Stay in Yo' Lane

Stay in Yo' Lane: An uncommon fairy tale of LaVar Ball, radical feminism, and the #PatriarchyPrincess

My descent into the dark world of feminism started with my mom. No, not because she was an angry-bra burning feminist or anything. (My parents are way too cheap to burn anything- hence the same couch since 1995.)

Rather it was with the way in which she mocked my weakest form of social media.  

"Your Twitter is boring. You never post anything good on there," she said as I rode with her and my dad.

"How do you know what my Twitter is?" I asked, defensively. (After all, this is the same woman who doesn't have Facebook, because as she puts it, she can "keep up with her former classmates' lives by reading the obituary section of the newspaper.") 

"You use the same name for everything. You're nothing if not predictable. If you die, I'm guessing you have the same password for all of your accounts and it won't be hard to figure out."

I scowled- not exactly denying it.

"I'm already kind of a big deal without it. My Instagram is solid and you can Google me and see my major accomplishments as a writer. I don't need to waste my time with that."

She continued: "The only person you tweet with is your cousin Jordan and you don't even tweet anything that clever."

"Can you tweet at Jordan and ask him if he'll clean the deck next weekend? Do you need me to come up with a hashtag or can you think of one? What about #cleandeck?" my dad helpfully suggested.

"See now even your dad is being clever," my mom prompted- essentially throwing down a challenge for me to up my Twitter game less I end up reliving the mockery of 2013 when she  made it known that she had more Pinterest followers than me.

(Seriously Dianne, old ladies like crafts. We get it.)

SoI ventured into the Twittersphere and had the first Twitter beef of my life.

You see, Twitter beefs are what the all the cool kids do these days: rappers, self-proclaimed "activists," mid-tier high school football stars....and of course, the leader of the free world.

I picked #feminism as a hashtag to follow because I've written a few articles on the subject. Most everything was retweets until I came upon this gem:

"All" is the operative word here.

OK, surely she didn't mean all men, right? I decided to impart what was some logic to the situation.

Seemingly logical, right?

I might as well have posted a picture of me lounging on a yacht with Harvey Weinstein while wearing a Roy Moore for Senate bikini and Make America Great Again trucker hat. The reactions were swift. And angry.

I'm guessing none of the men in your family were English teachers either?

Sorry about the language mom! It's not me!

*misogyny [TRIGGERED]

Good lady, it looks like you need to laugh.

I'm guessing this is the kind of chick who blames Trump because she's single...

If I spoke about my dad like this on the internet, he'd disown me.

That's a lot of phobias...have you seen a therapist about that?

You want to hold an entire group accountable for the actions of a few bad apples? Replace "men" with "Muslims" or "blacks" and see how you sound then. 

Maybe you're picking the wrong guys....just saying...

It's like I'm doing research for my next novel, which will be titled "This is Why You're Single...."

Someone needs a hug....

Olive you too....

Well I hope you're a full-fledged lesbian then, because this probably shouldn't be your opening line on Tinder....

At some point, a random guy stumbled into this conversation in an attempt to restore some level of sanity and reason. 

Stop mansplaining to me Shaun!!!!

ALERT! A cisgendered, white, heterosexual male has entered the safe space!

DID YOU JUST ASSUME HIS GENDER?????

We never heard from him again, but I can only assume that a roving band of angry feminazis showed up at his house, kidnapped him, and forced him to watch the vagina monologues.

I hope somewhere that Shaun is sitting in a naughty corner thinking about what he's done....or maybe a padded room, because that's where this is all headed....

Someone's been spending too much time hanging out in the Huffington Post comments.....

Johny is either woke AF or a master pickup artist....

White guilt: you're doing it wrong. (Pssss...you're white, lady)

Now this is where things took a turn from the weird to the dark....

I'm not sure that we exist in the same world, lady....

Clearly your logic is infallible....

At this point, I had to call in some backup for a tow out of the virtual twilight zone. My friend Erin, a fellow libertarian, was more than willing to help out. (Side note: this is how nice girls have Twitter beefs)

Gender is a social construct Erin. #staywoke

This is true. Erin's husband has never told her the specific whereabouts regarding a remote control that went missing in 2009. Of course someone broke in and stole just the remote. In no way did he fling it out the window in a fit of rage when Peyton Manning threw an interception on the 20 yard line.

Erin is completely right. On our first date a year and a half ago, my now-fiance took me to a nice dinner and impressed me with his knowledge of wine in an attempt to demonstrate his cultured and sophisticated upbringing. Yesterday I yelled at him to put the lids back on his chewing tobacco spitters so my dog doesn't knock another one over again. Facades only last so long.

Based on the follow up tweets today, I'm gonna guess it's high?

I'm guessing that the husband pees with the door open?

Factual. I lived with my bro. Every time I cleaned out the fridge, I wanted to vomit.

Someone had to ask....

Whoa!!! That took a serious turn for the dark. Being the nice people that we are, Erin and I decided to take a different approach. 

Well I mean, technically if I was an oppressor, then I would have zero problems, so this really isn't a dillema....

HOLD UP!!!! YOU'RE A MAN??????

Of course it will be....

I left Erin to deal with crazy as I scrolled refreshed my feed to see just how terrible of a person I was for believing in equality when I hit the mother load.

DID SHE JUST CALL ME A PRINCESS???? Yes she did! Unleash the snark monster because it's time to go BEASTMODE!!!!!!! 

The best part about this is that LaVar Ball would use the exact same phrase twice in his epic interview less than three weeks later. (Who knew Big Baller Brands supported the radical feminist movement so much?)

Now if there's one thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that you should never do battle with someone who is more successful than you. While I highly doubted that this woman was successful at navigating revolving doors, much less alone running a media empire, I decided to check out her "magazine" (aka her Squarespace blog).

It was like The Onion for Salon. Behold some of her (and her friends') Pulitzer-worthy journalism:

Your Boca Burger is racist. #endtheoppression

Isn't calling yourself fat considered body-shaming? OMG, do you even feminist, bro? Girl? She? Him? Shem?

Now I know what happened to the weird girl in high school who put a spell on my sister after my sister told her that vampires weren't real. #ItsMagickNotMagic

No way was this NOT a satire account. It couldn't be, could it? 

Since she had clearly gone full on Baller Brand beastmode on me, I returned in kind.

Dammit. She didn't even get to see the princess wave.

Don't talk about it. Be about it. #stayinyourlane