Humor requires responsibility
By Ryan Eanes
Student Columnist

Boy, do I feel bad.

And I don’t mean in a physical sense, although stress can and does cause physical side effects. But I’m not sick, even though I wish that I could hide out in bed for the next week and a half and pretend to have a fever and a tummy ache and athlete’s foot for good measure.

But this isn’t high school anymore – for me that ended two and a half years ago, so I don’t have Mommy to run to and get a note from to get out of class for the day, just because of something that I did. I can’t run and hide and try not to take responsibility for my actions.

Although getting a note from Mom was effective maybe once in my entire life, after that my mother caught on and wouldn’t sign any more “excuse notes,” this is college. As we all know, one of the primary purposes of college is to teach you that it’s time to grow up and take responsibility for your own actions. That is because while your actions may hurt someone else in the short term, in the long run the one that is really hurt is you.
I’ve been writing for the Old Gold and Black for all of a month and a half now, and yet in that time I’m sure that I’ve managed to irritate, annoy or infuriate more than a few of you because of comments that I made that probably came across as insensitive, derogatory or caustic.

So if I have hurt you, let me try and take the first step to fixing the problem by saying “I am sorry.”

Ever since middle school – and probably before that, but I’ve blocked out most of my memories of elementary school – I’ve been the guy that ends up speaking without thinking. My foot now fits nicely inside my mouth mainly because it’s been there so many times.

What this has usually meant for me is that my friends will typically disregard my comments by saying, “Oh, that’s just Ryan, he doesn’t mean it.” But that’s the problem with most forms of mass communication, such as the newspaper.

Even if I say something that I feel is “in jest,” there is inevitably going to be one or five or 30 or more people who don’t feel that what I wrote was appropriate.

More often than not, people don’t tell me that they think I wrote something distasteful, but sometimes you find out that, in no uncertain terms, you were wrong.

I guess my entire point is that by trying to sarcastically and caustically analyze the events going on around me at all times, I often “miss the boat,” so to speak, and end up offending people. Please realize that this is not my intent.

We all have too much going on to have to worry about what some jerk in the newspaper said about this or that, and because of that I am going to make a sincere, sustained effort to try and keep my sometimes edgy and offensive comments to a minimum.
I think that there’s something more to this whole issue of media responsibility. Most of us are still just students, and although you might think, “Only students read the paper or watch WAKE TV or listen to Wake Radio,” this isn’t true. In a university community like the one that we are all a part of, our opinions are heard loud and clear by both the student body and the faculty and staff that take time to read or view our media creations.

However, I’m only a student trying to make people laugh by writing a column each week that is fair and appropriate yet frank and humorous.

So again I’ll say it – I’m sorry if I’ve belittled or insulted or just infuriated you.
I’m going to start policing myself more and more, and maybe one day I’ll be able to think before my oversized mouth decides to start flapping.