There's never a week that goes by without people on the internet losing their marbles over something ridiculous.
Over the last few days, social media has been divided by yet another controversy, this time about a classic Christmas song that has been around since the 1940s.
It all started after a radio station in Ohio dropped the song "Baby It's Cold Outside" from its usual 24-hour Christmas rotation, citing the #MeToo movement as a reason.
Cleveland's Star 102 WDOK-FM made the decision to not play the song this year after receiving complaints from some of their listeners that the lyrics feel "manipulative and wrong." Others also pointed out that the song normalizes "date rape," in reference to the lyrics "Say, what's in this drink?"
"The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place," host Glen Anderson explained in a blog post.
While our current socio-cultural climate has made people more sensitive to these issues now, the call for radio stations, malls, and other outlets to reconsider playing "Baby It's Cold Outside" is nothing new.
One Minnesota-based couple, Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski, has always disliked the message of the song, which centers around a conversation between a couple during which the man tries to tries to persuade a woman to have another drink spend the night with him, instead of venturing out into the bad weather. Despite her repeatedly saying "The answer is no," the man persisted.
"I've always had a big problem with the song," 25-year-old Lemanski told CNN. "It's so aggressive and inappropriate."
Liza added, "We started thinking of the open-ended questions that the song has. You never figure out if she gets to go home. You never figure out if there was something in her drink. It just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth."
Since no one else came up with a solution, they took it upon themselves to fix up the lyrics, which were originally written by Frank Loesser in 1944 for him and his wife to sing as a closing song at parties.
Liza and Lemanski rewrote the winter-themed tune and released their now-viral recording of it for everyone to hear.
They made sure that when the woman says she "really can't stay," her male counterpart accepts her response and doesn't insist. In the end, the woman in the modern version of the song gets to go home, but not before she says yes to a date at The Cheesecake Factory.
Have a listen:
"I thought we were just doing like a really good, cool, funny thing and it just felt right," Liza said. "And emphasizing consent is one of the causes that I've always really been behind because I don't think I can think of one friend of mine who's a woman who hasn't been in dangerous situations with men."
Liza and Lemanski's updated lyrics have received a lot of support, with people even suggesting that they fix other songs with questionable lyrics, including Robin Thicke and Pharrell's "Blurred Lines" and Ella Fitzagerald's "She Didn't Say Yes, She Didn't Say No."
Despite all of their efforts, not everyone agrees that "Baby It's Cold Outside" is problematic.
More recently, comedian Jen Kirkman explained that the song has an entirely different meaning than how it's being interpreted today.
"Say what's in this drink" is an old movie line from the 30's that means "I'm telling the truth." She wanted to get down and stay over," she tweeted.
I'm so tired of this. The song seems odd now not cuz it's about coercing sex but about a woman who knows her reputation is ruined if she stays. "Say what's in this drink" is an old movie line from the 30's that means "I'm telling the truth." She wanted to get down and stay over. https://t.co/3TaQbUSoB1
— JEN KIRKMAN (@JenKirkman) December 1, 2018
On Facebook, some users have pointed out that people are being overly sensitive and looking too deeply into something that was not created with the intention to offend. They argue that at some point we won't have any more music to enjoy because someone will find it offensive and have it banned.
One such comment was posted by a Facebook user who took it from a friend :
Since WDOK in Ohio decided to pull "Baby it's Cold Outside" from its playlist because someone was offended, I feel that these other holiday songs must also be removed as they are offensive as well. Do so immediately.1. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus: subjecting minors to softcore porn
2. The Christmas Song: Open fire? Pollution. Folks dressed up like Eskimos? Cultural appropriation
3. Holly Jolly Christmas: Kiss her once for me? Unwanted advances
4. White Christmas? Racist
5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town: Sees you when you're sleeping? Knows when you're awake? Peeping Tom stalker
6. Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Everyone telling you be of good cheer? Forced to hide depression
7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Bullying
8. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas: Forced gender-specific gifts: dolls for Janice and Jen and boots and pistols (GUNS!) for Barney and Ben
9. Santa Baby: Gold digger, blackmail
10. Frosty the Snowman: Sexist; not a snow woman
11. Do You Hear What I Hear: blatant disregard for the hearing impaired
12. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: Make the yuletide GAY? Wow, just wow
13. Jingle Bell Rock: Giddy up jingle horse, pick up your feet: animal abuse
14. Mistletoe and Holly: Overeating, folks stealing a kiss or two? How did this song ever see the light of day?
15. Winter Wonderland: Parson Brown demanding they get married...forced partnership
See how ridiculous everything can be twisted? Everyone gets so offended these days that it is impossible to even communicating anymore. We as a society can't have any music, interact with others, build anything, believe in anything because someone else will be offended. Just stop the madness.
