At the risk of discrediting my perceived intelligence, I want to open this post by discussing one of my favorite YouTube shitpost videos. Back in 2017, user Billy Cobb made a video titled “Mr. Brightside but using google autocomplete results.” The punchline is easy and arguably nonsensical to the point you ask why I’m even mentioning it. The 95-second work of art feels reminiscent of an era when creators worked less for profit and more for vulgar curiosity. It’s not polished. The singer, I assume Senior Cobb, is distorted as he rambles through a series of punchlines that aren’t really constructed properly. The hook, like traditional Google autocomplete, is to type in words and have the generated response serve as your answer. Years later, I am still saying “Destiny 2 is temporarily at capacity” despite having no idea what that means.
A reason it’s funny is in part that it’s random, but also that it’s a low-consequence video. If I were to hate it, I’d move on with my life and never think of it again. However, Cobb has encapsulated a moment within the satire of where pop culture was in 2017. To look at the phrases is to see trends. I’m talking lines like: they’re good dogs Brent, open up Snapchat, Destiny 2, and none other than Turning Point U.S.A.; the last of which receives two shoutouts before the track is finished. Love or hate it, the novel idea works as a pre-slop era form of questioning what is the dumbest sentence ever uttered by man on a computer. The audacity, in my humble opinion, is charming.
Despite existing as pure ephemera, my mind wandered to it when perusing the latest news. It was a Monday afternoon, and there were reports of various flagrant comments that the president had made. In theory, this isn’t in itself shocking. It would be quite the opposite if he performed a Hands Across America without any ill intent. As is tradition, the president hosts an annual Easter egg roll for the youth of America. It’s supposed to be a carefree experience that allows the childlike wonder to take over and to celebrate the simple joys in life. After all, how many people spent the afternoon dying eggs and looking for them through their own backyards? It works because of how little nuance it has. People can come together and perform their own wacky themed scavenger hunt. What’s not to like?
And yet, to watch the presidential speech during said egg roll was to be reminded of how joyless this country has become, largely due to one man. I am not wishing to bring in external circumstances to my judgment. While I am also alarmed by his Easter Sunday social media posts promising to blow up bridges, little of what I have to say has to do with concepts other than decorum. Left, right, or center… a speech geared at families wanting to roll an egg should be inoffensive and a reminder that it’s okay to be adventurous and creative. In fact, I don’t know that anyone would make these sentiments the cornerstone of their presidency. It’s a very straightforward piece of hokum that humbles us all, at least letting us know that our commander in chief has a playful side and knows how to talk to someone about things other than the economy.
In fact, I’d argue this is the easy moment to prove your likability. Think of the kissing babies on the campaign trail gimmick. There is a trustworthiness that overrides partisan lines when you appeal to children. It gives you the impression of being safe and having everybody’s best interests. I get that we’re talking about a 79-year-old, so maybe jokes about chicken jockeys or 6-7 might be a little “cringe,” but there’s still ways to create the air that you are approachable, where they can trust you with a metaphorical letter about how much they idolize you because you represent the best in this country. At least when I was a child, there wasn’t that need for detailed nuance. You accepted your vote of confidence regardless of what adult things he said or did. Maybe it’s because I haven’t polled “the youth” on this, but I can’t imagine that holding true for anyone in close to a decade.
So how did the president spend his precious airtime at the Easter egg roll confronting the array of parents and children? As disappointing as it is to say… it sounds like his brain has fallen into a state of Google autocomplete. Buried several minutes into the speech, the topic of eggs comes up. Without highlighting The White House’s pastime or providing any wonder, he insists on detailing his election campaign and how he ran on lowering the price of eggs before getting into the logistics of using real versus plastic. There’s mentions of fake news filming the speech along with the suggestion, to a lot of bright-eyed kids mind you, that a year prior the country was “dead.” I’m aware that this is the same guy who ended his first inaugural speech by calling the Obama years “American carnage,” but it was one of those moments where you realized how hopeless he was. Simple efforts to read the room were largely a miss.
I don’t have the answers for what makes a good Easter egg roll speech. Frankly, The First Lady did better by at least providing gratitude and a “Happy Easter Monday” before tying it all back to the textbook patriotism of U.S.A. 250. It’s not the deepest of speeches, but it evoked more confidence in me in less than 30 seconds than the surrounding speech which, again, was the equivalent of that Frank Drebin meme where he’s saying everything’s fine in front of a burning building. Even if the president sees himself as a savior for these families, it’s still a depressing ride through his highlight reel, which, if you’re anybody who watched The State of the Union or even his underfunded word choices about Iran last Wednesday, have a redundancy to see this man only has one thing on his mind. It’s the type that convinces me the rabbit standing next to him was like “Thank fuck he didn’t mention the ballroom,” even if he insisted on replacing it with an extended passage about the fencing.
