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forthechubbies · 1 year

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Mommy Virgin

Hybrid!Alpha!Babydaddy!Ceo! JJK X Pregnant Chubby! Reader

Chapter 1

Christmas Dreams

Plant many and be fruitful

An idiotic quote your family stands by religiously-For generations, Big families run in our genes..and it always come up boys. Traditionally, Our family has a record for birthing only boys.

However, The winds of a change blew on a beautiful Saturday daybreak, welcoming a baby girl to the world. Maybe 'Welcomed' is far-fetched-

"That girl is going to be the end of our family." Our father exclaimed to your mother, already doubled over with grief-" Ever man, we set her up with her declares! My patients is suffering!" He huffed.

"Her innocence is our misery. She refuses them every time." Your mother added. "She will kill our bloodline at this rate."

Your father could do nothing but hold his weeping wife.

And where are you? On the steps, listening to every painful insult after the next. You didn't mean to be the way you are-it's just men-You couldn't finally grasp the appeal of men. Never as a teenage girl and never now.

Every 'Gentleman' your parents shove in your face always leads to the same demands. Barefooted and pregnant. In other words, not your cup of tea.

So you hatched a plan over three years, causing influential events to take place—'Influential' to your parents, An mirage to yourself.

The story goes, you met a handsome mystery man who swept you off your feet and demanded you stay in his care, getting you out of your parent's hair. In reality, You were the handsome stranger, secretly saved up and moved out.

You hated lying to your parents but detested how they treated you more.

Your scheme forced you to keep the image of this handsome stranger. Why can't we come to the wedding? Your 'fiance' values privacy, including pictures. Why can't we visit? He's a horrible germaphobe.

The list is endless.

Despite how solid your lie was, It all went to ruin following your parent's desire to be grandparents. The obsessive behavior continued for several days straight until the pressure became too much.

"I'm pregnant!" A foolish outburst you immediately regretted as it slipped past your lips. " We wanted it to be a surprise-"

The cheers blazed through your phone's speakers; your face formed a painfully cringe.

What have you done?

You've successfully given yourself a time limit for a decision of paramount importance, something that needs preparation and stable funds.

But yet Your shoes imprinted the carpet in the waiting area office, A sperm bank. You were given a catalog of...donaters; you shivered at the creeper gentleman pictures- you flipped through page after page by no one suited you.

Your heels clicked as your arrived at the front desk, waiting patiently for service before another catalog on the shelf caught your eye.

Trading this for that, You sat back down and explored the new faces. The book revolves around the Eastern hemisphere showing you the prettiest men to grace this green earth.

Chu Buyeon, A long haired military man.

His medical health is fantastic, and his face-he's gorgeous. Maybe him? Yes, his perfect. Somewhat satisfied, You stood to quickly- Shoot!

The thick catalog's binger finally gave way after decades of service, scattering the papers about the ghostly waiting room.

You weren't pleased until every paper was accounted for- Now that, that nightmare is over...

Crunch!

Oops, You missed one.

The paper limped in poor condition thanks to your carelessness. "Shoot!..Excuse me I- step on one of ..the..Jeon Jungkook."

You froze mid-confession to seize the moment to read his information. This? Mr. Jeon was the picture of health as well as looks to boot. Saying any gentleman in this book is just handsome should be seen as a federal offense..

"This is hard." You exhaled.

"You can take the book home-" An uninvited voice startled you off your feet, yet she continued unphased. " The most important decisions take time."

I bet she got that out of a fortune cookie. Ember, The one of the head nurses. Remember her; She actually plays a big role in this story.

Despite the generic quote, You took the odd nurse's offer.

..12:45pm..

They're both amazing.

You've been at this for hours on end; your eyes swapped between two pictures until you felt a headache.

Why is this so hard? I can't believe how difficult this is… He has cute eyes but his nose is adorable.

