnoy was smarter, even smarter than her. He was going to revolutionize the world through the “Smokeshow of the Day,” she thought. “Guess That Ass” is a cleverly disguised post-feminist homage to the derrière. Women’s groups, she finally realized, should really be thanking Portnoy.

That last one is in fact true.

In a way, these women’s groups can thank Barstool for the opening. … [D]eclaring a subject off limits for jokes doesn’t quite get to the heart of the problem. When culture evolves, humor does, too—there are certain straightforwardly racist jokes you could have made in polite company 50 years ago, but not today, and that that’s [sic] a good thing.

As she rapidly typed her column, she could imagine Portnoy’s supple voice caressing her ear. “Racist jokes are good,” he whispered softly. “Making fun of rape is good,” he intoned with pillow talk sensitivity. “Commenters like ‘Longpole the Clown’ and ‘DudeManBro’?” he asked her, “… they’re smart, they are your friends.”

With her new-found love, Miss Weiss would later be seen at a Blackout party, her arms tight around the neck of her cultural hero, hair billowing into the air by the smoke machines.

“Oh Portnoy, Portnoy … Portnoy, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2RxWs60dRM


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