MICHAEL: Last week was one hell of a week for breaking news. Then this week started with 45 celebrating the states introducing mandatory bible literacy classes in their public schools… I’m not sure I’m emotionally ready to go online today.
ALEXANDRA: We should start taking turns! I’ll look first and tell you gently if the world has ended. Then you can do it for me tomorrow. “Today for you, tomorrow for me!” as Angel would say.
MICHAEL:… just not live. How can it be more than twenty years since we camped out all night just for the chance to buy $20 lottery tickets for Rent? And why would we do something that miserable without the ability to snap a selfie with a flattering filter to prove we’d done so on social media?
ALEXANDRA: On the plus side, last week’s news maelstrom allowed me to KonMari the SHIT out of my FB friends list. Originally, I had only planned to throw out the people that couldn’t see the classism inherent in attacking that healer of hoarders for her “no more than 30 books” quote, but thanks to Nathan the Elder and those Covington kids, I unfriended more people than I did after the presidential election.
MICHAEL: Boy, bye!
ALEXANDRA: Quit it, Michael. Which reminds me! While I was at it, I finally blocked all the people that use hyperbolic GIFs of POC reacting to things instead of typing comments, too.
MICHAEL: I’m not supposed to do that? Did you warn people first because I didn’t see anything from you about… Did you block ME? That seems like it violates our marital contract.
ALEXANDRA: Thanks to New York laws, you don’t own me just because you’re my spouse. Speaking of New York laws I can get behind, with that new abortion law I may finally be able to quit all social media. I’m seeing an awful lot of posts that spark way more rage than joy.
MICHAEL: Oh, I don’t know. It’s sort of interesting to see their arguments.
ALEXANDRA: “Liberals just made it legal to stab babies in their heads with scissors,” isn’t really a valid “argument.”
MICHAEL: Would you quit Twitter, too?
ALEXANDRA: I keep trying to Twitter, but I don’t do it right. And don’t come at me with your “just ask a teenager to help you” ageist bullshit. I was one of the very first adopters for Friendster. AND MySpace. If you don’t count the stories or hashtags functions, I’m an Instagram master! Plus, I just figured out how to print photos from my phone. I AM NOT TOO OLD TO LEARN TWITTER. I just don’t want to.
MICHAEL: Well, I will concede that perhaps I rely too heavily on social media, Twitter especially, as my primary news source. Though without it, I would have never known that had Anne Frank and MLK lived, today they’d be the same age as Barbara Walters! But I’ve also mourned the falsely-reported death of Betty White at least three times this year and I could do without that kind of recurring grief. The internet will save and destroy us all!
ALEXANDRA: Here’s hoping the Fourth Industrial Revolution will save us.
MICHAEL: Meh. No one even noticed the World Economic Forum even happened last week. I know I didn’t. Between writing Pelosi-themed fan fiction and crowd-funding the National Guard I barely had time to take the personality quiz based on how I draw an x. Though I did find a minute to try that life hack where you change your phone screen to grayscale so it’s less like candy for your brain.
ALEXANDRA: And?
MICHAEL: The photos everyone posted commemorating the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz were still heartbreaking. And it makes photos of the current internment camps more triggering. It remains to be seen if my current lack of desire to play Candy Crush is a result of the new color theme, fear of more breaking news alerts, or total disillusionment.
ALEXANDRA: Pretty confident my aversion to looking at my phone stems from pathologically avoiding reading yet another op-ed about the “likeability” of the female candidates’. That and a fear of seeing Stone’s Nixon tramp stamp.
MICHAEL: Too bad we can’t KonMari Congress. The current situation makes the Fyre Festival look legit by comparison.
ALEXANDRA: But we CAN. We started last November….
MICHAEL: AND WE SHALL DOUBLE DOWN in 2020.
ALEXANDRA: So long as the GOP doesn’t KonMari the list of registered voters.