We love the Internet. Except when we hate it. Every week, Jordan Valinsky bottles the angst of his Millennial generation and finds something to despise about the Web.
It’s the first day of summer, and it’s already the worst one on record—at least for me.
My Tumblr dashboard has been filled with endless screenshots of the glossy iPhone weather app. The drippy egg yolk is melting over the six-day forecast, which is written in a white font as the temperature readings grasp for a mojito. It’s summer. It’s hot. And it’s a terrible thing that you have to wear clothes to work. Stop complaining; there’s no need to exasperate when you perspirate.
My Facebook news feed is a mixture of weather forecasts, people bitching about how hot it is, and overexcited brand pages acting way too exuberant about a season that comes every year without fail.
Volkswagen’s poor social media intern dug up a random picture of one of the company’s cars gliding through the sun on the world’s most desolate highway. “Like this post if you drove with your windows down or sunroof open today!” the intern gleefully asked. The use of an exclamation point indicates how relieved the intern was to be given a task that didn’t involve deleting comment spam. It only got around 800 likes at last check, presumably because civilized human beings use air conditioning.
The heat and humidity clearly knocked over the Chick-fil-A cows, who I assume run its Facebook page. The fast food chain’s obligatory first day of summer status reads: “For the first day of summer, think cool thoughts. Repeat after us: ‘Milkshakes, Lemonade, Icedream.’” No, that sounds terrible, and what the fuck is “icedream”? It’s on record that the cows misspell chicken as “chikin.” So why would you trust them—with their flagrant disregard for proper English—to run your social-media accounts?
Then, there’s Twitter. It’s a truly terrible service whose sole purpose is to act as a sounding board for every single brain-draining thought a person with typing ability has. According to my favorite website, Topsy, you people have tweeted the word “summer” 247,000 times today. Well done.
Keeper of the Kardashians, Ryan Seacrest tweeted: “First day of summer. I love this time of year.” (1,700 people retweeted that McSweeney’s-level prose.) Neat stuff, but if you live in Los Angeles the temperature is like, always in the 70s or 80s, or a bit warmer near Giuliana Ranic’s tanning bed.
Other celebrities like Glee‘s Lea Michele asked if summer is the time for “being spontaneous,” since apparently you spend all of fall, winter, and spring sitting there on your couch, eating the same P.F. Chang’s frozen dinner every night and asking yourself why you still watch Glee. Be spontaneous; go outside.
The jokesters at the Ann Curry Smiling Awkwardly Variety Hour(s), i.e. Today, just had to create a hashtag: #whyilovesummer. Less than 300 people responded. More people stand in Rockefeller Plaza ogling at sultry Natalie Morales than tweeted with that hashtag.
But the most proper response came from @IDrinkIFuck, who tweeted, “#whyilovesummer you can drink all day and #TruthIs I love it.” He gets life.
Truth is, rather #TruthIs, summer is the season of stupidity online and off. The Tumblr postings of weather forecasts will only continue, companies on Facebook will somehow awkwardly promote their product no matter how hot it gets, and Twitter will be Twitter.
To keep my sanity, I should just accept the mindless posts. It’s not like we have anything meaningful to talk about. But with only 94 days until the start of fall, it’s just easier to sit in my tub, stare at the wall, and think of all the ways everyone is going to piss me off come Sept. 22.
Photo via Hashgram