We’re talking about a speech that starts with him saying how he wants to have the introductory singer play at The Met so they can get a commission. Already there’s talk of money. His insistence on finances continues to be so apparent that even when he can talk about Easter and eggs, there’s a sense that he’s more interested in cost efficiency than holiday lore. Forget Peter Cottontail. Here’s an extended conversation about saving soldiers in Iran. While not the worst sentiment to evoke confidence, the decision to elaborate turned it too far into adult talk before admitting he was going to have a press conference later anyway. The lack of brevity is alarming. Without focus or insistence on order and pacing, the speech comes across as rambling.
So I ask… what child cares about stock markets? Why do they care that he’s bragging about Venezuela? I’m less bothered by the patriotism, which may seem uncomfortably egregious but at least fits the role of a president. And yet, I’m not sure what he did that spoke to the youth of America beyond, “Look what I did!” It was a checklist of accomplishments without any significance for what Easter means to the presumably religious families looking up at him. I get it can be argued that these type of parents would brush off their children’s questions and say it’s their version of seeing Paul Anka sing “Put Your Head On My Shoulder.” It’s not doing anything but affirming those old timey feelings. Your mileage may vary from there.
For those needing a pallet cleanser
Part of the issue is redundancy. It’s also that as someone who is designed to constantly interact with the public, a president should have different styles of decorum for each audience. Again, maybe he fails to be “cool,” given how few politicians are, but he at least should evoke empathy and excitement for the world. Despite referencing that they were coming together that day to “Celebrate Jesus,” none of the speech alludes to the biblical interpretation of God’s son, nor does it preach any specific family values. There’s no crucifixion or resurrection. There’s no sense of introspection brought on because “he died for our sins.” All there is is a man obsessed with his own standings to the point that he’s less interested in simply complimenting his opening singer so much as asking how much dough he could produce.
I get that a lot of his platform was based around saving the economy. There are many more applicable speeches where I think he could insert these same talking points and I’d be less offended. However, he’s too stuck in a Google autocomplete world to evolve, to recognize what children are interested in. Then again, this is the man who suggested one of the cures to solve the cost-of-living crisis was to buy fewer dolls. Not wishing to judge his parenting style, but how does a man with a family not know about simple joys, or at very least having to humble yourself and talk to them like they’re the most important person in the room? It’s one of the issues with a nation that’s grown further and further into exclusionist rhetoric. There’s no effort to embrace that happiness anymore.
As dumb as it is to say, that may be one of the worst things about seeing the president talk anymore. Even on a happy day like Easter, he seems miserable, stubborn to the point that he’s only getting dopamine hits from pissing people off. But those cannot last. There’s no deeper growth. He strikes me as very lonely, where even his children have to attach a few Benjamins when they send him birthday cards. There’s nothing there that makes me think he’ll ever escape his own darkness, when he can’t stand in front of a smiling bunny and say something that’s not demeaning. Sure, it’s caused him to push America away from a lot, and I think there’s an ick factor in him encouraging parents and children to think of innocent holidays in the same ways. It’s where he gets surrounded by these individuals and, instead of children asking him things with banal wonderment, he finds the adults who will laugh at him hypothesizing if Kamala Harris or Joe Biden has a lower I.Q. In theory, this is a game and those are fun, but it’s the most miserable scenario imaginable, not only because it’s bully behavior, but because it’s his only move. He can’t ask about the egg rolls. It has to be about the people who hurt him most. There’s no call for hope or prayer. All there is is a public waiting for Anka to sing “Puppy Love” and swoon over the comforting cadence as they talk about how he’s still got it.
To be honest, I’ve been tired of this routine for a decade now. The difference is that in 2016, I assumed there was a common decency attached to people that would either endorse a Republican with good moral standing or vote for a party with traditional competence. What we’re seeing now is the byproduct of thuggish behavior reaching a dead end, where it’s sucked every last ounce of joy from the least political moments of our lives. No longer are we allowed to just look for eggs without thinking about how dead America used to be. We can’t talk about dying them so much as the cost in the market. No amount of tacked-on closing sentiments can save a speech that never felt designed for parents and children.
Go ahead and laugh about how lizard-brained the president is. On some level, this is beyond the pale satire, the type that will be mocked for centuries like Germany in the 1940s. There’s no getting around our collective loss there. However, every chance you want to restore hope and believe that some peace can be found in the muck, you are reminded that “Celebrate Jesus” means making a lot of money and the closest thing to resurrection is a poorly built (and wrongly assumed) metaphor about America. I’m sure that’s some people’s dream of a good time, but Christ didn’t roll out of the tomb and find a crowbar to bash in the legs of his enemies. I forget what he did, but I’m sure none of it was embodied in this speech.
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