A whale of a Tinder tale

I have kind of an interesting relationship with pick up lines on dating sites. They’re usually gross and horrible but I kind of love the possibility of coming up with new ones. It feels like a pseudo dating improv comedy exercise. Though in my heart I know I probably shouldn’t indulge the douchebags that use them.

I woke up one morning to a gross pickup line on Tinder, so naturally I posted the whole interaction on Twitter:

What happens when you message me on tinder #PunCritique pic.twitter.com/0zYUQeEsgS

— Katy Koop (@katykooped) March 30, 2015

I told him there was a whole world of whale puns. In fact that the homicidal killer whale’s name is Tillikum. TILLIKUM #PunsAreImportant

— Katy Koop (@katykooped) March 30, 2015

He has stopped responding but I’m still having fun pic.twitter.com/Id3cRuRv3p

— Katy Koop (@katykooped) March 30, 2015

this pun works because you’re lowering her self worth by calling her a whale AND adding a threat of violence. As we know, girls love that

— Katy Koop (@katykooped) March 30, 2015

Feeling pretty proud of my snark game that morning, I bragged to my mom about the interaction and she said totally seriously:

“Wow, I can’t believe you got sexually harassed like that.”

And I said, kind of upset that she didn’t congratulate me on how totally amazing I was or how she didn’t laugh at all, like not even a pity chuckle:

“I mean, it is Tinder. That’s just something that happens on dating sites. It’s normal.”

And that’s when it sunk in: sexual harassment is so normal it’s not even offensive when it happens.

We all know it’s normal for people that are famous, whether on an internet platform or in traditional media. Who knows how many stalkers have targeted Emma Watson? Sent sexually aggressive tweets to people like Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift? There’s a reason many female celebrities make the choice not to be available on social media and those that do have to take a lot of harassment. Laci Green had to stop filming her “Sex Plus” YouYube channel because she had a stalker sending her threatening messages and pictures of her house. The founder of Femsplain Amber Gordon had a man sending her negative messages and emails every day asking her to break down how exactly she was going to spend the money she was raising for her website. The woman behind Feminist Frequency Anita Sarkeesian actually wrote an article breaking down how much harassment she gets in a week, many of them detailing how she’s a prostitute, that she should kill herself, and that they hoped she would get raped (spoiler: it’s a lot).

We know this. We’re certainly not happy about it but most of us, when we post on Tumblr or Twitter or any other social media sites are not going to get stalked or have rape threats, so the idea of “sexual harassment” seems like a thing that only exists in outdated training videos for your part time job. The thing is though, is that it still exists in our day to day interactions. It can be the terrible pick up lines on tinder and okcupid or the people looking for nudes on tumblr. You’re a search away on Tumblr from finding Tumblr pages filled with snapchats and kik pictures of naked girls, which you look and you know that those images aren’t put up with their permission. It’s a group of old men flirting with you when you sell them tickets asking when you get off work. It’s even angry customers that will not calm down when they’re speaking to a female manager, that they want to wait to see the real boss.

It doesn’t feel as damaging, if you’re not getting stalked or rape threats or worried that someone is going to kill you, but the fact that there are these modes of thought still in place, that people think they can say any degree of these things to women, is part of a big problem. Maybe for the Tinder/OkCupid/nudes situation it’s because people feel safe to be awful. The internet is moderately anonymous and you can say the things you really want to say or normally wouldn’t say. In real life, you’re mostly going to get problems from old men who are probably just going to stay sexist. But the fact that there are different degrees of harassment happening virtually at all, it’s not a good thing. We probably shouldn’t brush it off, though I’ll probably still have fun with it if it happens again. I love puns.

Header image: Photos.com