Seth Rogen’s Problems: The Pendulum Swings

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A few days ago when I saw Mike Cernovich shredding Seth Rogen, I figured the story would blow over because there was no way an attack on a big-time star would get much attention. Cernovich didn’t stop there, though — he pressed a little harder. Now the story has gotten a lot bigger; Matt Forney wrote about it, the anti-Rogen hashtag is trending, and Mike’s blog is moving up on Google searches for Rogen.

Rogen’s issues are born of an issue I’ve discussed in the past. The basic message is: When everything is edgy, nothing is. Rogen’s schtick has been done to death and going after white people or Christians has sort of become a famous person’s go-to for cheap laughs, much like a wrestler getting a cheap pop by mentioning the city they’re in. There’s a response to it, but it isn’t really of any value.

Rogen’s marriage is really none of my business and I don’t even know who his wife is. But her comment to Mike was damning. It’s the kind of thing that will cut to the quick and challenge a man’s masculinity in a way men don’t appreciate. None of it was a surprise: Rogen comes across as a snarky sloth, resorting to cheap potty humor because he doesn’t have anything else going for him. He’s not the sort of man men want to be, he’s not the sort of man women want. Seth Rogen is just there with his beard and whiny voice.

Still, I fully expect him to recover from this because Hollywood will let you bounce back from anything (see Roman Polanski).

That said: Yes, Rogen has the free speech to say all the smarmy, anti-white, anti-Christian things he wants to. He’s totally in the right to use his free speech. But as the anti-Gamergate and other flavors of political correctness police demonstrated: People also have the free speech right to tell a person that they think they suck.

And in this case everyone who is attacking Rogen is at least punching up. He’s got the celebrity and the fame, and he’s being attacked by people who have less of it. The problem for Rogen is that there are more of us than his power is worth. People have to go see his movies for him to stay relevant. A whole lot of people are going to hold back from doing that now.

Even after the Ben Carson thing he had a chance. That was damage, but he had a built in pass and he exploited that. It still hurt his movie — even though it could have passed. But people like Rogen have been emboldened by years of success at doubling down and riding out the storm. The last time a celebrity putting their foot in their mouth really hurt them was probably the Dixie Chicks. (Mel Gibson hurt himself, yes, but not by attacking the masses: he took aim at Jewish people.)

Despite this strange PC attitude that people can’t be racist against white, or sexist against men, or prejudiced against Christians… all of these groups can feel the bigotry aimed their way. Just because some politically correct professional victim types assert these facts doesn’t mask the reality that many white Christians are just fed up.

It has gotten old, and now the pendulum is swinging backward again. We don’t need your crappy movies or entertainment. The internet and new distribution services springing from that have added a layer of democracy to how entertainment dollars get spent. There is more content out there than any human can possibly enjoy. I’m weeks behind on listening to podcasts, my Netflix queue has over two-hundred films and shows on it, and I haven’t finished video games I got three years ago. That’s not even to mention my poor reading list.

If Seth Rogen never made another movie the number of people who would notice could fit in my yard. People would just forget, and occasionally someone would say, “Hey, what happened to that Snuffalupagus looking guy with the sad face?”

The big publishers of movies, books, shows — all of them could take a year long break and people would still find ways to be entertained. We’ve reached a point in the United States where entertainers are more competing for the time of an audience than they are with the money. Even many in the lower class have more options than ever before.

And here this cuck is spitting on people from that lower class. What a scumbag. What a disturbed individual it takes to warp the feelings and fears of those with very little into something to mock on Twitter. The working class men and women — many of whom happen to be white, Christian, and even both — deserve better than for some smarmy cuckold to deride them because they’re exposed to hours and hours of big media types telling them how awful they are, but defending fucking pedophiles.

Is there a conspiracy against white people? Maybe, maybe not. But denigrating them is a free space on the bingo card of low quality comedy, and that’s Seth Rogen’s game right there.

The anger at people like Rogen comes from the same place as the anger that led to the Tea Party, the rise of outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson — it’s a feeling that they aren’t heard, and when they are, they are mocked and belittled by people living on Easy Street. People who work a lot for not much.

But the internet didn’t just bring more democracy to entertainment. It has given a platform for people to be heard. Most of the time people on the internet are screaming into the wind. But lately the alt-right types have become a storm all their own and the screams are flowing in one direction: We’ve had enough. We won’t be demonized.

Will it change things? Who knows. But the storm isn’t losing strength, and there are a lot of righteously angry, determined people adding their voices to the roar, often times turning the tactics used by the so-called “Social Justice Warrior” against them and their ilk. (Personally I hate the term Social Justice Warrior because they seek neither justice, nor are they warriors. They fling poo from protected positions and swarm innocent people who get caught up in their drama.)

Enjoy the whirlwind, Rogen.