by FRED FLEEGLE-GRIEBFLEISCHER, Alternate Reality News Service Journalism Writer
You would have thought that journalism was hard enough without women sticking their heads into the frame and shouting obscenities. And, yeah, you would have been right, but it's happening anyway.
CNN correspondent Ravi Agrawal was reporting live on corruption in India's Modi government, when a woman ran into the frame and shouted, "I'd like to [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [VERB FOR DISMEMBERING THE MALE MEMBER DELETED] you!"
"I...I've covered a lot of serious news stories," Agrawal would later explain, his voice breaking, "but I've never felt so...so...so violated."
ILTFCY (not to be confused with the frozen yogurt chain, because ewww!) started as a series of half a dozen YahooTube videos by giltriddenhag023 (whose real name was Galatea Pizzpfister-Pellegrini - which, yeah, to be perfectly honest, if I had been saddled with that name, I probably would rather be called giltriddenhag023 too, I think). She convinced friends, relatives and at least three unrelated poodle groomers to pretend to be doing news interviews so that she could interrupt them with the offending phrase.
Why would anybody think to do that? "I just found the whole thing funny," Pizzpfister-Pellegrini, clearly uncomfortable making a public statement that didn't involve suggesting cutting off anybody's sexual organs, squirmed.
I asked Pizzpfister-Pellegrini what she thought made her videos funny. "Well, they're comedy," she explained. "And, by definition, comedy is funny."
Okay, but what made them comedy? I followed up. "The fact that they're funny," Pizzpfister-Pellegrini told me.
I know a recursive logic loop when I see one (when I was in grade three, I had an afternoon naps teacher who was into original series Star Blap), but there was no smoke coming from Pizzpfister-Pellegrini's head, and her speech didn't start to stutter, so I decided after four and three quarters minutes of going back and forth like this that walking out of the interview and grabbing a ChaiZine Latte was my best option.
Pizzpfister-Pellegrini's videos didn't exactly go viral - their popularity was, at best, mildly sniffly - but they did - inspire doesn't seem to be the right word under the circumstances - let's say confuse people enough into wanting to imitate them, so women started to - should there have been a dash there instead of a comma? I put so many dashes into that sentence that I could have spiced a banquet for 100 people, but I kind of lost track of them all - let me try again.
Women started to run into the shots of real male reporters doing live interviews, shouting ILTFCY, giggling uncontrollably for several seconds, and running away. Over time (fourteen months, for those of you who are generality challenged), this practice worked its way up to national news broadcasts.
Although they try to be anonymous, some of the women who publicly shout ILTFCY have been identified. And, there have been consequences. Whoa, pandas, have there been consequences!
For example, a woman who interrupted the CBC's Raffy Boudjikanian (yes, really) reporting on Pierre Peladeau's predilection for pickled prawns, pimentos and pasta, was identified as June Strelastica. If she had to do it all over again, Strelastica now says that she probably wouldn't have boasted of her action on Farcebook. Or Tweetherd. Or, to her grandmother's sewing circle. Especially not her grandmother's sewing circle.
What about the consequences? Strelastica was fired from her job. Is that consequences enough for you?
"After it was no longer possible to deny her part in this...prank, we had to let June go," said her immediate supervisor, Franklin Pornbang. Polly Amorish, her not quite so urgent supervisor, added, "We were well within our rights to fire Ms. Strelastica. She dirtied the good name of Montreal's Department of Sewage!"
Uhh, okay.
"Can we really blame the women?" said psychologist and part-time computer keyboard Stanathan Blotski. "When the estrogen courses through their bodies, they need to release all that female energy somehow. And, frankly, this is a lot healthier for them than eating a carton of Randy Rocky Rhodes ice cream! Mmm...Randy Rocky Rhodes ice cream..."
"Yes!" CBS' Bill Martens, whose live stand-up segment in front of the White House on the US' deteriorating relationship with Russia was interrupted by a woman gleefully shouting ILTFCY, insisted. "Yes, they should be blamed! Women should totally be blamed!"
"Blame is such a harsh word," demurred an other psychologist (who dreams of someday being a part-time computer monitor) Monanette Villaneucki. "I prefer to think of it as 'responsibility with extreme prejudice.' In any case, this is a way of demeaning well known men, of putting them in their place, of telling them: 'Bad dog! Bad, bad dog!' And, not in a bedroomily playful way, either."
Okay, as pranks go this one is more silly than bust-a-gut funny, but, ultimately, where is the harm? By deflating the egos of pompous male reporters, don't
A young girl's blond curls appeared on my computer screen, and she shouted, "I'd Love to Fucking Castrate You!" Outraged, I sputtered, "Hey! I thought you only did that to television journalists!"
"What can I tell you?" the girl grinned. "We're branching out." Then, she giggled for a few seconds and vanished.
That was when I realized that ILTFCY was a scourge that must be stopped.