2013.  The year that was muffled in thick shrouds of stupidity, baffled and battened round with heavy walls of imbilicity, cluttered and crammed with enough boneheadedness so that we couldn't even hear it when the Cultural Grim Reaper came knocking to let us know that we got fatally stupid.  Oh man, do we got stupid. 

Of what do I speak?  Maybe you saw those loathsome new ads for Obamacare  Here's the full index of them at a domain name that ought to come with prescription strength painkillers just for the way it puts your teeth on edge: doyougotinsurance.com

Let's talk for a minute about what this campaign is not.

It's not clever.  I suppose it could have been, but instead they went for the shelfworn groaners every time:

Concerned dad hands car keys over to goober son.  Caption reads:  "He just got his drivers license. I just got heartburn."  Wah-wah-wah-wahhhhh!

They were not written by anyone with, shall we say, an impeccable ear for street parlance.  One duo of chums queries, chumlike,

"Yo mom, do I got insurance?  My girlfriend broke my heart, so me and the bros went golfing."

Indeed, I myself have seen bros with broken hearts, and golfing is what they do in that situation.

They are not written with, 'ow you say, sensitivity toward women.  Several of the ads focus on grinning chicks working out so they can have "hot bods" (with glasses of wine nearby); a line of dubiously attired partygoers preparing to do "shotskis" (I guess this is a thing in Colorado?) which they can now afford because they are not paying as much for insurance; and several more depict young women engaging in other typical behavior associated with your average young woman, like, um, Rollerderby.  And "being a woman" by running away with a cardboard cutout of Ryan Gosling, which obviously you would need health insurance for, because BEING A WOMAN!  WOOOOOOOOOOOO!  

And of course there is the one where a pop-eyed young lady gives the thumbs-up to her blister pack of birth control pills, inwardly crowing about her date

OMG, he's hot!  Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control.  My health insurance covers the Pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.  I got insurance.  Thanks, Obamacare!

So those are a few of the things that these ads are not.

But most amazing of all?  These ads are not fake. Not satire.  Not a mean-spirited dig meant to rub dirt in the wounds of real people with real needs.

Planned Parenthood of Colorado, however, assumed they were. 

They indignantly sputtered on Twitter:

 

Unfortunate that anti-obamacare folks are #slutshaming #women who use #birthcontrol  #GotInsurance #ThanksObamacare http://twitpic.com/dkxrep

So there we are, folks.  Things have gotten so awful that even the awful people can't tell if the other awful people are being awful on purpose in a good, compassionate, progressive awful way, or in the old-fashioned, mocking, whatevershaming awful way, because THEY'RE JUST ALL SO AWFUL.  Oh, sorry, am I awfulpersonshaming?  Am I moronshaming? Hey, give me a break.  It's been a tough year, and I'll take what I can get. 

Race to the bottom, folks.  If you're lucky, you'll only be paying 300% more for your insurance when you hit the floor.