What the poor heroine fails to realize is the work of crafting a baby, especially without meeting the daddies men. In all honesty, both men were way out of your league; you couldn't physically imagine having a relationship, let alone bearing one's child.

Perhaps it's time for bed. You unwhined for bed, taking a small cup of hot chocolate to your room, not before getting distracted by your darling Christmas tree; this is your first Christmas on your own, and honesty, you loved it.

Despite your current problem, You watched the snow tuck outside in a soft white blanket-You loved the view so much you settled in the living room in a handmade fort with hours of kdramas for entertainment.

Thirty minutes in, Your blinks began lengthier each time until they closed.

A chilly breeze brushed through your clothes. You could have sworn you closed that window instead of your warm living. Your eyes fell on dry grass.

"Huh!?" Now, On your toes. I mean, high heels? You were in business attire...breath! Inhale and exhale...

Where am I? A field...looks like. Okay okay..What do you see? Grass..River...Man? Man! He can help me.

"Hi?...Hey..Hello..I seemed to be lost-"

"Yah!" A gentleman from behind you roared. "What are you doing !? You're in the dead zone! Run towards me!" The man was bolting straight ahead towards clueless you.

Deadzone? And I Haven't run since middle school.

A loud bam from the right knocked you off your feet. Your so-called Savior fired at you and is re-aiming to a clean shot.

The next thing you know, your nose is shoved against sweaty yet sweet-smelling skin. No longer on your own two feet, you were cradled like a newborn, gripping your actual savior's ivory shirt.

You squeezed his bulky shoulders. "There's two now!"

"Fuck! I forgot my gun at camp." Another bam blasted from behind him. This time grazing his side your realize he did it on purpose...It would have hit you.

" Are you okay?!!" You got a groan as a answer, but his strong arms stayed stable until you reached the other side. The gunshots creased after crossing a certain point.

Sticky strains of his hair stuck to his forehead. Your breathing heavier than he is - "You must be cold? Yeah." His breath puffed in the mind-numbing air. "Excuse me." You were shortly forced into his arms for security. "I don't want to drop you." He explained. Yet you didn't find it necessary to be squished against his hard body.

Count to 10-Wait, why?! I don't know anything to take your mind off his...rippling abs.. that I can feel through his shirt..and biceps the size of my skull, not to mention he hasn't put me down since he saved me-Ahem...

You silently agreed and remained silent until "My name is Chu Buyeon, by the way." He chuckled at your shocked expression. "Wa?..Why that face? You're cute."

Your cheeks warmed at his compliment. 5!

"Chu Buyeeeeon! Chuuuuu Buyeonnnnn!" Worried voices erupted through the base set.

"Shit. Im screwed!" He whispered, finally putting you down for the first time. " Stay out of sight," Buyeon commanded, tying back his long black hair in a bun. " I will be right back and-"He's leaving me here-oh, my good god, His back muscles. 4! No, wait, I passed four, right?

"You're bleeding!" Your cute squeak made him grin.

"It's a scrape. I will be fine; I've been shot several times." He threw your worries over his shoulder. "As I said, Stay out of sight, Kitten."

10! 10! He's-I can't

And like that, he disappeared into the camp to return several minutes later with a thick blanket.

"I was worried-!" You gasped, being off the ground once again. Do I even weigh anything?

Buyeon wrapped the blanket around your body before lifting you into his arms. "They saw me. Their right behind me. You got to hide." He exclaimed in short breaths.

You pulled the blanket to at least cover his arms. "What about you?"

"I'm fine. I've trained in worse temperatures." Buyeon stressed, tugging the blanket to cover any revealing skin on you. "You, on the other hand, is a different story entirely." He chuckled.

" Chu Buyeon! Your out past curfew. If you were smart, you would get your ass here, now! " The sergeant, out of all people to get busted by Buyeon, can't catch a break tonight. "Private!Chu! Buyeon! Have you gone berserk, Son?!" His heavy boots demolished the twigs and dirt as he stomped closer. "What's your malfunction !"

