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The fact is, catching a highly contagious virus doesn't really "mean" much at all

Because I’m a Catholic, I have a cultural disposition toward doing things that cause me unnecessary suffering, and because I’m a millennial, I tend to do those things online. In my case this means retaining a Facebook account, where I can keep up with family, old friends whom I remember fondly, and people whom I actually hate hearing about and ought to remove from my feed but won’t because of the aforementioned Romish perversity. The upside to this is that I get to see what Facebook has become. In a lot of ways it resembles the visible decay of late LiveJournal: everything is either blatant self-promotion (guilty as charged) or amateur philosophizing, the last and most stubborn inhabitants of a dying platform.

The self-promotion part isn’t new, of course, and it often makes for some of the best laughs on an otherwise bleak website. When somebody’s right wing and extremely divorced aunt is digging in her heels about her transparent essential oils MLM scam, that’s a miniature Real Housewives spinoff taking shape right there on your screen, and you don’t even have to pay for cable TV. The real dread comes from the essays hidden among the innocent posts like meandering, omphaloskeptic landmines, just waiting for you to click the “read more” link and plaster your screen with the kind of existential crisis that comes only to people who have never lived more than 20 minutes from a Trader Joe’s. Such essays take many forms, and they tend to shift with the times. Thus the latest round of viral mutation has triggered similar mutation in the Facebook essay, and we are now in the midst of an alarming rise in the incidence of unacceptably long posts — and even, God help us, Twitter threads with post counts in the plural dozens and multi-slide Instagram stories — that ask the question: “What does it mean that I got Covid?”

Each activity is rated on a scale of one to 10 big apples

Eric Adams, the new mayor of New Yawk City, has had a whirlwind first few days in office, packing some of the most New York things possible into 72 hours. Will the alleged New Jersey resident be able to keep “New York” New York? We’ve rated each activity on a scale of one to 10 big apples.

Media critics agree on at least that much.

It's been less than twenty-four hours since a jury found Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty of four (of eleven) counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Theranos investors and three accounts of wire fraud against three different Theranos investors. But I’m already confused. Is Elizabeth Holmes’s possible twenty-year jail sentence good or bad for women? It’s impossible to make that call so soon. Or perhaps it’s really easy. In either case, one vital detail has emerged from our websites of record over the past few months, locked and loaded: Elizabeth Holmes is a woman. Let’s take a look.

In September, The Guardian wondered if Elizabeth Holmes’s trial spelled “the end of the #girlboss era.” The question in the headline wasn’t really answered. While acknowledging that Holmes is blonde, white, and born to immense privilege, writer Arwa Mahdawi ultimately concluded that above all, she’s a woman. And as such, Holmes’s womanhood implicates other womanses. “When a prominent woman is disgraced, however, all women are implicated. The bar has always been higher for women; Holmes’s downfall may have raised it higher still,” she wrote. So true, chica.

Like a construction worker, I also use them for work

I am not ashamed to say I struggle to focus. According to Human Design, I am a “manifesting generator,” which apparently means I am supposed to create, but not necessarily finish what I start. Unfortunately, Human Design does not offer a solution for how I should make money without completing my assignments. I spend a lot of time trying to find a place of peace through meditation and procrastination, but there are instances in which the only thing that can get me to calm down and take care of business is a little bit of physical restraint. That’s why I wear noise-canceling ear muffs.

Even if you manage not to pay attention to all the noise that surrounds you, it’s there: a hissing radiator, growling motorcycles, leaf blowers, a snoring dog, the thudding of someone running downstairs, and a random screaming baby on the sidewalk all comprise the static orchestra of my day. Most of the time I relish distraction, which is exactly why I have to block off all those vibrations before they hit my brain when I am trying to work. With ear muffs, the diversions melt away, sending me into a hollow, noiseless vacuum where my CPU can take a load off and focus on the task at hand.

He’s a threat to national security

Yesterday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account was permanently suspended from Twitter for spreading misinformation about the COVID vaccine. According to the New York Times, Greene was on her “fifth strike” in terms of violating Twitter’s policies on COVID misinformation. As of December 2021, Twitter’s COVID safety policy states:

Even as scientific understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop, we’ve observed the emergence of persistent conspiracy theories, alarmist rhetoric unfounded in research or credible reporting, and a wide range of false narratives and unsubstantiated rumors, which left uncontextualized can prevent the public from making informed decisions regarding their health, and puts individuals, families and communities at risk.

Remind you of anyone else’s dangerous screeds? Let me make a few elucidating edits to help:

We’ve observed the emergence of persistent conspiracy theories, alarmist rhetoric unfounded in research or credible reporting, and a wide range of false narratives and unsubstantiated rumors, which left uncontextualized can prevent the public from making informed decisions regarding their health, and puts individuals, families and communities at risk.

Any clearer? Exactly. We’re all thinking of the same viral violator: Balloon Guy.