No, I’m not talking about TikTok and trends in society about ‘girl dinners’ and apple cider vinegar gummies. Although one trend that maybe could go away is other online outlets seemingly having their entire revenue stream based on reporting what’s on TikTok. That’s kinda lame. But it’s also kinda minor in the grand scheme of things.
No, I’m talking about life in general on this planet Earth. Stuff like:
#1 Trend in Society That Has to Go Away: Horrible News
Now, obviously not all horrible news can completely disappear. Life coughs up horrible, terrible, or semi-annoying news on a regular basis. But I remember (cuz I’m old) when CNN was engaged in non-stop coverage of something called ‘Balloon Boy‘. The ‘Balloon Boy’ saga was not horrible news. It was trivial. It was stupid to give it wall-to-wall coverage. But, on the upside, no one got hurt. It was fluff. The biggest story of the day was absolutely no big deal. That’s a good news day.
There haven’t been many of those, since, well at least 2016. 2016 was seven fucking years ago. 7 years is a long time to endure a virtual non-stop parade of horrible news. Such as:
- Devastating wildfires that have threatened the air quality and the lives of millions across the globe. From Australia to California, from Greece to Canada, no place is safe from flames.
- The antics of a group of delusional and dangerous individuals who refuse to accept reality and resort to lies, conspiracy theories, and violence. Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, QAnon followers and more have lost what little minds they had to start with – not to mention all credibility in their futile attempt to overturn democracy.
- Horrifying and repulsive incidents on airplanes that make you question whether travel is worth it. Whether it’s turbulence, wackos, or vomit, you don’t want to experience any of these on your next flight. Airplanes are a nightmare.
- Incredibly un-fucking-popular presidents of the USA. Staggeringly unpopular. For years at a time. God!
- Speaking of extremely unpopular ex-presidents, one of them is facing not one, but 91 criminal charges. He may soon trade his golf clubs for handcuffs.
- Police officers killing people in cold blood and on camera, making millions of us horrified and broken-hearted witnesses to murder. Shit! MAKE IT STOP.
- Oh yeah, and there was this thing called a pandemic. It was pretty much a constant stream of horrible news for a long time. Millions of deaths, so-called lockdowns, masks, vaccine hysteria, variants… you name it, we had it.
We need a lot more stories about playful animals kicking up their heels on urban or suburban streets. Stuff like that. We do not need that just because we need a break; we need to, at least briefly, be living in a world in which the worst thing that happened was a joyful elephant got loose in India and appeared to be dancing to disco music.
#2 Trend in Society That Has Got to Go Away: Assholes
Like horrible news, assholes will never go away entirely. But seriously, we seem to be living during a period of such intense rival assholery that it defies description. E.g.:
- Asshole YouTuber parents who get arrested for child abuse. Asshole YouTubers in general should take a long hike off a short pier, particularly because there are so many non-asshole YouTubers.
- Revenge porn. That’s some serious asshole shit right there.
- The rich assholes known as ‘Tech Bros’.
- Republicans – at least most elected ones – have made “I’m an even bigger asshole than you are” their universal campaign slogan.
- The US Supreme Court. Flaunting its asshole and its corruption cred here lately.
- Review bombing. I get the impulse behind review bombing but in reality it’s a bunch of assholes getting together in an online asshole group futilely attempting to exercise power, which has been steadily stripped from them by the more famous and powerful assholes they worship. Which is just pathetic.
- Asshole employers creating shitty working conditions and exploiting workers in multiple ways including wage theft. Way too many instances of this to even count.
Oh let’s move on. There’s just so much assholery afoot from the trivial to the major that we’d be here all day.
#3 Trend in Society That Has Got to Go Away: Internet Overreactions
A persistent trend on the internet is the attempt to impose social norms by overreacting and going full outrage whenever someone who isn’t you does something you think violates a social norm that you want enforced even though obviously not everyone agrees with you, which is why you are completely overreacting.
