so stupid its inspiring

sifting through a sea of bad tweets to find nuggets of inspirational stupidity

us senators: the most oppressed class

Mike Pesca's career as a journalist had revealed to him the ugly, unfair underbelly of society. The brutality inflicted on those most exploited by late-stage capitalism caused bile to scorch the back of his throat. But he recently uncovered an injustice so horrendous his mind simply could not accept it. Sure, he knew about prison slave labor and systemic racism. Police brutality and the caging of children. Worker exploitation that forced the working class to construct their entire lives and identities around laboring and enriching the few billionaires at the top of the capital class. He had accepted all of that as easily as he drew breath from the smog-laden air. But this new fact really opened his eyes to the horrors of modern American society.

4th year NBA players make 10x more than US Senators.

Even typing the sentence out on Twitter nearly caused a stroke with how much it angered him. Mitch McConnell had dedicated his life, his entire being, to blocking Obama legislation and court appointees for six whole years. He worked harder than any human has ever worked with the explicit goal of accomplishing absolutely nothing. That he makes less than 1/10th of what NBA All-Star Jayson Tatum does is inexcusable. Forget that McConnell is worth more than 3x what Tatum is worth. Forget that, like Tatum, McConnell is given lucrative endorsement – or lobbying – deals. Forget too that McConnell has access to all the information one could possibly desire to make a handsome profit on the stock market through insider trading. The fact remains that McConnell only gets $174,000 a year. How is a man worth over $22 million supposed to feed his family on that meager sum? Like any smart journalist, Mike followed the money and found Jayson Tatum and the 2017 NBA draft class specifically is taking cash straight from the off-shore bank accounts of our hard-working, oppressed senators.

This isn't even the worst of it. Markelle Fultz, the first overall pick four years ago, has stacked an absurd $5 million fortune from his salary and endorsement deals despite hardly playing in actual NBA games. Meanwhile, for all the Very Important legislation he has written and helped pass since his election in 2008, Mark Warner is still worth a mere $90 million. How could Warner effectively govern when his finances so closely mirrored the bulk of America's middle class? Thanks to theft by Markelle Fultz and his ilk, Warner could never hope to truly fall out of touch with the common man by amassing enough money to crack the top 0.01%. And if he couldn't obtain stratospheric wealth, he couldn't hope to pass legislation that would have meaningful positive impact on the majority of his constituents. This is basic political science.

Perhaps the most indicting statistic of all lies in how much NBA salaries hurt the ability of senators to build wealth. Dennis Smith Jr. has somehow seen his salary over the last four years balloon by 77% while poor Susan Collins, senator from Maine, had seen her net worth increase at an annual rate of merely 138%. After all her years in the senate, Mike reasoned Collins should have seen her net worth increase by at least 10,000%. After all, the purpose of serving in the US Senate is to stack as much cash as possible. That such a hard-working, incorruptible, effective, and popular institution was so exploited, degraded, and underpaid was simply unacceptable.

The data burned an afterimage into Mike's retinas. Everywhere he looked, all he could see were the untold fortunes stolen from our poor senators and deposited into rich basketball players' bank accounts. How America managed to oppress the very people who shaped the country's laws, tax codes, and financial regulations, he didn't understand. Nor did he understand why people were mad at him for uncovering this fact. The plebs couldn't seem to comprehend the dire need of their poor, exploited representatives. Only Mike understood that, if this were to go unchecked, Mitt Romney could starve in the street all so Jaron Blossomgame could make $77,000 sitting at the end of the Cleveland Cavaliers bench.

But Mike was never one to bow to public pressure. He recognized people were called to action by different crusades. This summer, millions were galvanized by the killing of George Floyd and joined protests against police brutality. Greta Thunberg had built a movement to fight the existential threat of climate change. This is Mike's protest, his movement. Members of the US Senate need protection, and they need it now. Abandoned by the public and abused by the wretched NBA, they would die if no one came to their aid. So Mike did. He took to Twitter to “foment change” and speak up for the most oppressed members of society. He is a true ally, and he won't stop until his voice, and the voice of Mitch McConnell, Mark Warner, Susan Collins, and the entire senate is finally heard.

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the art of purchasing goods and services outside nyc

Alison's world never extended beyond the Hudson. Why would it? A single New York block was as culturally varied as any given country. Extrapolate that to the entire city and, well, she could hardly think of a reason to leave. Any experience offered by any other place was doubtlessly replicated right here and at least ten times better in every way.

For decades, she lived in bliss. Any type of food, entertainment, leisure, or employment she could possibly conceive of was a mere five minute walk from her apartment. The stock exchange was the pinnacle of finance, Broadway the pinnacle of theater, the MET the pinnacle of culture and art, Central Park the pinnacle of nature. No place could match NYC on any of these fronts, much less offer each in equal measure.

But Alison's favorite part of New York didn't lie in the extravagant. The everyday convenience, she was sure, was unparalleled. Even a bodega, such a small, seemingly simple luxury, was unique to this place and this place alone. How the rest of the country – or the world – failed to conceive of a single shop where one could purchase Diet Coke, candy, and paper towels was an incomprehensible display of stupidity. Alison thought of herself as an empathetic person able to take on the perspective of others, but try as she might, she couldn't imagine such a lack of imagination. It only made her feel sorry for the underprivileged masses unable to live in New York City.

Unfortunately for Alison, her inability to place herself in the shoes of those less fortunate souls would turn out to be her fatal flaw.

