“You know what they say, opinions are like armpits. Everybody’s got em, and most of the time they stink!” – OJ Simpson
It’s feelin hot, hot, hot outside these days, probably because it’s July. We’re just a few days past Christmas in July in fact, which means there’s five months to go until the fat man makes his rounds; breaking into our homes, eating our food, and making sexual advances towards our mommies — if he was a black man he woulda been shot by the police by now, this is what we mean when we talk about white privilege, it’s literally everywhere, educate yourself. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, five months til Christmas, and five months ago we had no clue what was coming down the pipe.
February, remember February? Back when we thought that Kobe’s death and the presidential election would be the two big stories of the year. Yikes. Five months from now, who knows? Frankly, if you told me that in five months I would be dead from boubonic plague, or will have somehow become a billionaire involved in a polyamorous relationship with Abella Danger and Sara Luvv I’d accept both as realistic outcomes (If you don’t know who they are, wait until the end of the blog and do some Googling…maybe use an incognito tab, grab a tube sock, and lock the door too), that’s just the kind of year we’re having.
I expected 2020 to be a little wacky, it’s an election year, and our last presidential election year was 2016, which was absolutely fucking bonkers. In case you forgot here’s a very abbreviated list of all the ridiculous shit that happened in 2016:
Feds got into a shootout with a militia in Oregon. The entire Trump campaign. Prince died. CBS canceled CSI: Cyber. Hillary’s emails and Comey’s big announcement. Grab ’em by the pussy. A judge didn’t seem to bothered by Brock Turner raping unconscious women. Muhammad Ali died. Pulse Nightclub Shooting. An alligator devoured a 2-year-old at Disney World. A sniper opened fire during BLM rally in Texas, before being blown up by a robot. The wildly entertaining DNC and RNC were held ahead of the election. The Summer Olympics. Lochtegate. Gene Wilder died. We sent a commercial flight to Cuba for the first time in 50 years. John Hinckley Jr is a free man! Terrorist bombings in New York and New Jersey. Jose Fernandez dies in a boating accident. Trump and Hillary debate. A train slammed into the Hoboken train station during rush hour. People’s cell phones started randomly catching on fire. The fucking Cubs managed to win a World Series. Donald Trump was elected president. All that Dakota pipeline mumbojumbo. A guy shoots up Comet Ping Pong pizzeria to stop an international ring of powerful child molestors. John Glenn died.
At the time 2016, was the wildest year ever, but compared to 2020 it ain’t shit, and I perish the thought of where we’ll be four years hence. As the winds of history blow stronger now than then, so too burn the flames of conversational conflict. That’s a pretentious way of saying, ‘everyone has lost their fucking mind.’
There’s been an upward trend in societal lunacy since 2016, and the events of the past five months have certainly accelerated it. It seems I can’t have a conversation anymore without someone proselytizing about something that I don’t really give that much of a shit about, and I’m gonna be honest; it’s getting pretty fuckin’ annoying.
I try to avoid it, but these people have a way of cornering you, and ducking their lengthy diatribes on the morality of wearing a mask or defunding the police, can be a tad tricky, especially when my wits have been dulled by the consumption of marijuana and alcohol.
I have it on good authority that a longtime friend has taken to shouting at people for hours on end about why they need to support the BLM movement, and burn our system of racist-capitalist-oppression to the ground. This occurred among a group that was enjoying patio drinks along with the soft breezes of a summer night at the Jersey shore — I hear she’s been doing it over the phone as well.
Another person has used the phrase, ‘it’s personal’ with regard to Joe Biden’s campaign against Donald Trump. No it isn’t. There are very few people for whom the 2020 presidential election is personal. Actually, I can think of two; Donald Trump and Joe Biden. You getting riled into a tizzy by CNN, the New York Times, and social media does not make the election ‘personal.’ Unless you are on death row and expecting a presidential pardon from Trump or Biden, this election is not ‘personal’ for you. With that in mind I’m begging you all to cease and desist with the social media diatribes and comment section shootouts.
Human beings were not designed for the degree of conflict they currently encounter on a daily basis. It seems like every interaction whether digital or face to face is laced with toxicity. I don’t have a degree in any kind of medical science, but I do listen to a lot of Joe Rogan, which makes me feel as though I’m qualified to tell you that constantly jacking up your heart rate because some guy you had tenth grade physics with shared a meme about the benefits of universal health care, is not a healthy behavior.
The 4th of July fell on a Saturday this year. I celebrated by getting boozed up with family and friends, hanging out on the beach, and enjoying a great meal followed by ice cream and fireworks. I logged onto Twitter the next day and saw numerous, multi-tweet threads that were time stamped from 18 hours earlier. For those who aren’t so tech savvy, this means there were a considerable number of people who spent one of the most fun holidays of the year arguing with strangers through a computer screen. That’s a very stupid way to spend a summer Saturday.
Actually, getting into hours long feuds with strangers on the internet is a stupid thing to do no matter what day it is. Literally anything else would be better than spending your life, your limited time on this amazing planet, arguing with morons on Twitter. You could masturbate, build a bird feeder, read a book, train for a 5K, learn origami, the list goes on. What you don’t need to do is go around arguing with people because you have a cable news and social media addiction.
If the mental health of yourself and those around you isn’t a good enough reason to stop disowning family members because they posted a picture from the women’s or womyn’s march or however you spell it, then consider this; it makes you look like a massive douche.
Most of the people on your Facebook friends list are probably people you haven’t seen in years. That’s what Facebook is; a repository of people who came into your life at some point in the past and are now only worth a quick ‘HBD’ once a year and a ‘like’ when they eventually screw up and have kids. Thanks to your daily, psychotic rantings on Facebook, their memory of you as ‘a fun guy to play beer league softball with’ has been replaced with ‘that nut who thinks hitting a cop in the face with a brick is one of the responsibilities of citizenship.’
Don’t be the psycho who goes from ‘cool softball teammate’ to ‘Che Guevara stan club president’ over the course of an election cycle. Save yourself from becoming known as ‘that weirdo who was almost in tears while shouting about climate change at the annual block party. Vote how you wanna vote, go to a rally, donate to a campaign or cause, boycott a company or TV show, do whatever you have to do to live your life in a way that aligns with your moral compass, but do us all a favor and shut the fuck up about it.
Meathead Media 