So stop it. Only overreact to things worth overreacting to. Like outright bigotry and/or hate that harms innocent people.
Not whether someone has children or not. Or wears a face mask. Or posts an awkward photo. Or some celebrity does something shitty. Or virtually any mom posts something anywhere. Or random haters post random hate about random things. Or Elon Musk says something somewhere – stop paying attention to this man! Ignore him! He is not worthy.
#4 Trend in Society That Has Got to Go Away: Mean Comments Wherever Commenting is Allowed
God damn, ya’ll some sick puppies. Cut that shit out. Get a life. Etc.
I know it’s tempting. Trolling and hating can be fun. But it is waaaaay out of hand, and we’re not just talking mean these days, we’re talking seriously disturbed. We’ve all got to cut that shit out.
#5 Trend in Society That Has Got to Go Away: Lying Liars and Scammers and Hoaxers on Facebook and the Ignorant People who Share Their Shit
Facebook itself could go away as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, I know some people like it or find it valuable or belong to communities or whatever.
But people share the stupidest fucking shit on that platform. They always have. They share scams and phishing attempts and outright lies and hoaxes and foreign propaganda and seriously harmful content.
So here’s my modest proposal – if you’re gonna be stupid and gullible, be stupid and gullible offline. Get off goddamn Facebook. Even better – never hit the share button. Ever. Stop sharing things. Sharing is not caring. Sharing is lining the pockets of greedy and unscrupulous and sometimes even evil people.
Or it’s making stupidity contagious. Don’t reward anything you see on Facebook ever by sharing it. That’ll solve a whole bunch of social problems at once. You can have your family groups and your communities and whatnot without fucking sharing a goddamn thing.
Just stop sharing on Facebook.
#6 Trend in Society That Has to Go Away: Targeted Ads
Targeted ads are the raison d’etre of Facebook and Google and the entire fucking mess that is the modern internet.
And they’re a scam. People don’t like them. They’re creepy. And they don’t fucking work that well.
All the poisonous shit the internet tries to feed you is based on the idea that if you’re siloed enough, you will become the perfect obsessed consumer who will buy 6,000 sippy cups because you are getting 6,000 ads for sippy cups.
This is not true. The reason you are idiotically buying 6,000 sippy cups is because you are influenced by an influencer who for some reason you are willing to be influenced by. That’s on you.
If you are influenced by a sippy cup influencer, you do not need targeted ads. You will hunt down the precious sippy cups wherever they may be. And you’ll enjoy the hunt.
Say no to targeted ads. Lobby for restrictions on targeted ads. Fight targeted ads. They are the reason gigantic tech companies have so much information on you that they could hire an assassin right this second to kill you and the assassin would be able to find and neutralize you in scary short order.
It’s one of the ironies that the people who whinge and moan and cry about the government and big pharma or whatever the hell they’re cheesed off about willingly and stupidly tell tech companies and scammers every damn thing they need to know to destroy their lives.
You are literally being targeted, people. This is not good.
#7 Trend in Society That Has to Go Away: Nastiness in Politics
Oh I realize – that’s not gonna happen. Politics are nasty. Office politics are nasty. HOA politics are nasty. State, local, and federal politics are nasty. And guess what – international politics are nasty too.
But…since 2016 they have gotten way way nastier. I’m not expecting politics to be pleasant. But they are really really bad these days.
Clean up your act nasty politicians – or I might just have to get real nasty right back.
Whew – that’s enough for now. And here’s a bonus entry – something that does not need to go away:
Trend #1 That Does Not Need to Go Away: Profanity
Profanity is good for you – it expresses emotions, reduces pain, and allows people to cope with things that are worth spewing expletives over.
When the world gets its act together (hah!) and starts acting right, or at least a little closer to regular human decency – then we can all heave a sigh of relief and stop swearing.
Until then – to all things that need to go away – FUCK THIS SHIT.
Rant over, peace out. Thanks.
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