Saturday, November 20, 2010

Got Junk?

The news media have discovered that males have “junk.” And they’re determined to beat it (um, the new catchphrase, that is) like a dead horse.

Unless you’ve been out to sea without a radio or wireless connection, you know that airline passenger John Tyner refused a TSA pat-down, warning: "If you touch my junk I'm gonna have you arrested."

Overnight, it became the put-down heard around the world. The media labeled the Californian a folk hero and now cannot stop touching its own journalistic junk. On Google, I counted over a hundred headlines containing some variant of “don’t touch my junk.”

Some actual headline samples:
Total Quality (Junk) Management
Week Ahead: Don't touch my junk!
'Don't touch my junk' flier is tired of fame
"Don't Touch My Junk" Rally Cry Gains Support
Tom Keane: TSA touched my junk
Is 'Don't touch my junk' the new 'Don't tase me, Bro'?
Touch his junk
Congress Should Defend My Junk
Report: Americans vastly overvalue their 'junk'
Anthem for Our Age: Don't Touch My Junk
‎Friday p-Op quiz: 'Junk' Edition
‎"Don't Touch My Junk" Goes Viral: Man Defies TSA‎
Finally: The “don't touch my junk” guy speaks
Don't Touch My Junk T-shirt designs
‎'Don't touch my junk' & other big news
‎Junk legislation: Circumcision might get banned in SF
Touch My "Junk" And I'll Miss My Flight!
T-Shirt: "Do touch my junk."
Google even offered to “Create an email alert for don't touch my junk.” Marvelous.

Men have been referring to their “junk” as “junk” for quite some time. Like our juvenile tendency to rate certain parts of the female anatomy as they parade by, it was kinda just between us guys. And like “cool,” that other overused word popularized by Beavis & Butt-head, the catchphrase “don’t touch my junk” will now get its own entry in the Urban Dictionary. Webster’s won’t be far behind.

And naturally, to make matters worse, the media frames the entire TSA debate as a choice between posing for a nude photograph or being groped by a government worker.

A Los Angeles Times editorial offered the best advice to the freaked out wankers who are obsessed with their junk: Shut up and be scanned. Or don’t fly.

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