Besmerch (an explanation)
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As I birthed Besmerch and gleefully went about generating the designs for the many products on the Besmerch Shop, I considered where the impetus was coming from. I recognized the nascent motivations right from the beginning, but they didn’t really solidify until I had a few conversations with friends who lent their perspective and expressed their concern about what damage the brand might do or behaviours it would encourage.
These are valid and serious concerns, but as I thought more about it, I realized that Besmerch was not about hate or violence or provoking intolerant behaviour. To be fair, people will co-opt pretty much anything and use it as a tool if they are vehement enough about whatever tirade they are on. Thus, I cannot concern myself with individuals who purchase and display, use, or wear Besmerch merchandise in a manner that is illegal or otherwise despicable. If some far-right Trump supporter plasters a bumper sticker on their diesel-powered libtard attack vehicle, or a radical environmentalist social justice warrior wears a t-shirt to a Pride parade, it is not for me to decide who displays what, where and when. And anyway, fuck their reasons.
The Besmerch brand is, if nothing else, about the celebration of irreverence. It gives a giant middle finger to many of the ideas or beliefs held by some (or most) who have decided that it is the responsibility of those who do not share their beliefs to fall in line and automatically accommodate them. This is a form of tyranny, and tyrants need to be poked and prodded and outright defied (it's good for them). Besmerch is a fuck you to the tyranny of the zealots behind each and every one of the ideas plastered on the merchandise in the store.
With regard to offending people with Besmerch, those who use their own pronouns, are non-binary, religious, adhere to a specific ideology, etc., and who understand that these are personal journeys are not the ones who give a fuck anyway. The don’t need to spew their opinions forth and get upset when others don’t automatically cow-tow to their demands on how they should be treated, understood, or addressed. They realize that their journey is their journey and has nothing to with anyone else, nor should anyone need to care.
My problem lies with the people who DEMAND that I change my behaviour just because they are going through a personal journey and who become indignant and are affronted by anyone who doesn’t immediately side with them and agree that their newfound identity is more important than what anyone else believes.
You want to be called they/them? You get upset when people say certain things? You believe in a god? Great. Have fun. You do you. But if you think your personal beliefs should matter to anyone else than you, fuck your pronouns, fuck your triggers, and fuck your religion. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, zealots feel targeted by these insults directed at the ideas they hold sacrosanct because they can’t take a joke and don’t understand that the joke is not directed at them personally despite how absolutely RIDICULOUS these ideas are in so many ways.
All anyone has to do is give me one good reason that I shouldn’t lampoon any of the ideas besmirched on the Besmerch shop and I will seriously consider their argument. Reach out using the contact form and let’s have a conversation about it.
Until then, take a deep breath, buy some merch, and fucking relax.