PITFALL SATIRE

Did You Really Ask Me That Question?

It’s not the wars I struggle with, it’s the standard of journalism

I was under the weather the last three weeks which gave me plenty of bed rest to catch up with the crap on social media. It was enlightening at first swimming in the sewage of nonsense and gobbledygook. I was unwell and drugged with enough energy for my finger to swipe. I laughed in between medications till my eyes watered. Then I started to get pissed off. That was when the meds were wearing off.

I’ve left the chatroom about trans activism. I was born a female, still am one, I identify as a female, and for as long as there is a female toilet, I’m good. I know who and what I am, veejayjay and all. These days it feels like you have to state and check all the boxes to clarify. Everything else is a bunch of noise, like walking into the wrong club. You thought it was Friday night RNB at Zouk, turned out to be Saturday Techno. You tell your friends, “Fuck, let’s go find a kebab and then I’m going home.”

The coverage on Taylor Swift remains an algorithm anomaly. I’m not a fan, but Swift keeps popping up on my feed like she owns the media. I heard she owns America but that could be a nasty rumor, like one about the scarf and Jake Gyllenhaal. I can’t remember which song she wrote about that. But if you need to know, just ask anyone below the age of 35 at a Starbucks near you ordering a caramel latte or a pumpkin spice latte.

I was fascinated by her fans who seemed deranged and possessed. I was beginning to question why I never got to that level of high when I attended concerts. Perhaps it was because I grew up in an era where we didn’t have smartphones to record fake and exaggerated reactions to blast on social media. As they say in rap music, we were keepin’ it real.

Apparently Swift is dating a famous NFL star named Travis Kelce. That would be boyfriend number 2435. It started after she planted a kiss on his cheek in public and the earth shattered on social media. As I’m writing this, it’s been a month. Just a month. That’s like a decade in Swift years based on her track record. Will Kelce be the next victim, I mean sweetheart? We’ll get the scoop on her new album.

Jada Pinkett Smith has resurfaced with a series of interviews. She’s promoting her new book in which she will continue to bash her already overly-bashed, steamrolled, defamed and humiliated partner of a husband named Will Smith with her version of whisper sweet nothings. It really is nothing. So far, all she’s been gushing about is Tupac Shakur. Once again Smith, it ain’t you.

But to be fair to Will Smith, Tupac was never into Jada back in the day. Sure, they were tight (according to Jada) and he may or may not have proposed to her (according to Jada) but all the while he had the chance to choose Jada, he didn’t. He chose someone else. At the potent level of narcissism projected by Jada Pinkett Shakur Alsina Smith, more people today are saying Shakur got himself shot to escape Jada.

Will Smith, if you’re reading this, blink using the Morse Code the next time you’re on live television, if you need to be rescued. Just don’t go slapping the next guy who puts Jada in his mouth.

And then comes the war between Palestine and Israel.

Let’s set aside the he-said-she-said geopolitics and focus on what’s also flaming the outrage of the war — the inane questions asked by reporters.

It doesn’t matter who is on the hot seat hosted by which channel, there are questions that would irate my typically calm nature to launch my own missiles if I was the one interviewed.

Interviewer: How do you feel about the conflict in …?

Interviewer: Do you agree with the bombing of …?

Interviewer: What is your reaction to the bombings of innocent …?

Interviewer: Do you think it’s fair for the attack on innocent …?

Like, seriously journalists? Did you try asking yourself these questions?

No one in their right mind would feel fantastic about any conflict, but of course to answer such an insipid question, they’ll say what we all would: I feel terrible about what’s happening.

You can yield that answer without conducting the interview. You can ask a boulder and mimic a voice behind it. I dunno, get The Rock since he had no balls but to stand beside Oprah and look like an idiot about the Maui fund.

No one agrees with the bombing of anything more so on anyone. A reaction to such a tragedy would be horror. Only Satan would debate the fairness of cruelty and human injustice brought upon by war and all the jingle bells that come with it.

Note that President Vladimir Putin has been silent. Just because he refuses to be interviewed to comment many thinks he is busy preparing for World War III. Perhaps, and I’m just an idiot here throwing ideas in the air, perhaps he refuses to be interviewed because the journalists are asking dumb questions. Even Donald Trump got up and exited ‘60 Minutes’ because the reporter was biased from Hello. And this is a man who loves his 15 minutes.

Perhaps that is why Putin only agreed to an exclusive with Oliver Stone to produce the four-hour production that spanned two years called The Putin Interviews. Putin allowed it because for once, Stone is someone who does his homework, knows history, and understands the meaning of objectivity in the field of journalism integrity.

In a podcast with Lex Fridman — episode #286 on YouTube — Stone was asked why the interviews with Putin? He replied, “It was to allow the man to speak for himself against the rest of the world that has created a fixed, preconceived narrative about him as a leader.”

No, Stone didn’t say he supported Putin, although that was what the Western media accused him of when the documentaries were released. It’s called balance as stipulated by the journalism code of ethics. Stone was doing his job as a journalist not cornering a subject with leading questions to affirm and exacerbate an existing firestorm concocted by the Western media since the Cold War. But what do I know, I just read history.

It’s the same with the war in Gaza. I find it ironic that young folks on social media are heavily crunching, protesting and hounding social issues when TikTok and Instagram videos are showing today’s youths answering the following in street blitz interviews:

Interviewer: Name three foreign countries

Youths of today: Hamas, Palestine and Israel

At this point I’m too scared to ask what youths are protesting about if they can’t tell their knickers and boxers to their fluid identity. A mother said her son identified himself as a cat and wants to take action against his school for not taking the matter seriously. He was reprimanded for licking his paws and disrupting the rest of the class.

I think I’ve had enough internet for the day. Will see what crumbs and bytes scroll my way tomorrow on my virtual stroll. There are times I get so flared up that my lawyer has advised me not to comment.

With what’s going on out there, we’ve got to pick our battles. If you want to pick one, here’s a good fight between controversial (sometimes idiot) British journalist Piers Morgan and Bassem Youssef, known as the Jon Stewart of the Middle East. May the best of intelligence be with you.

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