Tag: social media

bookmark_borderA**hole of the day: Kevin Farzad

Posted on by Marissa

The above post is, seemingly, intended to be funny. However, I don’t find it the least bit funny. I find it offensive and hurtful.

The author of this post, Kevin Farzad, seems to believe that for a person to remain in their hometown and eat at Olive Garden is somehow funny.

He seems to believe that these attributes somehow make a person racist, or at least inclined to make Facebook posts containing links to racist articles. 

He seems to believe that these attributes somehow make a person ridiculous, laughable, a joke.

I don’t get what is funny about any of this.

There is nothing wrong with living in the town that one is from.

There is nothing wrong with thinking that Olive Garden is fancy.

These things do not make a person racist, nor do they have anything to do with a person’s likelihood of posting a link to a racist article. These things are not funny. These things do not make a person ridiculous. These are just normal, and perfectly okay, things that a person might do.

I don’t understand why someone would think that a Facebook friend from high school, who hasn’t left their hometown and who considers Oliver Garden fancy, is funny.

I don’t understand why someone would consider such a person to be ridiculous, to be laughable, to be a joke.

Kevin Farzad is choosing to insult and ridicule people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong but are merely living in a different way than he does.

And I just don’t get what is funny about any of this.

As an autistic person, I live in a town directly bordering the town that I am from. As an autistic person, moving from place to place in service of a series of high-powered jobs that involve slaving for 80 hours a week, is simply not doable for me. As an autistic person, I don’t enjoy constantly going to trendy restaurants and bars. And because I don’t go out to eat very often, I do kind of consider Oliver Garden to be fancy.

As an autistic person whose special interest is history, I don’t support the BLM movement, because this movement advocates for discrimination against, and intentional infliction of harm and pain on, people like me. Some of the articles that I’ve shared on social media, as part of my advocacy for my right to exist, would probably be considered racist by Farzad.

Apparently, to Kevin Farzad, the idea that a person could behave, think, and live differently than he does is laughable.

Ridiculous.

A joke.

Well, I don’t find it funny.

Sorry, Kevin, that I’m autistic and therefore can’t live with roommates and move all over the country and work at a high-powered, 80-hour-a-week job and constantly go to trendy restaurants and bars and be a black supremacist.

Sorry, Kevin, that I am different than you.

Pardon me for being offended that you consider a person like me to be funny, to be laughable, to be ridiculous.

Pardon me for being offended by the implication that because I didn’t move across the country for a fancy job, that because I don’t go to hip new restaurants, I must be racist.

Pardon me for being offended that my existence is being treated as the punchline of a joke.

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, sorry to be a Debbie downer, but I find Kevin Farzad’s post to be stuck-up, mean, judgmental, intolerant, and hurtful.

I don’t get the point of it.

I don’t find it the least bit funny.

bookmark_borderExcruciating pain

Posted on by Marissa

It figures that less than 24 hours after making a post about my (very slow and very gradual) healing from the destruction of everything that makes my life worth living, the horrific pain would attack again.

This time in the form of two vile and disgusting excuses for human beings, one named Trever Shields, and the other named Harold Carrender.

“Fuck the confederacy,” wrote one of these mindless lumps of flesh and bone.

“What is this? The inbred trash buttfuckers Brigade? Fuck everyone of you traitors!!!!!” wrote the other.

My entire body, my entire mind, my entire soul eviscerated. Shattered into a million pieces.

Screaming and screaming at the top of my lungs.

Howling and howling, desperate for someone to do something to fix it. To stop the pain. Unbearable and excruciating pain. There are no words that can adequately describe it.

Suicide. The only option. The only way to stop the excruciating pain.

The pain of the knife slicing through my wrist, in hopes of finding an artery, would be nothing compared to the pain of seeing these hideous comments, these hideous laughing face emojis.

Because nothing that I do matters, and nothing that I say matters. Nothing that I can do will cause these people to be punished. Nothing will make them feel the same anguish that I feel. Nothing will make the hideous comments, the hideous laughing face emojis, go away. They are burned indelibly into my brain, tormenting me as I go through each day, tormenting me while I lie in bed futilely attempting to sleep, and when I finally fall asleep at 3:00 in the morning, tormenting me in my dreams. No explanation that I could possibly give would be enough to teach these people the truth, to make them understand what I am going through, to make them realize that they are wrong, to make them apologize. 

One tiny thing that actually made me feel happy, made me feel excited, made me feel that there was something to look forward to… ruined. Destroyed. Contaminated with their vile comments and laughing face emojis. 

Enough already. I am so, so tired. This is not how this weekend was supposed to go. I was feeling better, I was healing. I was able to see patriotic decorations and hear patriotic music without being in pain. Over the past few days I had visited and photographed various monuments in my town, decorated for Memorial Day, and was planning to make an upbeat post with the photos. I happily looked up the schedule for the Memorial Day parade, and a dedication ceremony for new statues in the cemetery, and was planning to attend these events. I am starting a new job on Tuesday and was looking forward to using this weekend to relax, enjoy myself, and get a few tasks done around the house so that I could go into my new job feeling organized and well-rested. 

Now, I just don’t know. Whether I am going to attend the Memorial Day events, whether I am going to make a post, whether I will be able to go through with the two art festivals and a storytelling event that I signed up for, whether I am going to be able to start my job, whether I am going to be able to continue existing. 

I hope that all of Trever’s family and friends, and all of Harold’s family and friends, are slowly tortured to death as they are forced to watch. I hope that the images of their loved ones being dismembered, and the sounds of their loved ones’ screams, play over and over in their brains (if they even have brains, which is difficult to believe) forever. Then maybe, just maybe Trever and Harold will experience a teeny, tiny fraction of the pain that they have caused me to experience.

The events described in this post happened last night, and I composed the post this morning. Obviously, I did not commit suicide. And today I am feeling slightly better. But that was brutal. These comments and reactions are completely unacceptable. I am exhausted. Yet I will keep fighting, until I can’t anymore.