BuzzFeed, the internet’s traffic monster, isn’t just a website, it a content-creation machine — complete with a YouTube channel that tosses out videos on topics as varied as “Women’s Ideal Body Types Throughout History” to “Americans Try Canadian Candy for the First Time” (which, astonishingly, has more than one million views). Two of their recent videos, however, make their staff and target audience look almost impossibly narrow-minded, ignorant, and bigoted. With a dash (more than a dash?) of hipster weeny tossed on top. First, feast your eyes on this video, where a collection of disproportionately queer and/or feminist Millennials discuss how they’re Christian, but still cool:
It’s hard to improve on Mollie Hemingway’s takedown of this sad little display, but it is truly strange to see a group of young Christians condescendingly set themselves apart from a caricature of their brothers and sisters without even mentioning Jesus or the Bible. But they do mention their sexual identity, their politics, their tolerance, and their odd and unbiblical beliefs (“I do believe in monogamy before sex.” Whaaat?) As Mollie points out, these cool kids need to brush up on their biblical literacy a bit. The (unmentioned) book contains some rather stern warnings about spiritual pride:
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.’
Moreover, the general Christian public — the public they seem so ashamed of in all their hip queerness – gives more of their time, money, and heart to the poor than any other American demographic. They’re condemning — and setting themselves apart from — millions of America’s kindest and most generous citizens. But those same people probably have icky views about abortion or sexual morality, so . . . yuck.
Then, just when I thought the “I’m a Christian” video was the worst, I watched this one, where Buzzfeed dudes put on a police uniform:
My favorite moments, in no particular order:
“That badge is real shiny.”
“Ahhh, this is the hard part.” (As a guy handles — gasp — a gun)
“Ahh Jesus.” (He looks at the officer’s belt, with flashlight and other tools of the trade attached, and puts it down in apparent disgust.) “I can’t do it.”
“I am scaring myself, watching the mirror.”
“Honestly, I see jerk before I see hero, and that sucks.” (After looking at himself in a mirror.)
“The fashion sensibility of being a police officer seems like it would be . . . sorta a weird burden to deal with.”
With all due apology to my readers for using a liberal buzzword, but it’s remarkable how dehumanizing both videos are — to cops and to Christians. They’re painted as a mysterious and scary “other,” with BuzzFeed’s hipsters on hand mainly to assure you and everyone else that they’re not really like “those people.” In fact, “those people” are so bad, so scary, that when the hipster puts on their clothes, they see “jerk.”
It’s a tiny bit amusing, except to the extent that it betrays a mindset we see on campus and in liberal urban enclaves – where leftist Millennials combine condescension and ignorance to create their own toxic ideological stew. Ladies and gentlemen, the young liberal elite.