At first, it reads like an innocent, happy event. “Join Emoji Nightmare and Katniss Everqueer, two of Vermont’s favorite drag queens, as they [as they] share stories and do a craft. Fun for the whole family!” [Warning: Adult Langauge/Topic]
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So reads the glowing event coverage written by a Kilton Public Library employee about a visit by Vermont man Justin Marsh who appeared in the drag persona he calls Emoji Nightmare.
“See more about Emoji and Katniss on InstaGLAM: @dragstoryhour.vt.”,
It’s not all happy rainbows and exclamation points after this. If you search for Emoji Nightmare on Instagram or you will see the most misogynistic, grotesque and hateful representation of a woman that can be imagined. If a professor were to ask their class to draw an image to convey the most extreme hatred and disrespect towards women, they could do no better than the cartoon character Justin Marsh created called Cumsterella, who is part of a musical project he created called Cum Dumpster.
Cumsterella depicts a crawling, naked woman with a trash dumpster for a head who has been ejaculated on (considering how she is shown to be dripping with semen and her dumpster head is overflowing) by what appears to be hundreds or thousands of men.
If the Justin Marsh/Emoji Nightmare wanted to tell the world how much he considered women to be trash and nothing more than a receptacle of male bodily fluid, this is the way to do it. Don’t tell me it’s just a joke. I’ve had it with jokes where women are the butt of the joke; this is no joke. It’s classic textbook misogyny. Where is the outrage?!
This is the artist who was invited by the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, NH to read to children. Where are the feminists? Why are they silent?
In the new culture wars battling all around us, they seem to have been muted by a kind of battered women’s syndrome. Everyone is afraid to speak up and say something about Mr. Marsh/Ms. Nightmare being an obviously nightmarish choice for someone to read to children. Everyone that is but the brave Robert Nied, a former library trustee in Chester, Vermont who confronted this issue in May 2022.
Mr.Neid, who prides himself in carrying himself in the increasingly rare attributes of acting in a reasonable, calm, and professional manner, urged that an event featuring Mr Marsh/ Ms Nightmare reading to children in his community library simply be paused while the trustees took some time to think about it.
In his comments about it, he alluded to the Cumsterella cartoon displayed on the performer’s social media page. After that, he was attacked in ways he never expected. Neid soon after described them in his resignation letter as “unprecedented in their hostility, baseless, uninformed, untruthful and some are motivated by personal malice. In the last several days, I have faced insults shouted from a passing car and several public comments that cross the line into defamatory.”.
Neid was not alone in resigning from the Whiting Library Board. Five other trustees, nearly the entire board, and a librarian also resigned amid the fallout of his one suggestion that the library pause the proposed event, an entirely appropriate and responsible concern and one that any good library trustee would advise.
But wait, there’s more;
“The Lebanon Public Libraries are dedicated to creating a culture of inclusion for every attendee, regardless of age, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or spiritual belief.”
You can have a culture of inclusion in Lebanon, NH, unless you are a woman deeply offended by Mr. Marsh/Ms. Nightmare’s disgusting “art.” No culture of inclusion for you! You don’t matter, not to the performer or the people running the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon. They probably think they are kind and super aware and well-educated people, but in reality, their actions are tone-deaf and cruel, and they are too arrogant to consider otherwise.
So cruelly arrogant and blind, they see no hypocritical irony in reminding the public that they will not allow any discord or disagreement of any kind that could be considered biased language. Try it, and you will be expelled immediately. Never forget, ladies-we do not matter to the powers that be who run the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon. Kindly be a lady and shut up and go along with (and pay for via taxation) this abuse happily or else you will be kicked out.
“Please note, any homophobic, racist, sexist, or otherwise biased language will not be tolerated. Any attendee who uses such language will be immediately removed from the event.”
Children’s Programming
This is a ridiculous farce. It’s bullying and forcing silence in the face of disgusting insults to all women. Its bullying that is also the heihght of cowardise, of hiding behind a sexual minority group that cannot be critisized. Enough. It’s time to evolve beyond this societal dysfunction that allows abuse to fester unchecked. Years ago, people would have known this innately without needing it pointed out to them by me or anyone else but now, we are not just being told to be silent, we must pretend not to notice being made into the worst possible kind of sexualized joke. Don’t continue going along with it like it’s nothing. Wake up! Be courageous! Say something!
Nobody should get a pass for making offencive epiteths against women simply because they personally belong to a sexual minority but that is exactly what happened in Lebanon this past weekend. Do not leave this kind of world to our daughters and granddaughters!