Witz DOESN'T Pick: Suffix-Gate

I've freakin' had it with the "-gates." One time, 30+ years ago, there was a scandal involving The Watergate Hotel and now every single goddamn could be scandal is referred to as a gate? It doesn't make any sense and it's finally broken me. I am a broken man. This is Suffix Gate.

I finally hit my breaking point yesterday when I saw more footage about Barack Obama NOT wearing a lapel pin American Flag. Ignoring all of the absolute insanity involved in anybody CARING, NOTICING, or DISCUSSING this (and it's really really hard to do that), I will go straight to the part where one awful news channel half-jokingly referred to the incident as Lapel-Gate. DIE. Immediately. Oh, sorry, not you reader, just anyone who has referred to anything as Gate since 1980. You see, a quick look at the wikipedia, the Yes Man of collective knowledge, told me that, "Since the Watergate scandal, the media has on occasion referred to social or political scandals by adding the suffix '-gate' to one of the key words used to describe the scandal. This new label has sometimes stuck but often a new name is used. The process is known as -gate construction." Ok, that's understating it. Here's where everything goes horribly wrong.

"The first such naming after "Watergate" was the French 'Winegate'. 'Wine' being similar to 'water' in composition, it was an easy pun to make. But this set a structural precedent in time for'Koreagate'." AHHHHHH. If you aren't laughing or shouting right now, something's not right with you (or, conversely, not right with me). KOREAGATE? See how we let the media get away with things. The whole "gate" reference, inside-joke, easy way out thing should have gotten old DIRECTLY after WINEGATE. Water/wine. Ok. KOREA? NOT SO MUCH. And that's where we let it get out of control.

Fajita-Gate occurred in 2002 in SF when policemen fought civilians over a bag of drugs that turned out to be Fajitas. The Iran-Contra Scandal was, apparently, at least once, referred to as Iran-Gate. Janet Jackson's breast was Nipple-Gate, Ashlee Simpson's lip syncing on SNL was Ashlee-Gate, and Monica-Gate was the Bill Clinton fiasco. IT HAS GONE TOO FAR. I no longer care if people are half-joking when they refer to these things if the name sticks. Lapel-Gate is going to be repeated through the media. I will hear it again somehow and I will go nuts. We have given meaning to a part of a word that never ever had that meaning to begin with, nor did it really acquire it. It really WAS CALLED The WaterGATE Hotel. They didn't cleverly add that in post-production. So much has evolved out of it due to stressing the second syllable of the word. What if people pronounced it WATERgate instead of WaterGATE? Gate wouldn't have as much emphasis and we'd go with what makes way more sense and say things like, "Election-Scan," when referring to the 2000 election, "Iraqi-Scan" when referring to the Iraq War, and "Burrito-Scan" when referring to the one guy at Chipotle who always seems to give me less chicken in my burrito then the other employees. Something's up there, and I'm ready to use my lapel camera to capture it. Unfortunately, I then won't have room for my lapel American Flag pin, which we all know is totally normal to wear EVERYDAY if we are real Americans, so I guess I won't be able to run for office ever. (Can you imagine if I were to run for office and Witz Pickz was discovered and pointed out? First of all, I'd get a ton of hits and that adsense would really pay off! Second of all, the news media who doesn't understand context, sarcasm, or jokes, would call me out on all sorts of ridiculous statements like, "When I look down and see my suave collection of excess hair gathering in the drain, I almost chuckle with the knowledge that I have just suaved myself and lessened other men in the eyes of the ladies of the world." Then, they might ask me questions like, "You once stated that you worked harder than God. Is that true?" I'd be forced to say, "Visit Witz Pickz and find out-- also, click on the ads on the sides so I earn a few extra hundredths of percents of a cent.

What was I-- oh yeah-- "-gate" equals bad. Get a new schtick, the media-- like covering relevant stories with minimal bias. Has anyone else noticed that The Nightly News is kind of ripping off Witz Pickz? Each night they pick stuff to talk about, some they like, some they clearly don't like? And it has a catchy name with consonance...it's...it's...News-Gate!

Netflix-Gate = Where the eff are my movies, I sent them in four days ago,
Witz

P.S. They're not all gems, folks, sometimes it's just a Tuesday with nothing much to say...