The Internet used to be a liberating, informative place to engage with others until I started gaining reply guys. Every time I posted anything on my social accounts, men and random accounts with cartoons for an avi would flock immediately to me and weigh in on what I said. Their incessant need to mansplain and/or presumptuously flirt with me, made me not want to express myself online at all, but that all changed when I witnessed the actions of one courageous woman – one who just randomly decided to give her weirdo reply guy a shot.
When I saw that actress, singer, model, and goddess-walking-amongst-us-mortals Zoë Kravitz was out and about being flirtatious with Channing Tatum, one of her biggest stans, I paused. The courage it must have taken to donate her time and energy to one of her most devoted himbos inspired me to reconsider if one of my reply guys was my Mr. Right all along.
After all, they start off pretty harmless before they start being creepy and suggestive!
Zoë and Channing have yet to publicly label their relationship. All we know is that they met as coworkers in 2017 for The Lego Batman Movie, became friends, and now Zoë is directing Channing in her directorial debut Pussy Island. When they’re not on set, Zoë is seen generously donating her valuable time as a career development mentor to Channing. She makes me think I also have it in me to fix my reply guys or at least get them verified with little blue check marks!
It’s so sweet the way they stand around in Brooklyn wearing t-shirts and jeans, riding on bike pegs, and laughing at how funny iced coffee is. She even convinced him to stop wearing crocs! None of my reply guys are cool, hot, or strong enough to abandon foam clogs, but what if I can convince my reply guy that they don’t have to control every conversation that involves a woman?! My himpathy for these reply guys has no bounds!
When I learned Channing now follows all 43 trillion of Zoë’s fan accounts, I knew that she counseled him successfully. Zoë, a seven-time Met Gala attendee, even extended her Big Brothers Big Sisters of America relationship to the next level by bringing Channing to his first ever Met Gala as a plus one. I’ll never bring any of my reply guys to anything of that level, but maybe if we start a dialogue we can move towards them understanding proper online etiquette and me upgrading them from blocked to muted.
Thanks, Z!
