Woke on the wrong side.

I kind of like Cracked. It posts a number of articles every day. Maybe a third of them are worth reading for me, a guy not in their key demographics -- college students, geeks, and SJWs, it seems.

Okay, I'm part geek. On my father's side. But I'm no purebred. I can't code and I've never been good at math.

The problem is that Cracked suffers from a deep well of political correctness, which I despise. Any historical piece they do is unreadable to anyone who doesn't look at history through the bloody glass of hatred. They run some very funny stuff, but any number of them might include about seven jokes that could be summed up as "because, racism" "because, sexism" "because, [fill in blank]". It's the opposite of humor, but it's supposed to be funny. Their determination to protect people's feelings is only extended to certain people; a cursory glance at the site shows an equal determination to be rude and unfair and even cruel to the "wrong" people.

And that's what has given me a new look at this millennial attitude. Like a lot of Gen X and older folks, this fury by millennials over every possible slight, real or imagined, past or present, personal or general, fair or not, seems like a disaster for civilization. Crybullies, they're called, and it's a good term for when they silence those with whom they disagree and try to ruin the livelihoods and even lives of those they despise. But now I'm finding it to be pretty sad. People who are that mad all the time cannot be happy.

For the socially aware millennial, every day must be like walking into a field of broken glass and acid pits and random fires. Everything can be offensive to them or some cause they support. I find that I feel that way when I read Cracked, because I don't know when some irritating microlecture is going to fly out from behind a merry wall of F-bombs. It's like they can't be happy until the rest of us are not happy. There's a tremendous amount of hate coming from people who would tell you they're all about love.

So when Cracked asks for money to support the publication, despite the fact that they have online ads out the bazooty (the site makes my phone stall so it can download ads), I have to shrug and say, sorry, folks. I'm white, male, heterosexual, Catholic, and American, and many of your writers essentially go out of their way to insult the things I hold dear every day. I'm not going to get my shorts in a wad over it, but I'm not sending you money either.

I would prefer to support just those Cracked writers whom I admire. Like Mark Hill, who wrote a story about a patrolman who talked hundreds of people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge -- it was a really good story, a great job of feature writing, and one of the best anti-suicide pieces (without touting itself as one) that I have ever read. Or Lydia Bugg, whose piece about crucial but ridiculous things you should know about your dog made me shoot coffee out my nose. But these writers also have to pay obeisance to the gods of PC, lest they be cast into the outer darkness.

All my thoughts can be dismissed, as they will be, because I am undoubtedly a racist homophobic sexist etc. etc. etc. My answer to that is that I have principles, informed by my faith and my belief in what Dennis Prager calls Americanism; I know my own prejudices and I fight them in myself. We are all prejudiced, no matter how "woke" you are (honestly, "woke"? Are toddlers leading this thing?). Ultimately our worst instincts put us each in a tribe of One, and everyone else can go to hell. Because, human nature.

I'd also point out that microaggressive racism has been shown to be malarkey, just for the record. Do read the piece; it is a classic of real feature writing.