Buyeon dips his lips beside your ear. "Play dead." feeling your body instantly go limp, He stands, cradling your body. "An Unconscious civilian was found in the dead zone, Sir! "

"Where's your clothes?" The sergeant's voice changed to that of an anxious father. " It's four degrees out here..Give me her and put on actual clothes." You were snatched away to be tossed over the sergeant's shoulder.

...

Why haven't I woken up yet?

"Why were you out!?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I went for a jog, sir!"

"A jog, Huh? And coincidentally, you were there in the nick o f time..Why were you so close to the dead zone anyway? By Yourself, I may add!" The sergeant delivered a clean swipe upside Buyeon's head. "I only have one son!"

"Ais-" He soothed the sore spot. "She could have died if I didn't help her." Buyeon maneuvered around his father's fearful hands to seek refuge by your side.

He let out a sigh in response. "Just be more careful..at least carry your gun for fucksakes!" His father gazes at another problem, You. "You can wake up, missy. You're not fooling anyone. "

You immediately opened your eyes and sat up, bowing your head. "Im sorry for causing so much trouble."

"I'm happy you're alive to apologize. It's a pleasure meeting you, but round call is in -" He flashed his old wristwatch. "3 hours and 15 minutes...so we all should hit the hay." His father kissed your hand, something Buyeon cringed at. "You will sleep in my office-I will have everything set up."

He also added. "I hope you don't mind me saying, but you are gorgeous...I see why my son can't keep his hands to himself." He took note of Buyeon's arms that managed to snake their way around your body to keep near him.

He was busted for the second time tonight. Buyeon fought for his father to believe the only reason he was keeping you close was to share his body heat.

Despite, The blanket is already solving your cold issue.

Chu Buyeon🥰

#bts smut #bts x chubby reader #chubby reader #poly ot7 #yandere jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader #jungkook x chubby reader #yandere jungkook #jungkook hybrid smut #jungkook hybrid au #bts ceo au

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andy-clutterbuck · 4 years

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“Why?” | 7x16

#WHY DO YOU SNARL CALM DOWN RICHARD #please snarl at me #Rick Grimes #*#rg #S7 #stare and snarl and point things at me #i didn't say what you were pointing #*wants him to snarl and growl and be commanding* *wants to cuddle and baby him*#the endless quandary #where's that little girl from the taco commercial 'why not both'#D_DDY #Pat I'd like to solve the puzzle #[redacted] inside me #like give me babies and protect and provide for them #staying barefoot and pregnant was never appealing until now #jerk your chin up at me #i'd be like Motel 6 i'm always open

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collecting-stories · 5 years

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Nightmares - Sigurd Ragnarsson

@flokidottir-imagines-br : So, can you please write something really fluffy for Sigurd, late-night conversation with his pregnant girlfriend?

Nightmares | Sigurd Ragnarsson x reader

Sigurd was not his brothers or his father. He was not cut out for the viking life, he had no desire to travel the seas of the world in search of riches or kingdoms or powers. If he could live the way that he truly wanted he thought that he might be done with his brothers. That he would pack his belongings and shed his name, no longer would he allow himself to be Sigurd Ragnarsson or even Sigurd, Snake in Eye. He would be just another traveller on the road, weaving lore for people to listen to and playing music that they could be eased by. He wanted to go places but not for personal glory or the fame of title.

He could not have that life though. Perhaps he could still live as a farmer somewhere, a coward who hides from the ships and refuses to go near the fjord in fear he could be swept to far away places. But he couldn’t run from his name then. He would be the greatest disappointment that Ragnar Lothbrok had even fathered. Weaker than his brothers. His mind was plagued by thoughts of dying in battle or dying at sea or dying simply from the diease that Hvitserk said existed in those places. Terrible illnesses that the gods thrust upon their people who in turn infected the viking ships until all the men were sick and their families were sick and villages died.

