that time dr. phil managed to victim blame in 140 characters (or less!)

when i was in high school a group of my friends and i used a website called Deviant Art.  it was a pretty artsy-farsty little cyber corner where we would journal and post poems, stories, drawings, paintings, photos...you name it.  aside from instant messaging like ICQ and MSN, DA was my first real encounter with using technology as a means to communicate with people.  interestingly, in comparison with all the mass technology that we are borderline #obsessed with today, DA required a high level of communicative skills in order to "fit in".  people were actually posting full chapters of novels they were working on, and complicated and convoluted poetry.  the comments that a photo might generate would go on and on, and back and forth, and were deep and verbose.

it makes me quite sad to think of that platform as my introduction to a broad, internet medium of communication when i compare it with a lot of the technology of today.  although i am quite readily able to see the timeliness and fun of Twitter and apps like Snapchat, these devices obviously encourage people to think quickly and haphazardly.  literally - that Snapchat picture or video will disappear in ten seconds!  whatever it is you're going to think, you better think it NOW.  As for Twitter, you're limited to 140 of your favourite characters INCLUDING whichever trendy hashtags you desire to include.

of course, it's not only the mediums on which we're socializing on that encourage us to think fast and short.  i'm sure my most recent text messages and BBMs were filled with "w/"s and "tgt"s and "tmrw"s instead of real, full blown words.  and for what?  what am i gaining here?  what crazy delusion am i under that i will somehow actually save a meaningful amount of time cutting down on the other 15 characters it would require to spell those words out in full?  it's like people who drive 130 instead of 120 on the 401.  you know no police are stopping you at 120 and that going 130 will only get you to your destination, 10, 15, 20 minutes faster, MAX, and you MIGHT actually get a ticket.  there is no way those are minutes are so valuable!  it is simply not a meaningful amount of time!  but we are a society obsessed with getting where we're going and sending that super important text message RIGHT NOW.

tonight i think our hyper-techology-obsessed culture hit an all-time, bottomed out, depths-of-despair kind of low for me.  next in the not-at-all-comic tragedy suffered by the family of Rehtaeh Parsons: Dr. Phil - a man obviously completely devoid of any knowledge of human nature, empathy or background in psychology/psychiatry.  

the CBC writes that Rehteah's mother will be appearing on Dr. Phil after the socially unaware talk show host tweeted "If a girl is drunk, is it OK to have sex with her?  Reply yes or not to @DrPhil #teensaccused".

first, i will give you a moment to vomit.  

secondly, although i'd like to give you a complete description of the black out rage that hashtag induced in me,  i will instead focus on the import i believe needs to be placed on Dr. Phil's encouragement of using a yes-or-no answer to deal with this question.  that's it.  that is the correct response.  you should have no further thought than that - one syllable is all you get.

as an adult with a fully functional brain, social conscious and vocabulary, Dr. Phil's question for me read as follows:

"In a society where rape culture and victim blaming are extremely common, should we blame the girl who gets drunk and raped?  Reply yes or no."

according to Dr. Phil's bitch - oops typo, i meant spokesperson - Dr. Phil does not condone victim blaming: 

"Dr. Phil believes that the position of those incapacitated in any fashion - be it drugs, alcohol, age or mental illness - cannot and do not have the capacity to give their consent to anything, especially sex, which could have life-changing repercussions."

what a weak, futile, pathetic and (once again) vomit-inducing statement.  first of all, it's a poorly worded and grammatically incorrect sentiment.  second of all, according to this silly ol' thing called the law, if a person is unable to give consent, having sex with said person is a crime.  it's sexual assault.  probably rape!  so, i mean, i hate to be the girl who gets up in your face and endeavours to use reason but that makes it NOT "OK" DR. PHIL.  NOT "OK" AS IN ILLEGAL.  so could everyone please just tweet "no" in response to Dr. Phil's question?  if you want, you could probably even tweet just "N".  actually, are there emoticons on Twitter?  can i tweet a thumbs-down to Dr. Phil?  that's even better - no words at all.  no letters.  just a symbol.  that would really make things much easier for everyone.

although i have been a fiend for social media, seeing this today really did tell me we've taken it too far.  somehow this deep conversation, which should properly be about the ramifications of victim blaming and rape culture, has been boiled down to 140 characters: 18 words, one handle and one hashtag.  my contribution is meant to be one word long.  is this how far we have come?  we have computer scientists' and nobel prize winners' amazing technology at our fingertips and on a question of huge social importance i am meant to say one word.  well, i suppose it's at least #efficient.

oh, and by the way, #teensaccused?  i'm not sure where this social embarrassment of a man has been for the last six months, but this conversation is not about how bad we feel about high school football heroes who lost their scholarship.  in lieu of #teensaccused, i would suggest #victimblaming, #rapeculture or #DrPhilGTFO.

actually, that last one might be the best technologically-apt, modern day use of short form i've ever used.  perhaps it will trend later.