This is a real thing in the world.

[Click to embiggen.]
"Sizing Up Sperm: Each of us was the grand prize in an ultimate reality competition, the amazing race a sperm makes on the road to fertilization. Millions of sperm compete while overcoming armies of antibodies, treacherous terrain and impossible odds to reach their single-minded goal. To illustrate the full weight of the challenge, Sizing Up Sperm uses real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to reach a single egg." Care of the National Geographic Channel, or NatGeo for you hipsters out there.

I was just thinking recently how I loved flipping through the channels and having my choice of literally countless stories about the epic journeys of straight white dudez constantly at my fingertips, but it would be supercool if I could watch something about the marathon quest of sperm.

IN HUMAN SCALE!!!1!!11!!eleventy!

The hat tip goes to Shaker CjR, who notes via email: "And from what I've already seen of the ads, it's a 'oooh, look at the big strong manly sperm overcoming obstacles to thrust themselves upon a poor innocent ovum' bull." Indeed so. And, lest anyone think I'm just inexplicably averse to SCIENCE!, it's not that I have a problem with a show about the life of sperm; it's that I have a problem with the way this particular show is being marketed. The framing is reminiscent of how Tales of Important Straight Cis Able-Bodied White Men are told, and thus it's not surprising that the marketing is crap.

And the particular way it's crap—reminiscent of how Tales of Important Privileged Men are told—is not a bug, but a feature. It's no accident the human sperm-avatars look like they should be holding a fucking flag to stick into the ominous egg, once they've conquered it.