Nothing could quiet those voices. Nothing could ease his mind. He’d tried some herbal remedy that he’d seen a healer use in the village but he was still riddled with an uneasy stomach and nightmares that kept him awake for hours. He tried walking around the village at night, letting the cold, salty air of the fjord wash over him as he strolled barefoot along the banks. But being so close to the water only made him feel worse and he imagined it infested with sirens and monsters that pulled him down into the black depth, smothering him beneath the surface. He tried sitting in the field and playing his music but his hands forgot the melody and he stopped more times than he started.

Sigurd had always been troubled by the thought of becoming a viking but the nightmares and the insomnia and the gripping fear that he tried to hide were more prominent now than they had been before. As if they had grown in size within a few short months. And they had. Because so had you. He had not yet proposed marriage as he had not yet decided whether he could provide you with a worthy life but you had fallen pregnant just five months ago. As you started to show so too did Sigurd’s insecurities and doubts about himself and his future. You had grown accustomed to waking in the morning to an empty bed, you companion already outside, shivering in the cold as he sat on the bench near the door, trying to talk himself into boarding a ship. He was no viking.

On the first night of your sixth month you laid down and pretended to fall asleep, listening for the sound of Sigurd’s even breathing. When you were sure he had nodded off you sat up, quiet so as to not wake him earlier than he would wake himself. It went just as you knew it would, he slept only an hour peacefully and then he began to toss and turn until finally he sat upright. He was so distraught over his dream he didn’t even notice that you were awake, sitting up in bed, as he leaned over, pressing his head to his knees.

“Sigurd,” Your hand on his back startled him and he shot up, looking over at you with eyes that were almost wild. He was still disoriented from his dream.

“You’re alive.” He breathed, almost hysteric as he sat on his knees and gathered your face in his hands and kissed you. “And the baby is healthy.”

“So says the seer.” You replied, holding his wrists to pull his hands from your face, “Sigurd, it was only a dream.”

“It was so real. I was on the ship with my brothers and there was a terrible sickness. I thought I was okay, that the gods had spared me but then you fell ill. I cannot go with them, I cannot be gone from you for even a moment’s time. The baby will come soon and I must be here to make sure you are alright.” He spoke frantically and as he did you attempted to guide him toward you. He moved easily, still pliable from sleep. Sigurd laid against you, head rested against your breast and arms around your stomach. The sound of your heart beating eased him somewhat and you petted his hair lovingly.

“Ubbe has said that you are not expected on the raid.” You reassured him. Raids took months, they were long and tiring and the travel was not for the faint of heart. While you knew Sigurd would’ve been fine and the ship might’ve been home in time you had still appealed to Ubbe to let your love stay with you.

“I do not ever wish to go.” Sigurd admitted. “I have been sick over it. I cannot give you a life to be proud of under the name Ragnarsson but it is not in my heart to be a viking. If I were to go I would never be happy.”

“Then I see no reason for you to leave.”

“I cannot be selfish.” Sigurd lifted his head to look up at you, “I cannot trade the happiness of my family for my own. You would be ridiculed, the wife of a man who’s father, the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, a king, is nothing more than a farmer.”

“My happiness has nothing to do with the name of your father or your title here in Kattegat. My happiness is yours Sigurd and I would gladly spend my years in the field with you if that would be what you truly want.” You replied.

“I think of the ships leaving everyday and I’m terrified. The gods did not make me for the voyage, I am not Hvitserk or Ubbe or Bjorn. I cannot withstand the armies that they face and I do not wish to die in battle so that I may be raised in Valhalla...gods forgive me for saying so. I just wish to be here, with you and our children in our home until we are old and sick of each other.” Sigurd laid his head back down and let you brush through his hair, closing his eyes.

“Then we shall do that. Though,” you kissed his head, “let us not get sick of each other.”

“I do not believe we shall.”

