WE WANT TO BE OFFENDED

We live in strange times.  It seems we like to be offended.  We like to be part of some unofficial (sometimes official) club of people offended by something or other.  We have an urge to find the underdog within us.  We look for like-minded offence-hungry people and make efforts to join them physically or in spirit.  It's a sort of a club where we feel we are not alone in our angst, whatever form that takes.  The angst can be real, imagined or manufactured to suit whatever our motive happens to be.

Not only do we like being offended, we want to be offended, otherwise we don't feel as if we belong to anything.  Sometimes, we go out of our way or wrack our brains to find an offending thing that suits us, then we grab the udders and milk it for all it's worth.

We can be offended by rudeness, a remark, a photograph, a memory, an insult, a joke, a TV show, something in the news, a symbol, a flag, gossip, a politician, an ingredient in a recipe, a fashion item, rich people, welfare spongers, old Tom & Jerry cartoons and on and on and on.

But we like, no, we want to be offended because it gives us a platform to deliver a sob story, a woe-is-me persona, a chance to get our story in the paper or on TV.  Jeez, we might even get a series out of it - How I Got Offended & The Year It Took Me To Get Over It.

Some media outlets love the boo-hoo celebrity and the blubbering "ordinary" person because it attracts attention.  Some viewers/readers are sympathetic, some are apathetic and some are offended by this blah.

Sadly, within the bandwagon of bs underdog yarns, there will be genuine people with genuine reasons to feel hurt, betrayed and scarred.  But we might miss them in the avalanche of the mock-desperate in search of recognition.

What offends me? Well, just never get stuck in a lift with me.  It could be a long night.