(PatrioticPost.com)- What is the world coming to when even the game show Jeopardy! isn’t safe from the easily offended social media outrage mob?
During Monday’s episode of Jeopardy!, one of the “answers” contestants had to ask the question for was “Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is also known as Grinch syndrome because this organ is too small.”
Naturally, the correct response was, “What is the heart?”
But the easily offended can never let anything slip by unnoticed. Instead, outraged, they take to Twitter and issue the standard “that’s not funny!” response.
Dysautonomia International, a non-profit organization supporting research into autonomic nervous system disorders, tweeted a short thread excoriating Jeopardy! for “promoting outdated misogynistic terms” to described the disorder.
What is “misogynistic” about Grinch syndrome? Who knows.
Demanding an apology “on behalf of our community,” Dysautonomia International claimed Grinch syndrome was an “offensive term.”
Rather than simply let the outrage mob work itself into a lather until it forgot why it was angry, Jeopardy! made the mistake of apologizing.
In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Jeopardy! wrote that “after hearing from the community” they found that they used “an outdated and inaccurate term for this disorder.”
The category the question appeared in was “Plain-named maladies.”
Plain-named maladies are often somewhat inaccurate, not to mention outdated. Jeopardy! didn’t invent the term Grinch syndrome. However outdated or “misogynistic” it might be, it is actually a term that was at one time used to describe postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. There are many such outdated terms for known maladies — like “Bronze John” (yellow fever) or “Black dog” (depression).
But facts, reality or history rarely factor in when the Twitter outrage mob gets offended.
Content with its pound of flesh, Dysautonomia International quote-tweeted Jeopardy’s apology tweet and thanked them for groveling. Naturally Dysautonomia International also provided Jeopardy! with the penance it must perform in addition to its mea culpa — suggesting the show watch the organization’s video on postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
One angry Twitter user, however, was not content with the apology (they never are). Replying to Jeopardy’s tweet, she demanded an “explanation as to how this term made it to air” because “almost everyone with POTS hasn’t even heard of it.”
Well, now they have.
