Trigger warning:
The following article contains at least one Faith No More
reference.
~
A hybrid of a social
justice power couple's Christian names has risen to be the top
gender-neutral baby name in the San Francisco bay area, displacing
mainstays such as Clarence, Ethel and Marmaduke. The U.S. Department
of National Vital Statistics confirmed that 'Joshanita' – a
portmanteau of Joshua McIntosh and Anita Sarkeesian's names has risen
from nowhere to become the moniker of choice for expectant parents in
areas of the country regarded as having strong progressive leanings.
A spokesperson for the department said:
“There are a million
tales in the naked city. As of 2015 an increasing number of these
tales will belong to people whose parents have seen fit to name them
Joshanita. Down the line we expect that a proportion of these
individuals, upon learning the origin of their names, will engage in
self-harm. Therefore we strongly recommend that money is invested in
counselling and suicide prevention so that these services are
well-established when this human time bomb goes off a decade or so
from now.”
Proud parents, Mary and
Joseph Crummer, who describe themselves as biblical other-kin told
MODE 5:
“Our child is a special
snowflake who was miraculously conceived during the height of summer
and who is destined never to melt, or to form part of the oppressive
patriarchal figure of a snowman.
“As responsible life
teachers we sought to avoid imposing a moniker that strongly implies
either a male or a female gender identity. If you type 'Joshanita'
into one of those websites that tell you the meanings of different names it
brings up no results whatsoever, although some sites will notify
social services in your area if their software detects that you may
be planning to call your child something idiotic, which is the reason
why we are now on the run – well that and the massive pension fund
fraud.”
“It's really cute the
way Joshanita pronounces the word problematic as 'probromatic'”,
airquotes Mary, adding that this is currently the only word spoken by
her three year old daughter.
“She says it literally
all the time while pointing at people and objects. To her everything
is problematic, even mommy and daddy! It's adorable.”
“We didn't want to
impose patriarchal language archetypes on Joshanita,” says Joseph.
“With the exception of
the word 'problematic' we avoid speaking in her presence. We have
done our best to isolate her from other forms of human speech by
means of earplugs that effectively reduce all human communication to
a series of baffling arm gestures,” he explains of his daughter, who
has also been taught to drop to a crouched defensive position and
hiss like a cornered animal upon sighting the popular videogame
character Bayonetta.
“We hope that in time
Joshanita will develop a language that is uniquely her own and that
this rare ability will not result in her being othered by less gifted
children and adults,” says Mary.
“Recently Joshanita has
been playing at being an elephant and behaving in a manner that leads
us to believe that she may be elephant other-kin,” says Joseph. “We
attempted to enrol her in a vocational programme for elephants at a
wildlife park in Maine but were turned down on the spurious grounds
that, biologically-speaking, our daughter is not an elephant.
“We now intend to sue
the park for an amount that, coincidentally corresponds exactly with
the multi-million dollar financial settlement that I have been
instructed to pay as compensation for my part in the gross
mismanagement of a series of pension funds. We have also set up
Patreon and Paypal accounts that will help to raise the money
necessary to protect our daughter from ivory poachers.”
Other San Francisco-based
parents who have been caught up in the recent naming trend are less
enamoured by the rising popularity of Joshanita:
“Without exception,
every kid I've met called Joshanita has been an overly-entitled little brat,” says Kindergarten teacher, Susan Hollier. “You might
as well slap a label on your son or daughter that reads: 'Brace
yourself because my child is a douchebag.'”
Linda Bishop is one of a
number of parents who felt brow-beaten into naming her child
Joshanita and who has now set up a support group for people who find
themselves in similar situations:
“My husband and I
foolishly let it slip to our friends that we were planning to name
our baby 'Larry' after my grandfather who raised me single-handedly in
the wilds of Kentucky following the death of my parents.
“We subsequently
received threatening phone calls at all hours of the day and night
accusing us of the cultural appropriation of a native American name.
We have also received letters from local schools and colleges
informing us that the name Larry is now regarded as triggering and
that they would unable to admit our child on grounds that this might
cause offence or distress to the other children, parents and staff.
“Eventually, in a moment
of weakness, I gave in and named my beautiful baby boy - Joshanita
Briannaquinn. I hope that this innocent child, who is ignorant of the
great harm I have inflicted upon him, and who gazes up at me with a
combination of wonder and reverence, will one day find it in his
heart to forgive me.”
Classes aimed at teaching
the increasing numbers of Joshanitas fundamental life skills, such as
Triggering Drills, are already springing up all over San Francisco
and New York.
Instructor Stephane Bony
says: “We instil in children from an early age the importance of
identifying their triggers by pointing at the source of their
distress and loudly and repeatedly shouting “NO!” When law
enforcement arrives we encourage them to accuse the offending person or
object of rape.”
Even non-progressive child
care services are being forced to change long-standing practices:
“For better or for worse
we have been compelled to move with the times,” sighs Patricia Mackney
who has run the Little Monkeys Bay Nursery for the past 27
years:
“Initially we altered
the words to If You're Happy And You Know It
so that they went: 'If you're happy and you know it jazz your hands.' We
did this to avoid triggering children who are distressed by loud
noises beyond their own incessant high-volume yelling.
“We have now banned the
song entirely following legal advice that we could be sued for
discrimination by the parents of children who are unhappy, or who
cannot say with certainty whether or not they are happy.”
Meanwhile, colleges across
the U.S. are developing new courses that will accommodate the
emerging Joshanita demographic when they reach their late teens.
A spokesperson for a
college that did not wish to be identified says: “Our aim is provide
the least challenging, undemanding seven-year curriculum that money can buy. If you don't leave our college more entrenched and convinced of the inherent rightness of your wrong-headed, narrow-minded world view then we will give you an extra hour in the campus ball pit completely free of charge."
Beyond the campus and the
kindergarten a generation of ordinary Americans are struggling to
make sense of the rise of the Joshanitas and the social justice
movement they herald.
Maria Bazell whose fading
dream of being accepted as a mature student by the Pittsburgh
Conservatory of Dance and Repertory becomes a
little less likely every day she puts on her workplace ID badge that
identifies her as Grade 2 Ball Pit Technician at the Land
of Sunshine Warehouse of Soft Play, told
MODE 5:
“I get parents coming up
to me asking me to pick out certain colours of balls from the ball
pit as they are giving their kid post-traumatic stress disorder.
Usually I just empty the ball pit completely. It makes it easier to
clean up the urine. Seldom a day goes by without a parent of a
multi-kin child calling the police because some of their multiple
personalities got lost in the tube maze.
“My ex-boyfriend came
home from Iraq with real honest to god PTSD. Now he calls me several
times a night threatening to kill me and his son. Nobody's giving me
any money or so much as a good god damn because I'm being victimised.”
Carine Vetch of Bay
Area Victim Solutions says:
“Maria's problem is that
she's from a poor, blue collar background and isn't marketing her
victimhood in a way that connects with writers at Rolling Stone
and The Washington Post. I would suggest that she secures a
higher paid job on the fringes of academia and then flees her home
for a few months to go travelling around Europe.”
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