Tag trends

Why Can’t I Be A Parent With A Lot Of Time On My Hands?

Heather Christena Schmidt 9 Comments

Dinosaurs

There are a couple of things going around the Facebook these days and I don’t like them. Not one bit.

One is about these parents of boys that make their action figure dinosaurs “get into trouble” every night in the month of November. I’ve had like five friends share it in the last day. Sometimes the dinosaurs just play with the fruit bowl. Whatever, that’s cute. Other times they get into an entire roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, or crack open a bunch of eggs.

The other is about people’s oh so clever Elf on the Shelf ideas for this Christmas. You know, you wake up and the kids find that the elf has gotten into the cookie dough and made a mess in the kitchen. Or he’s holding hands with Barbie in the dream house. Some dumb shit like that.

At that point I start to ask just what in the fuck is going on here.

First and foremost, we’re kind of deviating from the original purpose of these things, especially in the case of the Elf on the Shelf. They didn’t create and market that ugly, horrifying elf just so that people can have some mischievous character running around the house. Making a mess. Upping the ante for the rest of us mediocre parents, so to speak. They marketed it as a way to keep your kids under control in the month before Christmas.

If the elf is on the shelf, Santa is coming. If the elf is off the shelf, he’s not because you’ve been bad.

If the elf is dry humping Barbie in the dream house and porking down sausage links while raiding the liquor cabinet… well, just what in the hell does that mean?

I think we’re sort of confusing kids here.

Moreover, who with any sense of morality wastes money and food like that? When I saw the photograph of those dinosaur action figures with an entire package of destroyed eggs all around them, I thought – man, that’s like three breakfasts in our house. Sure, a dozen eggs is around $3 – or whatever – but what would a starving family living on the streets, or dying children in the third world, think if they saw that picture? I don’t mean to get all philanthropic up in here, but I’m pretty sure that being so wasteful is why (1) the world is completely falling apart, and (2) people hate Americans so much.

Lastly – and perhaps the most compelling – who the fuck with children has so much time on their hands to do this kind of shit? No seriously. Like… seriously, seriously. I barely have the time to take a shower, let alone figure out ways to make that sneaky elf get into trouble again. From the moment I get up in the morning, until the minute I pass out in a pile of messy hair, unkempt pajamas that I’ve been wearing all day, and my husband’s slobber, I’m taking care of people. I’m cooking. I’m cleaning. I’m taking periodic breaks to dick around on Pinterest or the blog – but you’d better believe I’m doing something else like cooking dinner or vacuuming at the same, exact time. Or answering homeschooling questions. Or wrapping Christmas presents.

Laundry! Don’t forget the laundry.

What I’m saying here is that there is little time for relaxation. And after kiddie bedtime, I have to … wait for it … fold the laundry and pick up the shit that didn’t get picked up during the day. And do the dishes, because I was so busy helping with math or running around from extra curricular to extra curricular.

Why can’t I be a parent with a lot of time on my hands? A parent that has the time to whip up a batch of cookie dough and then carefully and strategically make a planned mess for the elf on the shelf to be blamed for. Just to clean it up in the morning and come up with another plan for the next night. Every night in the month of December. Or to come up with ideas for my kids’ action dinosaurs or Barbie dolls to get into trouble over. Why can’t I have the time to wrap dolls in toilet paper and smash dinosaurs into a dozen eggs? And then the time to clean it all up the next day?

It sounds a little ridiculous when you put it like that, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why I don’t have the time, or the money, or the interest really, to be one of these over-the-top parents that just can’t let go and be mediocre like the rest of us.

But is it really mediocrity? Or is it just common sense?

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STFU Fridays: It Ain’t No Harlem Shake

Heather Christena Schmidt 9 Comments

The Harlem Shake: another cultural phenomena that makes any of us with an IQ over that of a banana cringe. It’s another Gangham Style, or series of photos where people plank in weird places. It’s stupid. It’s pointless. It reeks of a culture that is easily entertained and entirely moronic.

And what’s really fun about this one is that it’s disrespectful.

A born and raised Chicagoan, I am familiar with the closeness and affection for dance a city can have. In Chicago, Blues and Jazz gave rise to an entire culture of movement in dance that – I believe – continues today. Quite frankly, it’s beautiful; and while not all people can dance well, growing up near a city such as that taught me that an expression such as dancing (done well or not) can bring people together, even in the starkest of circumstances.

I’m sure without even watching the video, then – “Harlem Reacts to the Harlem Shake” – you faithful blog followers can imagine the response from Harlem.

The Harlem Shake is an actual dance,

and it does not involve dry humping

… the air, each other, or a canon. Yes, this morning when YouTubing this new dance phenomena, I found one that started where a guy in his underpants, wearing a mask, was simply dry humping a statue of a canon. Tasteful, indeed.

