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This is me, my head and my life. Deal with it.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Well thanks...dick.

So the internet is a fun place; full of the youtubes, and the twitters, and the cat gifs. It's also full of anonymous people saying things about other people, who are sometimes anonymous and sometimes not. For example, there's a Facebook page called "University of Utah Crushes." It's a place where people can have their objectifications of others published anonymously. Now you're probably thinking, Jessica, this does not sound like your kind of place AT ALL. And you would be right. I think I'm only subscribed to it because someone thought there was a post about me a couple months back (they were mistaken). It's become one of those things that I just scroll past, because I'm too lazy to go and unsubscribe, or unlike, or whatever you have to do with Facebook, and usually I just ignore it, because of posts like this...


and this...


and this...
Because I really don't feel the need to spend my time reading about who has a nice ass, or who want to do whom, or who has the best eyes. It just seems silly, and superficial, and dumb. I guess it fulfills some sort need left over from junior high to express ourselves in a childish and secret way. Cool, great, whatever floats your boat.

 But today, oh today, as I was scrolling and skimming my Facebook feed after work, I read the words campus store, and I thought, hey that's where I work, I guess I'll check it out, see if I can figure out who they're talking about. Because as it turns out, I am not above this sort of thing. This is the post:
So this post is talking about all the people, and by people I mean girls because this guy doesn't care about objectifying the males, that work at the customer service desk (which is where I work). Now if I were "hipster red," or "cat eye queen," or "brunet ballerina baller" I probably would have read this post, given a snort, felt pretty good about myself, chastised myself for allowing something like this to boost my self-esteem in any way, and then continued to feel good about myself. But I am not "hipster red," "cat eye queen," or "brunet ballerina baller." Nope. I'm "bootylicousbitch." And apparently there is some question about how I could have possibly obtained a job in customer service. So that was a fun read. 

I'm assuming that when this charming gentlemen, whomever he may be, posted this he didn't think that it would end up with me, curled in a ball sobbing on my bedroom floor on a Saturday night, questioning every single thing I have ever done or said, and every friendship or relationship I've ever been in. In fact, I'm assuming that if he was thinking at all, he was thinking about how clever and witty and complementary to all the "campus store cuties." He might have even thought about how he was disguising his complements, by excluding our names, so only the people he was talking about would know, although my guess is that he was so busy objectifying us he forgot to look at our name tags (even though they are near our boobs, so you'd think he would have caught them.) 

At any rate if he had just said good things this post would have been objectifying, and sexist, and awful. But putting in that bit about me, the part that called me a bitch who was bad at my job? That was just mean. It was a shitty thing to do. And I'm hurt, and angry, and sad. Because I don't want to be a bitch, in fact I assume not many people do. I don't want to have to question if this is the opinion of one person who caught me on a bad day, or if it's the opinion of every single person who ever talks to me. I don't want to have to stew about who at work will see this, and what they will think, and if they'll agree, and if all my coworkers, as well as all of the people I help, think I'm a raging super bitch. But that's what I'm doing. I'm questioning, and stewing, and doubting, and also crying. And it sucks, so now I'm blogging. And I have something to say to you sexist patron of the campus store and user of the internets: shame on you. Shame on you for looking at a group of women, doing their jobs, and seeing them as objects for your appreciation, who should act, and look, and be what you want. And shame on you for calling someone you've never been introduced to, never had a conversation with, who's life you know nothing about a bitch. You don't know me. 

I was going to turn this into another rant about the potentially poisonous nature of social media. But I'm tired, and I'm upset, so I guess this, my first blog post all year, is just going to be more of a woman scorned rant. Because I needed to say something to this guy, even if he'll never read it. And I decided that it was just ironic enough to do so on the internet, somewhat anonymously.