Offending people SEEMS so easy. Shout a curse word in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. Replace the lyrics in a popular song with a series of racial slurs. Remove your pants during Sunday mass. In theory, all it takes to be offensive is a lot of guts or a little bit of alcohol. Yet it’s still an art that few can master.

I’ve been writing this detestable column for nearly 11 years, and I can’t count the number of people I’ve offended. I’ve gleefully responded to so many angry letters to the editor that almost every easily offended person in this region has completely given up on writing them. The only angry letters I get these days are from summertime tourists, and even those are few and far between.

The reason I’m given a free pass isn’t because I’ve toned down the content over the years or provided something of value along with the filth. Quite the opposite. I take great care to make sure my writing contains no discernible value, and I post curse words like “shit” and “fuck” more than ever these days. My columns also provide a horrific amount of graphic sexual descriptions. Have you ever seen an elderly woman with three penises in her mouth? You have now, because I just made you imagine that scene in your head. Her skin is so wrinkly!
The reason no one writes angry letters to me anymore is because it’s no fun picking on someone who enjoys the negative attention. That’s the key to offensive humor. The easy part is offending people. The tough part is calmly standing behind your humor when the angry mob comes with their pitchforks.
Last week the Star Tribune—ever desperate for a “controversial” story to keep people from forgetting they exist—published an article about a satirical map of Minneapolis that caused a minor stir online. This map labeled neighborhoods in the metro region based on stereotypes. Neighborhoods in North Minneapolis were marked as “Compton of the North” and “Too scary to investigate.”
Apparently, that’s offensive and worthy of an article in a major metropolitan newspaper. Yet this column you’re reading right now, in which I describe a dog fellating itself to completion on the hood of a bright red 1987 Trans-Am, will receive no such treatment. I’m a grown man, so it wouldn’t be right for me to don a whiny voice and claim it’s not fair, but for the record, it’s TOTALLY NOT FAIR.

To its credit, the map of offensive stereotypes quickly worked its magic, spreading feverishly on Facebook and getting a lot of squares riled up. But then the author of the map ruined everything with a few simple words. From the Star Tribune article: “The local mapmaker said in a phone interview that her intent was not to offend, but to show how people stereotype unfamiliar neighborhoods.”
Oh, come now. You don’t think anyone’s buying that, do you? I haven’t seen a pile of shit that deep since some kid lit fireworks near a horse at the city’s Fourth of July parade. The author created the map because she thought it was funny. And it WAS mildly funny until she gave the naysayers every bit of ammo in the world by backing down and pretending she was creating some sort of educational conversation starter. The haters ended up winning, and the author looked like a doofus.
The correct response to the reporter would have been this: “I created it because I felt it was funny. Humor is subjective, but there’s little harm in it. If people were concerned about spreading stereotypes, then turning it into a mainstream news story wasn’t the best approach.”

There. Done. The small group of very loud naysayers would have continued to make a fuss, but not many people would have been listening to them anymore. Nothing kills a news story like a little bit of rationality.
Alternatively, if the author enjoys negative attention like I do, she also could have responded to the reporter with this: “I created it because it’s funny. The people claiming this harmed their neighborhood or way of life need to find a job or hobby. Being angry on the internet doesn’t count as either.”
This would have riled up the haters even more, but who cares? How hard is it to ignore internet commenters? Within a week, the angry mob would have gotten bored of the lack of responses from the author and found some new holy crusade to give them a boner.
The key to battling stereotypes, much like the key to battling irrationally angry internet people, is to laugh it off. If you don’t get upset by stereotypes, people are much less likely to believe them. They’ll see you as a mature, educated person who doesn’t fit the stereotype. But if you get upset and throw a fit, they’ll think to themselves, “Jesus, it must be true if that guy’s getting so worked up about it.”

For instance, the other day I heard someone say that white people all smell like mayonnaise. That’s a fantastic stereotype. If I wanted to get rid of it (which I don’t—it’s great! ), then throwing a fit wouldn’t help. Perhaps those upset by North Minneapolis stereotypes should take similar advice.

Or they could just start a race riot and loot their own neighborhood. Please send your angry letters care of:

Reader Weekly
P.O. Box 16122
Duluth, MN 55816