COLUMN: Galactivation

Don't mind me. I'm just having an ideological crisis and questioning everything I know to be true.

Last week, in this very column, I said, quote: "I am a fan of social media." I use Facebook daily to chat with my friends. I use Twitter daily to try (and mostly fail) to chat with celebrities. I use Youtube daily to pack my brain cells with exciting new knowledge about the world. And then I use TikTok daily to destroy those brain cells in a blaze of glory.

Earlier this month, the CEOs of the major social media networks were brought before a Congressional hearing, where they were subject to a good old-fashioned Senate beatdown by politicians eager to lay the blame of cyber-bullying and online harm to children squarely upon their shoulders. As a steadfast fan of social media, I felt bad for them.

Look, I get it. There are terrible things that happen on social media. Kids get hurt on social media. Kids get victimized on social media. There are truly awful people out there right now doing truly awful things on social media. I don't for a single second want to minimize the dangers kids face online or disrespect ANYONE whose lives have been impacted by cyber-bullying or worse. It's a horrible problem and it needs to be addressed.

I just don't know if we're laying the blame in the right place. Social media is, at its heart, a vehicle for communication. It's a postal service for the new age, a modern way for humans to connect and interact in the world like never before. The problem is that a lot of humans are awful and need to be communicated with as little as possible. But when these terrible people do terrible things, is it the fault of the communication portal itself?

People sadly get scammed by malicious phone calls all the time. Do we blame the phone company? If you order something online and they send you a defective product, would you blame UPS? If your kid sneaks a peek at a dirty movie, would you sue the manufacturer of the TV they watched it on? Heck, if some nimrod drinks and drives and crashes into your house, would you drag automakers before Congress? Of course not. They weren't the instigators.

And if you... if you... and that's when it hit me while standing in the shower at 7 a.m. I ran smack into a sticky wicket, and it hurt. By the same logic I just used to defend social media, I'm essentially arguing against gun control. I'm arguing against drug regulations. I'm siding with cigarette manufacturers. Wait, did I just become a Libertarian? That can't be right. This wasn't the kind of internal monologue I wanted to be having with a head full of shampoo. I hadn't even had any coffee.  

Thankfully, I don't have to continue that ideological debate with myself. It was settled later that night, when I came across two things that made me realize social media is, in fact, a horrifying monster that needs to be destroyed at all costs.

For one, I discovered the magic and wonder that is... GALACTIVATORS. I don't know what led me to their nook of the internet, other than an unlucky swipe on TikTok. I'm a bit late to the Galactivation party. I found out later they'd already had their fifteen minutes of fame on America's Got Talent, where they were blessedly swept offstage in record time. Thanks to social media, though, they've built a loyal online audience.

The Galactivators are two middle-aged yoga instructors who perform improvisational hip-hop jams about Mother Earth and the wonders of the cosmos. And they sound EXACTLY as good as you'd expect two middle-aged yoga instructors rapping about the cosmos to be. It's magically insufferable. Every night, they livestream healing hip-hop chakras from their living room while dressed like refugees from a Las Vegas thrift store managed by blind drag queens. There are Norwegian death metal bands who spend their entire careers trying to fuel their fans into a frenzy of hatred and rage, and none of them do it half as efficiently as watching these two painfully rhyme "Redwood tree" with "galaxy." And yes, they'll play birthday parties. YOU ALL KNOW WHAT TO GET ME NEXT YEAR.

If that wasn't bad enough, remember last week's column when I talked about the conspiracy theorists claiming Taylor Swift is trying to rig the next election? Well, thanks to the online homework I did for that, Twitter now assumes I'm some bonkers Q-Anon enthusiast and has been filling my feed with all manner of fringe nutbags. The most intolerable one I've encountered is an influencer whose every post is vague clickbait designed to rile up ultra-conservatives. This morning, he posted a clip of Taylor Swift's crew walking to the stage to accept the Album of the Year Grammy with the ominous caption, "Isn't Taylor Swift's handler CREEPY??" 

Except Taylor Swift had no "handler" as she walked onstage. The guy in the clip he's referring to was Jack Antonoff, one of the most famous and recognizable music producers on the planet. He fronts his own band, Bleachers, who I adore. When it comes to pop music, he's something of a genius. A five-second Google search would've told this guy as much. But no, let's just ignorantly accuse him of being an Illuminati puppetmaster controlling the hidden ominous Taylor Swift political agenda. Swell. 

I expected to see a bunch of comments putting this guy in his place, but instead, the comments were mostly anti-Semitic hate speech. Wowzers. The Bill of Rights is neat and all, but some people don't deserve the freedom of speech. I'm just hoping all the sane people didn't comment because they don't bother reading his nonsense in the first place. Maybe this guy's entire Twitter following is just fellow morons who spend their days pointlessly instilling fear in one another until they all finally die off. 

Even after seeing the ignorance, feeling the hate, AND surviving galactivation, I'm still a fan of social media -- but man, do I detest some of the people that inhabit a good chunk of it. I'm not a proponent of harshly regulating social media, but I'd hear anyone out with a plan on how to regulate stupidity. Congress should hold a hearing.