the take machine is broken
give it a quick kick, someone
The UK discourse - AKA what people are talking about on Twitter - is stuck on a permanent, mind-numbing loop.
The same takes, the same debates, the same outrage, they start coming and they don’t stop coming, and what’s baffling is that each time people seem to forget they’ve already done this one, that we’ve already covered this from every angle.
This week’s is ‘are you allowed to work at X publication?’. Except that was also a few months ago. And months before that. And actually, it’s really similar to that other moment when we were talking about whether ‘anyone can be a features writer’ or the many times we’ve gone through the whole PRs vs journalists thing. Even when they’re not the same, they’re the same. The same self-rightousness, the same judgement, the same moment where people think that a tweet is specifically about them and speaks some horrific truth about who they truly are, the same thinkpieces that get deep down into how this is really all about privilege and no one is holding a gun to your head, as though that’s the only possible scenario where our morals and decision-making are allowed to get a bit blurry.
But it’s not just the journalism takes.
Cast your mind back to January, just after Bean/Can Opener Dad (remember those heady days), when someone tweeted that liking short women is rooted in paedophilia.
We all made fun, we joked, we raged. But… did we all forget that we literally did this regarding the exact same ‘liking small women is paedophilic’ view a couple of months ago? We’ve been here before. And before that.
Every day we log on to this site and willingly - eagerly - go through Groundhog Day after Groundhog Day of snuffling around like truffle pigs in search of the latest main character, bad opinion, or thing to get upset over.
Maybe it’s the same-same-ness of life in lockdown that makes us overlook the deja views, or maybe it’s the proliferation of other apps that let us repackage the takes and react to them again. On TikTok, the tweet everyone got mad at last year is now blowing up in the form of a video in which a man stands and stares at the camera, the tweet - account handle removed - above his head. Now it’s all over Instagram. Now there’s a Clubhouse room about the ‘debate’, then a side chat about it on Twitter, then article spinoffs, all just hunting that sweet sweet high of ‘someone said something dumb on the internet again’.
It should be boring. We should, surely, be going ‘I’ve done this, why do we care?’. But secretly, don’t you love it? Don’t you love the vicarious cringe, the irritation of someone clearly being wrong and just not accepting it, the moment you send a screenshot to a Whatsapp group and start yout own private squabble because you’re above dragging someone publicly?
We are grubby beings who love the drama. The only way to escape the take conveyor belt is to go offline, go for a walk in the park, become one of those smug types that quit Twitter. You can try to shut it down. You can try to say ‘we’ve discussed this already, actually’, but that will only be contributing more to the mass of words and thoughts and reactions. Your recap of the story thus far, your final word, will be misconstrued in some tiny way, or miss something, or will expose the topic to someone who’s somehow managed to stay oblivious. You’ll try to stay away, but you’ll have to pop back in to correct someone’s allegation about what you really meant or what you really, secretly, obviously feel. You’ll get dragged back in and you’ll continue to sit in it like a bath that’s gone cold.
The take machine is broken, jammed, stuck. Or is it working exactly as planned? Let’s debate it ad nauseam.
A rejection of wholesomeness
There’s a particular sentiment that’s been getting a big ‘yes, me’ reaction lately.
It’s the type that mourns getting absolutely trashed, hooking up with terrible people, and burying your face into a pile of cocaine.
I never used to be big into drinking and partying, and I have no longing for casual sex, because I am the pathetic sort of person who cannot be attracted to anyone else when I’m in love.
So it’s not the specifics I relate to, but the overwhelming desire to do something reckless and self-destructive.
It’s a retalliation to this past year, when wholesomeness has been posed next to godliness and our usual bad behaviour has been smeared with a tinge of immorality, when any declaration of wanting to do some rule-breaking will be answered with ‘in a pandemic/panoramic/panini??’.
Being bad is no longer a sort of insouciant cool. It used to get you admiration, living in a way that’s bad for you… to a point. There has always been a delicate balance of when misbehaviour goes from impressive to pathetic, heavily tipped by age and attractiveness. If you’re young, hot, and can pull off a leather jacket, drinking, doing drugs, and not caring about your health wins you points. Get a little bit older or less attractive, and it’s ‘embarrassing’ or a sign you haven’t got your life together.
That was before. Now your misbehavour is not just embarrassing, but morally repugnant. That ‘I don’t care’ attitude is only acceptable until it appears that you really don’t care… about other people’s health… in a palooza.
Now those of us whose identity in part relied on being bad have been forced into not just being well-behaved, but being wholesome. Wholesomeness is not cool, and it never will be, but activities that would have previously got you called a nerd are now the norm.
We have to go for walks, make bread, engage in creative pursuits. We actually have hobbies and this is no longer being old before your time, but widely considered the correct and appropriate thing to do.
I feel for people whose methods of escape from a society that’s prejudiced against them are no longer allowed. It’s discomforting to be wedged into a new wholesome persona, especially if that means abandoning actions that are essential to your identity and self-expression.
But I also feel for the smaller loss, of no longer being able to fulfil that drive for self-sabotage without actually being bad and wrong.
Our hot, terrible, destructive years have been cut short and replaced with buying pottery kits. Once this is all over, will we be able to return to vomiting out of moving Ubers or paying an excessive charge to have a filet o fish delivered? Or has living through Covid tipped the cool vs embarrassing balance irrevocably off kilter? Will we ever be fun and stupid again?
Here’s hoping, because I really do need those tiny moments of rebellion. Sometimes I just want to be bad.
In other news…
I tried the TikTok feta pasta! It was… okay. A perfectly fine pasta dish. Weirdly, it tasted much better the next day, after a night in the fridge and two minutes in the microwave, which is likely a crime against Italians
You should definitely watch this video of a cat ‘crying’ into a petcam
The brilliant Natalie Morris has finally announced the launch of her book - preorder it! It will be fantastic!
This is the first ever edition of guess i’ll die, which will be out weekly. I’m planning some additional stuff like interviews and longer reads, so do make sure you are subscribed and tell any friends who you think would be keen.
Any thoughts/comments/questions/concerns? Tweet me @EllenCScott or leave a comment below.
👏 a really good read! Thankyou