We Have Gotten Too Thin Skinned. Let's Lighten Up, Laugh More, and Whine Less.

I'm dating myself again with this page. This is another one that will require a Google search for some of our younger readers. Back in the day there was a recurring television show hosted by Dean Martin. The title actually included his name. "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" included many of the most recognized names of the era including politicians, sports figures, and show business folks. I feel like such a show could never air today. We have gotten too thin skinned with all the inflammatory rhetoric that tells us we're all victims of our environment.

You can still find reruns of this production and when you do, you'll notice a nearly constant participant. Don Rickles made his very successful career by what they used to call "an insult comic." So this show which was all about making jokes about the honoree, was exactly within Don Rickles bailiwick. The key part of that last sentence can be found in two words. "Making jokes."

It was all about harmless fun. But we have gotten too thin skinned to recognize harmless fun. That last statement is dripping with irony as we'll explain a few paragraphs below.

When you do that Google search, don't stop reading after the parts about Don Rickles career or his repertoire of snappy comebacks. Keep reading and you'll learn that he was also recognized as one of the nicest people in show business. He didn't take himself seriously and in fact, was quick to turn harmless humor right back on himself.

Even more research will offer a glimpse into his personal life. Don Rickles wasn't one for blowing his own horn, so he never talked about the fact that he was always ready to show up to help causes in support of people in need. There wasn't any advanced publicity or fanfare. He was just a nice guy doing things to help people.

He told "insult jokes" as a form of humor. Nothing more than humor. He made people laugh. We don't laugh as much anymore. We have gotten too thin-skinned now.

We Have Gotten Too Thin Skinned

Thanks to the onslaught of that aforementioned inflammatory rhetoric that tells us we aren't responsible for anything in our lives, society as a whole would convulse in self-righteous tremors of angst and outrage if a comic offered a performance of harmless humor as found on "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast." That is where the dripping irony comes into focus.

Today our late night talking heads who espouse to be following the footsteps of Johnny Carson have abandoned harmless humor. Johnny Carson was a master of political jabs, but he knew where the line was, and in fact was very friendly with many of his targets of harmless fun.

Everything has to be an attack now. Everything has to be a means to throw raw meat to a rabid base that is woefully uniformed on facts, but well-drilled on angry rhetoric.

Now let's be clear. Certainly there were some things said back in the day, even fully cloaked in harmless humor with no evil intent, that we just don't say anymore. But something else is different now. Maybe it's social media, but that seems like an easy excuse to absolve oneself of personal responsibility.

Social media is merely a tool. A hammer is a tool. How tools are used is the responsibility of the user. Today, the irresponsible way social media is used has created a sort of outrage phenomena. Too many people are far too outraged about too many things. It's become a culture now. Or maybe a cult.

Now we see people actually looking for things, any things, to be outraged about. A traveling companion of this need to be outraged is absolute terror of anything that remotely smacks of criticism. Now we see angry folks only listening to those who agree with them, usually in chatrooms and media streams, rarely in person.

A reality of social media is that algorithms are used to direct specific, related content based on past searches. Another tool, not necessarily good or bad, just a tool. It all depends on how the tools are used.

Let's Lighten Up A Little

We've written a little bit about the poor choices for the open Senate seat in my state of Michigan. One of those candidates aligned himself with someone called a twitch streamer who riled up plenty of folks by stating that "America deserved 9/11, dude." Yeah, it was a lousy thing to say and yeah, we should probably be a little ticked off about it. The candidate hasn't rejected the notion of that lousy thing to say.

Here's the thing. It isn't worth getting outraged about it. Doing so just gives the noise more oxygen to grow. If we ignore it, this streamer will eventually be forgotten. His Mom will yell down to the basement to tell him to turn down the volume and clean his room.

Today, too many people only tune in to media sources and cliques that agree with them and ferment their outrage. They don't want to hear any differing viewpoints. They want to be mad and they want to be heard.

Let's lighten up a little bit. They can't drag us down to their level if we don't let them. This is our chance to be the adults in the room and give them a better example. If we diffuse their rant and offer calm, reasonable discussion, the outrage can't grow.

Sometimes life presents us with opportunities, disguised as problems. This wave of self-induced outrage fueled because we have gotten too thin skinned is one such opportunity.

Let's lighten up and show them a better way, an "adult in the room way." We've overcome challenges in the past because ordinary citizens did extraordinary things and led more to join them in noble efforts to make a positive difference.

We can call out the obvious inflammatory rants that carry no basis in facts without being sucked into the mudslinging. Let's be the adults in the room and the accountable citizens of America. And let's lighten up a little. Life is good.

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