“Sigurd,” you called to him before he could fall completely back to sleep. “You mustn’t let these things haunt you the way they do. You are not so alone that you have to walk the streets by yourself to get rid of your nightmares, not when I am right beside you having worries of my own. We must meet them together.”

“I will come to you first.” He promised, eased out of his own terrors for the night and reassured by the sound of your heart beating steady beneath his cheek.

I’ve never written Sigurd before and I haven’t written Vikings in a spell but here is this!

taglist: @breathlesssouls @lif3snotouttogetyou @demonhunter1616 @flowers-in-your-hayr @alwaysadreamingoptimist @ms-allenbrown @arses21434 @glopsifum @aeflenpath @moose-squirrel-asstiel @vikingalexthedane @another-life-addict @born-in-19-96 @naaladareia @mysticthinking @thinkingsofamadwoman @mixedwiththemoon @titty-teetee @queenmissfit @marvelismylifffe @iluvmesomemarvelndc @absentmindeduniverse @his-paradox

#sigurd ragnarsson imagine #sigurd Ragnarsson x reader #sigurd ragnarsson fanfiction #sigurd lothbrok x reader #sigurd lothbrok imagine #sigurd lothbrok fanfiction #sigurd snake in the eye imagine #sigurd snake in the eye x reader #vikings fanfiction #vikings imagine #vikings fanfic #collecting stories imagine

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lodelss · 5 years

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Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2019 | 8 minutes (2,111 words)

In the past, the bow tie seemed to hold him together, kind of. Tucker Carlson had always been as red-faced and obstreperous as so many other conservative pundits, but he had never been known to be “cunty” or “faggot”-level offensive. Still, it wasn’t much of a shock earlier this week when progressive watchdog Media Matters unearthed him spouting slurs like that — a couple of racist remarks rounded out the misogyny and homophobia — during a series of appearances on Bubba the Love Sponge Clem’s radio show between 2006 and 2011. From Monday to Tuesday, after the first recordings surfaced, Tucker Carlson Tonight hemorrhaged almost half its advertisers.

That bow tie had been a flourish of propriety: a strip of cloth separating him from a loudmouth like Howard Stern, the “shock jock” who looks and acts like a dollar store rock star, grabbing his crotch for whoever will listen. But he dropped it the year he appeared on that radio show. It was Stern who hired Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (yes, that’s his legal name) in the mid-2000s to host a show on his second satellite radio channel, and it was on that show that Carlson crossed the line. That was where the shock jock and the political commentator proved that they were one and the same — the former played off conservatism, the latter played it up, but both relied on its foundation. “Well, you’re talking about God and illegals,” Carlson told Clem. “I thought we were just going to be talking about blow jobs.”

But what’s the difference, really? Blow jobs were once used for shock value. Now it’s “illegals.” The punch line being that neither one of them is transgressive in the end.

* * *

No one used the words shock jock for Joe Pyne, the host of It’s Your Nickel (that’s a reference to pay phones, kids, and I’m including myself here) who pioneered in-your-face talk radio in the ’50s and went on to create TV’s The Joe Pyne Show, which sometimes devolved into actual physical altercations between him and guest. No one really knew what to make of him. His unconventional style — dressed-up to dress down “pinkos” and “women’s libbers” and riff on, rather than read, reports — was neither news nor entertainment. It seemed to be best described (well, The New York Times and Time both did anyway) as an “electronic peepshow.” The personality-free press of the time considered Walter Cronkite the most trusted man in America and Johnny Carson the funniest, but Pyne, with his syndicated show on more than 200 radio outlets, was the most Machiavellian. “When it comes to manipulating media,” Icons of Talk author Donna Halper told Smithsonian Magazine, “he was the father of them all.”

