[RL][CW: child exploitation, sex trafficking] One of my family members posted something from the Babylon Bee (satire) about sex trafficking in Hollywood. I called it out for what it was and some bitch was like "doesn't make it less true" so I went OFF. because this is a critical issue for me as someone in childcare. caps in this plurk.

and then I went and wrote a freaking NOVEL of a post because I was still angry af

I went and looked up that artcle and holy shit it's pretty vile to begin with

I know it's "satire" but that's... yeah

Coming back to this because it reminds me of the many times Snopes has had to debunk Facebook stories that are the equivalent of email forwards that are, essentially, "this person in a store looked at me funny and I kept seeing them while doing my shopping they were totally scoping me out for human trafficking"

Or the recent Wayfair conspiracy theory

A bunch of alarmist bullshit that doesn't actually help anybody and makes them paranoid about the wrong things and, often, ignore warning signs that are right in front of them

exactly! like...recognizing the signs is part of my job so this shit makes me so....angry.

that's not what....satire is...

This is exactly why I fucking hate those "satire" websites

The arguments used in that particular article are ones that have been used against LGBT+ folks for decades now (i.e. they're all secret child abusers and if we normalize queer relationships THEN WHAT'S NEXT???). It's not fucking funny

And people absolutely do share those not realizing it's supposed to be satire

I hate them so fucking much. satire is a derivative of humor meant to criticize...it is not news in any way shape or form.

because it is not reliant on facts outside of including just enough of them to seem plausible and to base the satirical commentary around. God