FORGIVE THE IRONY you're about to witness. (Also, forgive me if this isn't the correct usage of irony. My only point of reference is the Alanis Morissette song, and if she isn't using "ironic" correctly maybe Strunk and White should quit being a bunch of nerds and write a fucking hit for once.)

I am outraged about outrage. I'm not angry at the outrage itself, I'm angry at the outrage's existence in lieu of shit people actually want to read. I'm mad that outrage is deer-ticking the creative energy of my generation, energy that might be better spent writing something memorable, writing something that might actually end up mattering.

Recently Louis C.K. did an episode of his television show Louie about a fat girl. He went out of his way—out of reality's way—to paint her as a "REAL HUMAN BEING" and it came across as heavy (LOLOLOL) handed, yes, but at least it was an attempt to stray outside the "sassy, brassy fried-food and farts" archetype. What followed the episode was a torrential downpour of essays, first-hand accounts of being a fat girl, Louis C.K. takedowns, and gasping, exasperated screeds tailor-made for skimming, sharing on Facebook, and forgetting.

I'm not a C.K. apologist, I'm not even that big of a C.K. fan (which is to say I love him and think he's brilliant, but I wouldn't kill myself if he asked, which, in my comedy community, basically means I hate him), but I'll tell you why C.K.'s perhaps misfired attempt is infinitely more valuable than the entire collective work of outrage it spawned. He created something. He saw a problem in society and he tried to address it as best he could.

This outrage jack-off fest isn't addressing the issues, it's addressing someone else's point of view on those issues, or often times, someone's right to even have a point of view on that issue. What kind of honky-tonk bullshit are we fucking ourselves with? Fool, you have the same capacity to create as Louis C.K. or Stephen Colbert or Shonda Rhimes or Leslie Jones or Georgia O'Keeffe or whoever the fuck's been scandalized.

People: why are we waiting for someone else to make something just so we can explain our worldview by tearing down theirs? Animal Farm is not "Let's Talk About Joseph Stalin"—except it is. To Kill a Mockingbird is not "What I Found Problematic About Race, Class, and Gender Roles in the Deep American South"—except it is. If it had been painted in 2014, Picasso's "Guernica" would've been a picture of him holding a piece of paper with "#FuckFranco" written on it with a Sharpie.

I don't want to slather too much cinnamon butter on y'all's biscuit, but you've got beautiful minds and just points. You have the ability to evoke feelings and envelop others in your experience. You can walk someone through your outrage; you don't have to scream it at them. If we continue down this path, our culture will become think-piece tennis... and that would be fucking terrible.

Even worse than a black fly in your chardonnay.