Times sure have changed.
Back in the day, racists of all stripes knew they could count on the Orange County Register to provide them a forum to express their vile stupidity simply by reporting the news and allowing readers to comment anonymously. The unrelentingly bigoted vitriol soon became an embarrassment for everyone who worked at the Reg and a source of inspiration for the Weekly's former column “Racist OC Register Fustercluck of the Week.”
Then, the inevitable happened: the Reg forced would-be commenters to do so via Facebook, thus presumably ensuring that folks wouldn't post hateful language anymore. So guess who's now taken over the commenting section of the newspaper?
]
STONERS!
That's right, stoners. Just take the following fustercluck that appeared in the comments section of a story concerning the discovery of a mysterious set of bones in somebody's backyard: “Bones found in backyard believed to be father of previous resident.”
The fun begins with “Top Commenter” named Rick Ed White, whose profile picture reveals him to be a wizened old coot with the wrinkles and eyelid sagging of a human Yoda.
“My grandson used to buy his weed on that street in the '80s,” Mr. White remarks.
“Now he only has to go to the collective to get his weed,” responds another “Top Commenter” with a suspicious-sounding moniker, Monk Dean, and a profile photo of what looks to be a beaten up jalopy missing its passenger door.
“The times they are a chang'n,” [sic] White chimes in again.
“haha,” says “Top Commenter” Mike Grimm, whose profile shot reveals a reveler who likes to get down on the dance floor with booty-shakin' ladies.
Obviously, Mr. White isn't a real person. His public Facebook profile contains nothing other than comical commentary on Reg stories. Dean and Grimm are similarly scant as actual people. But who cares? We'll take phony stoners over genuine racists any day.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).