EPISODE 227: ADVENTURES IN GIF TROLLING
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Where does the cursor go for those seconds that it disappears from the screen? Is there another me somewhere with whom I am sharing it, the Word interdimensional version of shared custody?
Or perhaps it gets the time to itself? Maybe it’s reading a great book right...now. And now. And now. Or maybe it’s writing one.
Maybe it’s not even the same cursor each time. Maybe what I see as a momentary disappearance is actually the ending of this tiny, seen-but-not-seen virtual creature’s life. If only I had thanked it. And it. And it.
How do they decide what shade of white to use for pages on the computer? And what shade of white is it, anyway? Snowflake? Santa’s beard? Of their eyes?
Are there people who collect fonts? There probably are, aren’t there. “Girl, you gotta see my 2017 Courier. That font is tight.”
The U.S. Senate is currently in the process of voting on a bill to take health care away from millions of Americans. They’re calling it “skinny”, like it’s the healthier option. Seems like it’s going to pass, too. The key figure – at least as far as the press are painting it – is a senator who suddenly finds himself in the midst of a terrifying health crisis of his own. He’s got great, government-provided insurance, and he’s got the seniority to do whatever the heck he wants. Even so, seems like it’s at least 50/50 that he’s going to vote in favor of this bill.
Oh and the vote just happens to be two days before the 52nd anniversary of Lyndon B. Johnson signing Medicare into law. (What is it with this administration and anniversaries?)
Meanwhile the president’s new communications director said some things on the record yesterday that most people wouldn’t say even in private, and that would definitely get your fired if you said it at work anywhere other than the White House.
And on Tuesday the President tweeted a really disappointing decision about transgender Americans made even more disturbing by the fact that staff in the Department of Defense reading the first tweet were concerned he was about to declare war on North Korea.
I don’t watch TV news, because I just don’t find it helpful (or accurate) most of the time. But social media all week has been an open wound. Almost every single post in my feed on Twitter the last three days has been about politics. It’s like “what would it look like if the internet could scream.” I keep going back to it, but at the same time, I have no idea what to say that would actually help in any way.
The truth is, the last few months I find myself regretting the things I post more and more. Most, I’m realizing, are really just little attempts to feel better. But that moment of gratification passes pretty fast, and leaves behind just a little more sarcasm and darkness (as well as a further record of what a knothead I am).
(Catholic Protip: Some say don’t post late at night. I would also suggest, don’t tweet at Catholics who insist that those whose marriages have not been blessed by the Church should not go to communion after you have been watching “The Young Pope”. Wow is his ultra-confrontational “Bow Before Zod” point of view seductive.)
In moments when I can step back, I realize again that the pain and horror we experience is something we can’t really run away from. I mean, we can try, but ultimately we have to accept it. And hey, when we talk about wanting to suck the marrow from life, to savor all of it, shouldn’t that also somehow include the bad stuff? I absolutely reject the notion that God creates tragedy or wants us to suffer. But I don’t think that’s to say that we can’t gain anything from the suffering we are forced to endure. In acceptance there is life.
So mostly on social media these days I just scan and scroll. And if I really feel strongly about something I try to say it in a gif.
For instance, when something sounds ridiculous, I have Lucille Bluth:
Also, fourth-wall breaking Frank Underwood:
Please, Mansplain at me More Kara Danvers:
Nail File cat:
Or, my father’s favorite way to spend a late weekday afternoon:
If I like something, I’ve got my man Phil Dunphy:
Olympic Village Vladimir Putin Action Figure:
Or, my absolute favorite, Emma from Glee.
God I love that one.
There’s Oprah when things get puzzling:
Kurt Hummel for feelings:
Ellaria Sand when I am just freaking out:
And Jim Lehrer when we all just need to breathe.
Some of it’s admittedly still kind of trolly, but mostly it’s my fumbling atempt to find a way to engage that is somehow value-added, and playful. As much as there are definitely major issues about which I feel strongly this administration must be challenged, I also wonder if one of the bigger problems in our culture right now is the narrowing of our discourse to just politics and "issues".
At Comic-Con last week I visited with Katie Cook, a wonderful cartoonist who I've mentioned here before. Each year she spends whole days to just sitting in a booth drawing tiny, 1 1/2 inch by three inch watercolor pictures for people. They have zero to do with current events, usually they’re figures from pop culture or based on people’s photos of their pets. But I find they always lift my spirits. Like the cursor on your screen, vanishing every couple moments, off to who knows where, they’re a little reminder of a bigger, better world.
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A POP CULTURE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
HBO, you just announced a show about “What if the South didn’t lose the Civil War?”
Exactly, Oprah.
And even though it’s being co-run by the showrunners of your most popular series, the reaction was pretty much straight up outrage.
There’s no show yet. And everybody’s definitely in a pretty fragile space these days. Still, maybe take a beat, think it through.
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Speaking of bigger worlds: This video feed from a satellite passing by Jupiter is just kind of okay at first (Can we all just promise to stop with the “2001” music for space stuff?), but stick with it a few seconds. It’s pretty astonishing.
For those worrying about whether current affairs constitute the end of the world, this video about the planet’s next billion years offers some other ideas. (My personal favorite: Y10K.)
(Also, Facebook recently shut down its self-learning AI bots after it began inventing its own language which its human creators could not understand. So, yeah....
And John McCain’s heatlh announcement prompted some strong articles, including a Time Magazine piece written by a cancer survivor with a great title: “It’s Okay to be a Coward about Cancer.”
The “tough guy” narrative is seductive. It suggests we have control over our fate, that we can will cancer away. These are lies we tell ourselves. And for some patients that’s helpful. It gets them through the day. For them, it’s a useful tool. But courageousness is a standard that no sick person should feel like they have to meet.
Don't give up now. You’re like that special bottle of wine your parents are saving for a special occasion. Keep the faith.
(As I'm about to hit send the news just came through that the Senate did not pass a health care repeal bill after all. And John McCain was the key dissenter. )