Current generation showing there's wiggle room on TLC's "No Scrubs" rule
RIP Lisa Left Eye Lopes and anyone else we’ve lost since 2002 (I’ve been kinda out of the loop due to frustration stemming from…all of existence). In February 1999, TLC released this seminal masterpiece in the R &/or B genre. It was a banger. It slapped. It hit different. It brought the noise and occasionally the pain. It kept that same energy. It chazinged, gooched, bammed, powed, zokked, and krakkadoomed its way to the top of the charts, officially putting men on notice that they can expect to be involuntarily celibate if they were a broke loser and didn’t do anything to get out of that category.
I was nineteen at the time, working on finishing my first year of college, weighing career paths, nervously awaiting my first baby and the horribly awkward conversation I’d have to eventually have with two sets of parents when my girlfriend’s stomach got too big to be ignored. I had absorbed and been put off by a couple years’ worth of boy band nonsense (although I’ll admit I sing along to Backstreet Boys nowadays), seen the decline and foretold the death of Rock &/or Roll, and was happy to engage with music made by pop acts who actually wrote and produced their own stuff. I had a clear enough direction in life and understood the song wasn’t directed at all men, just a subset.
I did, however, know a few scrubs and was happy to see them get offended and buttocks-hurt. An old friend of mine once said “If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that barks is the one that got hit”. You can do the math on that aphorism. I had given my virginity to the woman I intended to marry, so I figured I was set for life (I was wrong, but that’s another story). Those guys of low-relationship quality tended to get laid a lot and were even able to scam their way into long term relationships. I figured the song wasn’t totally lined up with reality’s true and authentic self. Fast-forward twenty-two years, and it’s only grown more tragically true.
Gone are the days when women only have to remind, warn, and teach other women to not get involved with the bad boy. Now they have to do that and help them avoid having a kid with him to fix the relationship, moving him and his collection of liquor bottles in, and having another kid with him so as to coax him into putting a ring on it. Increasingly radical feminist dogma has discarded men as all but unnecessary for anything outside of donating sperm. Having no professional drive and pining for extravagant pay despite stagnation in one’s personal skillset has whined and harangued its way into the mainstream. Women excuse their sloppily fat and incurably lazy video-game addicted men, justifying leaving them alone seven evenings a week to their game consoles and designer chairs because “At least they’re not up at the club hitting on ho’s”. Men who applaud and encourage the worst types of feminine energy and behavior are lauded as allies. Straight white men can’t sneeze loudly without igniting all sorts of blue-haired ire. Watching old movies and television shows to find problematic elements (then blogging about how “this wouldn’t be made nowadays”) is actually a job. We’ve crossed the threshold in some regions of more babies being born out of wedlock than born in it. It’s against the grain to be in shape and know your way around a socket set. Canceling someone via Twitter who didn’t hurt you and has no influence in your life was conjured into existence by…Voldemort, I’d have to guess. Spending a large amount of time on one’s hair and outfit, dancing with your bros on TikTok, and arguing against men who see it as their responsibility to work for wages and provide is seen as a viable career direction. Makes one want to throw up and then throw up on the putrid puddle of throw-up one just threw up.
So I guess if I were to remix and release a cover of “No Scrubs” (believe me, I’m considering it), I’d have to update it for modern times. Working titles include the following:
“Some Scrubs”
“Several Scrubs”
“Not No Scrubs, but also Not Not No Scrubs”
“Not too Many and not too Few Scrubs. The Perfect Number of Scrubs”
“Enough Scrubs to Balance out the Toxic Alpha Energy in the Room”
“Baby Bear Scrub Porridge: just the Right Scrub-perature”
“Doctor, Scrub and Prep for Surgery (on this booty)”
“Scrubs and F-Bois: is there a Difference? (Either Way, I’m Getting Lucky Tonight)”
“An Indeterminate Number of Scrubs. I’ll Know it When I See it"
“Tolerable Scrub Masculinity”
“Scrubs Welcome but only if They Pass the Vibe Check”
“I Could really Go for some Scrubs and Tacos right about Now”
“Wet-Ass Scrubs (in my hot-tub)”
“You’re not a Scrub so I’ll save You until my 30’s after a Whole Mess of Scrubs have quote-unquote ‘Scrubbed That’”
Hey there, beloved reader! Don’t stop reading yet. I enjoy writing and creating content for you, but I don’t get paid to do it just yet. Recently, I took on the Herculean task of fixing America and wrote a book on the subject; the very literal-titled “I’ll Fix America Tonight”. There is a a link where you can conveniently add the book to your Amazon cart (if you’re flush with about $20 in cash right now) or your wish list (if around $20 in cash is a little too much right now, but hypothetically not too much in the near future). Buy it, and help end poverty (namely my poverty). Thanks for reading!
Image taken from:
https://theinkblotters.com/2019/02/28/throwback-thursday-tlc-no-scrubs/
