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Dear FGCU Students: Ignore the Jesus Man

By Paris McDougle
Staff Writer


If you’re a student here at FGCU, you should know exactly who I am referring to when I say “Jesus Man.”
Odds are, you or one of your friends have been harassed by him on campus or held up by one of the large crowds he’s attracted. His misguided sermons and audacious judgement of students makes Jesus Man rather difficult to ignore. His aggressive and radical ways attract larger and larger masses of onlookers each day.
It feels like every day I see multiple friends Snapchatting pictures and videos of Jesus Man. They may post captions making fun of him or denouncing his extremist and offensive views. Some students even interact with him, yelling back and forth, making an even larger scene.
Although most of us dislike him and wish he wasn’t ever-present on our campus, we’re always giving Jesus Man attention and posting about him. As a result, we are spreading his message and his face, giving him a larger platform. Why?
Jesus Man is old news. He’s here on campus every day and shouts the same ignorant atrocities at unsuspecting students. He consistently causes traffic clogs on main campus, and even follows us through our phones, haunting our Snapchat feeds just as we had thought we escaped him.
Here at FGCU, we pride ourselves on being tolerant and diverse.  We accept everyone, regardless of gender, religion, sex, race and so on. This ideology directly counters the radical and divisive opinions that Jesus Man possesses and attempts to spread here on campus, which is why we shouldn’t associate ourselves with him.
No, we can’t stop Jesus Man and his posse from coming onto our campus, since it is a public space. However, we can take away their platform. We are wasting time and energy focusing on Jesus Man and unintentionally spreading his toxic beliefs. If we continue to shower him with attention, he will be inclined to come back time and time again in hopes of racking up an even bigger audience.
To those who argue with Jesus Man: what do you gain from yelling at a brick wall? Not much, right? Just save your energy.
The moral of the story is that we should collectively stop paying attention to Jesus Man. We don’t gain anything from interacting with him. When we do that, we only help him push his odd, radical agenda. Let’s continue to promote peace and unity, rather than division and hate.

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