Music

The Straight White Guy Festival is the summer bash no one ever asked for

by Mark Teo

Straight white dudes: If you’re one of ’em, you’ve lucked out. At the game of life, you’re playing on the easiest setting!

Of course, this isn’t news to anyone. (Except for the worst of pasty, penis-wielding bunch, who question why “there’s gay pride but no straight pride” or why there’s “black history month but no white history month.” Newsflash, y’all: that’s some some racist badman rhetoric you’re using. You’re basically the child who’s asking why “there’s father’s day and mother’s day, but where’s the childrens’ day?” EVERY DAY IS CHILDREN’S DAY, BRO, AND WE GAVE UP OUR MARRIAGE AND HAVE REPLACED SEX WITH EATING FROZEN DINNERS IN BED WHENEVER YOU MERCIFULLY PASS OUT.)

Which is why we’re not sure if this is a joke: In Columbus, Ohio, someone’s advertising for a Straight White Guy Festival.

Flyers have been going up all over the Midwestern town, and it’s completely possible that it’s a farce—except for the fact that there’s an actual date and time listed. It’s possible that it’s a fabrication, but then, it’s possible that it’s an actual, real thing. Toronto, after all, almost had a men’s rights music festival happen this year.

As for the Columbus event, posters around the city say the event’s happening September 20 at Goodale Park, which actually has its own music series. Assuming the event’s real, who would even play the damn thing? Theory of a Deadman? Check the poster below, which purports to “celabrate [sic] our enjoyment of being straight white and male.”

Local Columbus station 10TV, who tipped us off to the story, hasn’t been able to prove if the festival is a hoax; a rally opposing the event has already been organized. Even if it is a joke, it’s still not a particularly funny one—guaranteed, there’s a group of dudes who’ll rally around the cause, and these will be the type of men that championed the #NOTALLMEN hashtag, argue that the media is suppressing statistics about spousal abuse against men (LOL), and that men are being oppressed by a, uh, pervasive feminist movement.

These are men that argue that are the first to complain that you’re infringing on free speech when you call them stupid. Thing is, they’re stupid.

Indeed, even if it’s a joke, it’s not a funny one. Unless, of course, the point is to round up Columbus’ pickup artists and men’s rights activists for a round of public laughter. Still, if it’s humour that we wanted, we would’ve just went to Straight White Boys Texting.