If you see something you don't always have to say something

It happens all the time. People see a statement of some sort on Facebook or Twitter that relates perhaps to their gender or class or something of the sort, but not to them in particular."I cannot let this stand without telling the world that I am not one of these people!"Hilarity ensues.OK, not really hilarity. And in fairness, this isn't something new. We saw it at scale in May 2014, when there was an outpouring of women using the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter after yet another man who believed he deserved female attention killed women for not paying attention to him.Many men felt it was necessary to tell us that #NotAllMen were like that.We knew that, however. In fact, the less likely you were to have to declare #NotAllMen, the more likely it was that you were one of those who were not one of those men.Think back to Hamlet:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

When someone is so insistent that they are not one of those awful people to whom you're referring, it speaks to their fear that they actually are one of those people. As my brilliant friend Nina Perez has noted, "Shutting the f*** up is 100% free and always in style."If something I say doesn't apply to you, well, then good! Have your cookie and you don't have to barge in to tell us it doesn't apply to you. Chances are, if it doesn't apply to you - we probably already know.Photo by (cup)cake_eater via Flickr Creative Commons.