So the Harlem Shake is an actual hip hop dance; and an old one, at that. It does not involve dry humping the air. It does not involve dry humping anything – it involves an actual shake. There is an actual method to it too – so much so that instructional videos have been made on how to do it. You don’t just shake and hump and strip to near-nothing. It used to be called the albee (after the guy that invented it), but was renamed the Harlem Shake, and has been featured in music videos, as well as high profile hip hop clubs.

In other words: it’s legit.

The Harlem Shake Internet meme where large groups of complete morons imitate having anal sex with each other, as well as hump the air while making a slapping motion, is not, and never will be, a version of the dance.

You people are stupider than we all thought you were

if you find that entertaining

With Gangham Style, I did (sort of) get the appeal. There was a method to the dance. The video was entertaining in a “what in God’s name is going on here” way. I do believe the whole thing was (and remains to be) dumb, and that Psy guy – well he is quite a piece of work, in his mink coat and fancy eye makeup. But I still got it.

This Harlem Shake thing, though, is a totally different ballgame. It’s like planking was – stupid, pointless, not unique by any stretch of the imagination, and in some cases dangerous. There is nothing unique about people dry humping the air and just shaking like morons. There is not a thing fascinating about people stripping down to near-nothing in large groups (as they do in the majority of the videos I’ve seen).

There has to be a lot missing upstairs for someone to find this so-called dance truly entertaining. Sanity, decency, respect, and intelligence are among those things.

The question we should all ask ourselves…

Whenever an Internet fad comes up like this, I always ask myself “would I do that in front of a group of people.” Or more specifically when it comes to this so-called Harlem Shake – would I do that in front of a group of people in Harlem?

Shit no. Shit no I would not.

I wouldn’t dream of doing that in front of a group of people in Harlem, and I especially wouldn’t dare call it the Harlem Shake. Now personally, I have never been to Harlem. But I have been to places like it, and it isn’t often that – in places like Harlem – I have seen a bunch of stupid white people dry humping the air to weird, new age techno music. Yeah … no. I just haven’t, and I wouldn’t do it.

The same went for planking, Gangham Style, owling, fridging … all of it. All of the idiotic Internet fads that seem to prevail in our ever-devalued popular culture. I wouldn’t do any of them in front of a large group of people.

Clearly there are those that would, but I am just not one of them. Maybe you would. Maybe you would strip down to your tighty-whiteys and throw on a mask. Do the stupid intro where one person softly humps the air, inspiring gads of people to show up and then violently do the same. Slap the air as if there is an actual woman there being slapped. You enjoy your dry hump to tacky techno music. STFU when it comes to the name of it, though. It may be a tacky, crappy dance fad. But it ain’t no Harlem Shake, that’s for sure.

Duckface VERSUS Fat Tongue

Heather Christena Schmidt 2 Comments

There are always going to be trends that come and go, usually propelled (and expired) by the 15 – 32 age group.  Sometimes kids a little younger catch on and people say what kind of parents allow that?, just as occasionally people a little older join the fun, only to be thought of as faking it.  I’m not talking about trends in language, like the use of text lingo in normal communication, though (what my usual rants are about).  No, I almost wish I were, for what I’m talking about, here, is much worse.  I’m talking about trends that are meant to make the 15 – 32ers look sexy.  Fashion trends, photo trends – whatever you want to call them.  They’re annoying and, in some cases, disgusting.

This year, my top four most hated “look at me, I’m too hot to trot” trends are (in no particular order):

That Whitish-Peach-Colored Super Shiny Lipgloss

The Kim Kardashian Orange-Skin-Special

Photo credit UK Big Pictures

The I’m-So-HOT Duckface

and, of course, the newcomer on the scene, Fat Tongue

What about any of these trends screams “I’m hot?”  It’s as if gads of young women (and in many cases, men) really believe that sticking their disgusting, often unclean, tongues out like dead animals is sexy; or as if globbing on pounds of that whitish-peach lip gloss makes their orange skin even more attractive.

I’ve got news for you, ladies.  You look horrible.  Your lip gloss looks like you’ve either eaten one too many powdered doughnuts, or have been snorting way too much cocaine.  Your tongue makes me want to vomit, and your orange skin makes me sad that you don’t realize how stupid you look.  And your duckface … well, the stupidity of your duckface should be self-evident, and yet months after the inception of antiduckface.com (a site devoted to mocking the photo trend), new posts continue to show up daily.

Fortunately, I am still in the 15 – 32 age range, but I would never lower myself to such attention-getting tactics as these.  The people that do this look ignorant, disgusting, and, to be blunt, like skanks.  Ladies, you need to get some self-respect; to recognize that your photograph is beautiful without your lips puckered out so far you look like you’ve had a bad case of botox.  Let’s set a new standard of sexy and stop taking photo, after photo, after photo, for future generations to wonder just what in the hell we were thinking.

Which facial expression do you think is more hideous, vote now!

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