Pyne briefly descended from his soapbox in the mid-’60s — for a week’s “vacation” — after bringing a gun to his show during the Watts riots, suggesting the world wasn’t quite yet ready for his kind of conservative appeal. It took until the mid-’80s, when the FCC was no longer so hard-assed and political correctness was all the rage, for Howard Stern to turn the shock jock into a thing. The idea was that PC America was muting real America, and personalities like his were there to liberate our ids … usually on the way to work. “They were pushing the limits of what you could hear on the public airwaves,” TALKERS Magazine publisher Michael Harrison told Thrillist of mavericks like Pyne and Don Imus, who set the stage for Stern. “That was the key to the whole thing: that it was on the ‘sacred public airwaves.’”

Full disclosure: I have always hated Howard Stern. His banality offends me: “The closest I came to making love to a black woman was I masturbated to a picture of Aunt Jemima on a pancake box” — that’s the kind of joke he makes. It’s the sort of quip that leaves a dumb bro stuck in 1992 in stitches. To be offensive your words have to have power, and his … don’t. He swears a lot and cajoles his guests into talking about fucking and snorting and it’s all very Free Speech, Motherfuckers! He can be sexist and racist and classist, because, hey! He’s sexist about men too! He’s racist to everyone! He drags every class!

Sorry, I just fell asleep.

The rebellion is a pose, because at the heart of Stern and all the other shock jocks is conservatism — 2.1 kids, strong moral fiber. They can joke about fucking and inhaling, because they ostensibly aren’t doing either. So what positions itself against PC America, in fact, at its core, feeds into it — the conservatism is the rebellion. Knowing that, you can see how Don Imus calling the members of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” can happen as late as 2007 on his radio show Imus in the Morning (he was fired by CBS and NBC, then hired by ABC). As David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker 10 years before Imus’s offense, personalities like Stern and Mancow Muller and Opie and Anthony appeal to the “audience that feels put upon by a new set of rules — sexual harassment guidelines, the taboo against certain kinds of speech — and wants release, if only in the privacy of the drive to work.”

The audience meaning white heterosexual men. The shock jock industry itself is predominantly white men (Stern’s foil, Robin Quivers, is a black woman, but she has never been the star attraction). Which is not to say that women can’t be as “offensive,” it’s just that the people in charge of hiring them would prefer them to be barefoot and pregnant. There are shockingly few exceptions. Wendy Williams, who rode the wave of ’90s hip-hop and shamelessly confronted celebrities like Whitney Houston with tabloid gossip (she also had a bad habit of trying to out rappers) was christened by New York magazine in 2005 as the “shock jockette.” She was “the black Howard Stern” right down to the middle-class moralism. Other than Williams, the female media personalities who cause offense — Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham — tend toward conservative commentary, presumably because the men on the top floor think they will be less likely to break a nail in those environs. “The complaints of Western feminists look like petty self-absorption when you line them up against human rights abuses in Third World military dictatorships,” is a thing Ingraham came up with — a misogynistic comment cloaked in doublespeak.

This genre of radio personality was dubbed by my colleague Ethan Chiel as the “outrage jock,” the political version of a culture and entertainment-aligned predecessor, who arose in the late 1980s after the FCC regulations on political talk became less clear. This is where a bow tie comes in handy. The outrage jocks market themselves as transgressive, but instead of fighting conservative America, they uphold it, a stance they brand subversive in a sea of progressive liberal media. Rush Limbaugh, who has the most popular talk radio show in America — 15.5 million listeners, according to Talk Magazine — was dubbed by National Review as the “Leader of the Opposition” back in the ’90s. “Rush took radio at a time when the norm was basically NPR. He comes into that church and blows it up,” radio host John Ziegler told The Washington Post in 2015. “Our presidential politics have become a kind of church. The media says, ‘You’re not allowed to say this, or this, or that, because we’re in church.’ People are sick of that.”

