Growing Up

My downward spiral began the summer between fifth and sixth grade.

Middle school was bad. That is a non-revolutionary, non-polarizing statement.

This next part is a confession.

Mom. Dad. I used to be very, very active on the popular online question and answer forum, Yahoo! Answers. Or Y!A, as we hip 2005 tweens called it.

For those of you who played sports or learned skills or had friends in 2005, Yahoo! Answers is essentially a website for googling things in a far less efficient way, such that instead of your query returning a paginated list of helpful websites and articles, a few dozen children using their family’s desktop computers answer (or, more likely, wildly guess at an answer to) your question.

I was a huge smartass when I was a kid. And, to make things worse, I was smart. I knew I was smart. Everyone around me was always telling me I was smart. Even that totally smoking hot student-teacher in the fifth grade that all the boys in my class made gross jokes about. Wait, what! I wasn’t gay! Gross!

And so began my long career on Yahoo! Answers.

I’m twelve and I’m sitting at my peace-sign decorated desk, typing away on my navy blue Dell laptop, eating a Burger King double cheese burger and fries, diving deeper and deeper into that series box set of the cinematic masterpiece/mediocre soap opera, The O.C., that I got for Christmas that one year and totally didn’t watch exclusively for the season where Marissa is super in love with her rebellious lady-friend whose name I don’t remember but it doesn’t matter because I totally wasn’t gay! Gross!

I’d take breaks between episodes to answer questions on Yahoo! Answers.

I was miserable. I totally hated myself, as too many queer kids often do. (See also: fat kids, black kids, etc., etc.) I was self-conscious. I channeled this Burger King-fueled self-loathing into being an incredibly inflammatory member of the Yahoo! Answers community. (And let me tell you, it was a community. Y!A means family, and family means I’ll give you a best answer if you give me a best answer.)

Most of the time, this purposeful inflammatory-ness manifested itself in me bullying fans of the popular 2000s boy band, The Jonas Brothers. I didn’t even dislike the Jonas Brothers that much. I mean if you don’t think  “The Year 3000” is a total banger, you’re clearly lying to yourself.

But I knew that these people really, really cared about The Jonas Brothers. The band meant everything to them. Or, at the very least, they just wanted to start a conversation about them.

Their passion irritated me. I was more enlightened than they were! How could I go on living in such an otherworldly plain of transcendent intelligence and opinion while allowing them to keep being so average. I was helping them, really. By being inflammatory on purpose. And occasionally using the word “gay” as an insult. Or by making fun of Jonas Brothers fans for being “little girls.” It totally had nothing to do with my messed up sense of self! I knew that what I was saying could be hurtful, but that wasn’t the intention, so so what! I just wanted to push everyone forward by subjecting them to my purposefully hurtful responses to things.

And if anyone got offended, I pulled the free speech card. I had learned enough in social studies to do that.

I think of my 11-year-old self, sitting at my desk, typing away at my computer whenever I see those people whose entire internet presence—or worse, real-life presence—is dedicated to undermining others and their genuine beliefs by commenting on every social justice issue or article or admittedly leftist opinion with their own often made-up, satirical, parodying, opinions and comments.

It’s the self-conscious superiority complex that calls social justice activists over-sensitive or racist-against-white-people, and stigmatizes the term “social justice warrior.” It’s the same pretention that coined the term “feminazi.” It’s the relentless and incendiary wit that misgenders someone “for the sake of grammar.” It’s the same “freedom-o’-speech” that put up those deliberately harmful and misleading posters against the new POC art collective on campus, Renegade, and the same proud stubbornness that calls posing as a group and stealing their voice to speak with prejudiced, offensive, and oh-so-fetchingly-inflammatory statements in the homes of many POC students and members of the collective, “satire.” It’s Nancy Grace, but with less fabulous hair.

I get it. Being a walking satire is in vogue right now. Look at you. You’re so next-level. Just like 2005 Y!A me. But speech comes with the expectation of being held accountable for what you contribute to a space. And it should come with respect for your community, be it Harvard’s campus or Yahoo! Answers. Which is to say: my dad drives a school bus, and every year he posts a sign in the bus that says, “Do not speak unless your speech improves the silence.” My dad is the smartest guy I know, and one of the quietest. So.

I think being genuine is the best way to go, and I think it is forgotten that satire and parody should and are supposed to be used to challenge and push mechanisms of power, and to give a voice to, or at least avoid trampling on, the marginalized.  (i.e. Why’s the person in section bravely “playing the devil’s advocate” always that white boy who’s always talking anyway?) And I know that soon we will all have been raised by the Internet, and my inflammatory phase is already immortalized under a Yahoo! Answers username that I will not tell you—

And I do think, and sincerely hope, that everyone will eventually grow up. Just like I did.

Madison E. Johnson ’18 lives in Wigglesworth Hall. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.