A hysterical and overwrought reaction by a North Carolina student to the song “Blurred Lines” has caused a permanent ban on both the song and the DJ who played it at a campus bar.
The kerfuffle occurred on Saturday night at Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub, about two blocks off the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The disturbingly hypersensitive student is UNC senior Liz Hawryluk, reports The Daily Tar Heel, the school newspaper.
Hawryluk took it upon herself to step right into the DJ box when the DJ played “Blurred Lines,” a 2013 song by Robin Thicke. She asked him to stop playing the song because, she and other critics say, it encourages “rape culture” with lyrics like “I know you want it” and, presumably, “Just let me liberate you.”
“Fundamentally, all I was aiming to do is to create a safe space in the Carolina community,” Hawryluk told The Daily Tar Heel. “In a lot of ways, violent or graphic images that allude to sexual violence are triggers.”
Triggers are the big new thing on the politically-correct left. Students and professors all over the country are seizing on triggers as a way to censor art and ideas they don’t like because, they say, the art and ideas can prompt troubling and unwanted emotions in their tender minds. (RELATED: Trigger warnings: New wave of political correctness hits campuses)
According to Hawryluk version of Saturday night’s events, employees at Fitzgerald’s told her to leave the bar completely.
Lauren Shoaf, a spokeswoman for Fitzgerald’s, said Hawryluk was merely asked to leave the DJ booth.
Whatever the case, Hawryluk then began harassing Fitzgerald’s on social media for allowing a DJ to play the #2 pop song of 2013 in a crowded bar.
Dozens of other students supported her attack. “I just think its totally unacceptable for DJs in a college town – or anywhere – to play it,” junior (and DJ) Trevor Dougherty said, according to the Tar Heel. “As a good DJ you can do better than playing a track that is so overplayed and so insensitive.”
“Especially in a liberal and educated college town, I think young women should feel safe to go out and have a drink and enjoy themselves,” Dougherty added.
This week, Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub totally caved and formally apologized to Hawryluk and her supporters.
“This song is played by many DJs at Fitzgerald’s, and other places, but it will never be played here again,” Shoaf groveled, according to the campus rag.
The DJ who played the song will also never be allowed to play music at Fitzgerald’s again.
None of this is good enough for Hawryluk. She said she won’t ever return to the bar—which Yelp users describe as a “humid room” that is a bit “like a bad wedding” except with “a ton of cornball dudes wearing running shoes and long socks with pastel shorts.”
On her Facebook page, Hawryluk proudly identifies herself as a “field organizing intern” for Amnesty International USA. Groups to which she belongs include Feminist Students United and Future Peace Corps Volunteers. She studied Chinese foreign policy and culture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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