So: Stern 2.0, except instead of shouting about pussy, Limbaugh — not to mention Glenn Beck and Michael Savage — shouts about policy. You may remember him calling women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” in 2012 for advocating for contraceptive insurance coverage. “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception,” said the man who has been married four times. “She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

Limbaugh needs a brushup on his sex work nomenclature, among other things. But if you want to talk about pimp: Janet Jackson’s nipple ultimately killed the shock jock. In case you aren’t old, it happened during a performance of “Rock Your Body” at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in 2004, when Justin Timberlake tore off the right cup of Jackson’s bustier, exposing her breast. (Per Jackson, the red bra underneath the rubber was supposed to stay behind, but came away accidentally.) In response, more than 500,000 complaints, all of them from people presumably with nipples of their own, were reportedly lodged with the FCC. President Bush responded two years later by signing the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which raised the penalty for broadcasting “indecency” tenfold. With that, Howard Stern fucked off to satellite radio and the rest of the shock jocks kind of followed suit. Tucker Carlson was what was left behind.

* * *

“Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.” Tucker Carlson did not say that. That was Donald Trump in 2013 talking to Howard Stern about a pregnant Kim Kardashian in a radio show appearance that reemerged during his election campaign. On the same show, across almost two decades, the future president also agreed that his daughter was “a piece of ass” and dismissed flat-chested women and women over 35 (thank God). For all his work to divide the nation, Trump had a big hand in bringing shock and outrage jocks together, dissolving any sort of wall (!) between them. “If the political class is appalled by the notion that anything from the morass of ’90s shock-jock radio could become part of a presidential race,” wrote Virginia Heffernan in Politico in 2016, “it may be just as surprising to Stern’s fans, who proudly embraced the outsider-ness of a guy who couldn’t seem further from inside-the-Beltway political chatter.” TALKERS’s Harrison has called Trump “the first shock-politician.”

By the time Trump entered politics, shock jocks were no longer defining the culture and conservative commentators were filling the vacuum. They entered the mainstream on networks like Fox and the intellectual dark web via Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin. “The shock jocks weren’t defeated,” wrote Dan Jackson at Thrillist. “They went viral.” This is where Tucker Carlson fits in. He called his resurfaced xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic comments from Bubba the Love Sponge’s show (he described women as “extremely primitive,” supported child rapist Warren Jeffs, and compared the behavior of Muslims to animals) “naughty,” then equated contrition with betrayal. “We’ve always apologized when we’re wrong and will continue to do that,” he said on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday. “That’s what decent people do; they apologize. But we will never bow to the mob.”

Almost 70 years after the first shock jock hit the air, Carlson was toeing the same party line as his predecessors. “They claim that they’re just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes,” Rory O’Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio, told The Guardian in 2009. “It’s all bound together so when it’s convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it’s all just a joke. But when it’s not, they say they’re giving you information that you need.” Carlson’s comments were only shocking because they veered so sharply away from Beltway politics; with his regressive approach no longer couched in policy, they revealed him for the person he is. And even though advertisers have pulled out of his program, the notion that he could disappear like Stern is one from another time — conservatism is the status quo and there’s always room for it now, particularly when it masquerades as information rather than entertainment.

After Megyn Kelly left Fox, Tucker Carlson took her spot, and if Carlson were removed, a new version of him would sprout in his place. This whack-a-mole quality to outrage jocks extends, more troublingly, to their politics — if they are not outraged about one thing, they will immediately find another. They are as adaptive as comedians like Stern, use facts as props to play journalists like Cronkite, and influence voting and policy just as seriously. As Jon Stewart scolded Carlson and his cohost in 2004 on the CNN show Crossfire: “You’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate.” And without the FCC to shut them down for good, or at least out them as entertainers, the only hope is that their audience will realize that the most transgressive thing to do is to stop listening.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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lodelss · 5 years

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How the Shock Jock Became the Outrage Jock

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2019 | 8 minutes (2,111 words)

But what’s the difference, really? Blow jobs were once used for shock value. Now it’s “illegals.” The punch line being that neither one of them is transgressive in the end.

* * *

Sorry, I just fell asleep.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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