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the country, New York suddenly became a death trap. Its high population density – part of its initial charm – allowed the virus to spread with unprecedented speed. Like many young New Yorkers, Alison decided to temporarily flee the city. Her sister offered her a room. In her house. In Nebraska.

The flight posed no issue for Alison. Though she had never flown before, the concept was similar enough to the subway. Hundreds of people packed into a metal tube powered by combustible liquid. Completely reasonable.

Once she landed though, problems began. Her phone died on the journey. Desperately, she searched for an outlet, not knowing if they even had electricity here. If they did, would she need to purchase an adapter? She'd heard about Europe and Asia's different outlets – was that the case for Nebraska too? She tried asking a few people but each time their snail paced speech and thick flyover accents made their answers incomprehensible.

Dazed and hungry, she stumbled out of the airport. Did they have taxis here? Would they accept New York money? She should've sought out a currency exchange inside.

Tired, hungry, and scared, she began to walk along the road towards a distant skyline. Several cars slowed next to her and their occupants spoke, but Alison couldn't tell what they said. She simply yelled, “I'm walking here!” a reference that surly went over their heads, and trudged on.

The suburban sprawl extended from the airport towards the “city.” As she walked, she examined the squat, long, bland buildings, hoping she might find a store where she could purchase sunscreen, food, water, and proper phone charger. But of course, this was too much variety. If only she were in New York where any bodega could supply all her needs easily. Here though, no such luxury existed. She passed stores with names like 7-11, Walgreens, Target. All useless for her needs.

She lost sight of the skyline she'd been chasing – an understandable mistake given its short buildings and slight frame. Days of wandering left her dazed, dizzy, and confused. The people who stopped her became harder to understand. She could only choke out her sisters name and abandoned the locals when they responded with confusion. There couldn't have been more than 200 people here. Finding someone who knew her sister should've been easy.

Confident she would be found eventually, Alison laid on a bus bench after three days of wandering. Her bone-dry mouth, throbbing head, and worsening dizzy spells warned her of severe dehydration. But no, she would be found. Her sister would stumble upon her. She had to.

Alison's sister did find her. In the hospital. Doctors told her Alison had been on the brink of death from starvation and dehydration when EMTs found her ten feet from a Walmart.

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all this internet bullshit: casey neistat's journey through the 20th century

Everything vibrates in the trenches. After the eighth earth shaking explosion Casey's eardrums couldn't let the sound go. The echos spilled from his ear canals and flowed onto his shoulders where they met the vibrations of the air and Earth. Bombs both distant and close constantly rattled the trench Casey now called home. Puddles never quite settled as these miniature earthquakes created ceaseless waves in the vomit colored water.

But while the vibrations in the Earth rattled men's bodies, the vibrations in the air shook their souls.

Occasionally they ripped through the wind like a bullet through a target. Gun shots, grenades, artillery. These were not the sounds that caused most men's blood to curdle. Though they presented the possibility of maiming, they also carried the possibility of a quick death. That would be a blessing. To most men. In fact, to all men who faced the abject horror of trench warfare along the Western front of The Great War, save for one.

Casey Neistat.

The noises that provided a backdrop to that high-pitched note were normally delirious groans and painful grunts. Wet coughs and wretches. When he'd enlisted, eagerly, at age 17 Casey had imagined battling enemy soldiers, dragging his countrymen to safety, and eventual celebration as the Germans raised a white flag.

He didn't think it'd be easy. He'd also imagined gruff generals barking orders. Long treks with backpack straps cutting through his shoulders and blisters forming in his combat boots. But he'd never imagined the smell of men's flesh rotting while they still drew breath. The indignity of hiding his face under a sour, piss-soaked rag and praying the wind would keep the mustard gas away. He hadn't imagined, hadn't even been capable of imagining, that war was nothing more or less than a constant state of fear punctuated by brief, incoherent flashes of violence where the only survival strategies were hope and pray.

In other words, he could never have imagined war would be so much fun.

This experience unbound his conceptions of warfare and allowed his imagination to run wild. No longer was he limited to fantasies of impaling enemy soldiers on his bayonet, tearing them limb from limb with a well-placed grenade, or causing their skulls to explode with impeccable aim. He could now imagine infection brought on from living in his own feces, his feet rotting off his body, and the rapid spread of all too common diseases rendered deadly by the blood-freezing winter nights. His dreams, he realized, had been childish. Simple. This was real war. This was real experience.

He lived for this shit.

Casey knelt by a small fire for warmth, huddled with two men who's names he didn't know and didn't want to learn. Every man he'd met was dead or mutilated or worse. One of the soldiers forced his mouth open to choke down some dry crackers and revealed his black, blistered gums and decayed teeth.

“Neistat!” His Sergent called. Casey got to his feet and began to trudge in the direction of the voice. As he picked his way around puddles and the living corpses that littered the ground, Casey prayed the sergeant had received orders to attack. Last time they'd fought for three days to advance their line three feet. With no word on the greater arc of the war, Casey hoped to continue this dance in perpetuity. They would fight again to claim another foot. In a week they'd be pushed back to where they started. All the while he would get to dodge bullets and shrapnel as much as infection and disease. He smiled to himself when he arrived at the small officer's alcove. He loved everything about soldiering, but one thing made it all the sweeter.

Here in the trenches, in 1917, he couldn't be cancelled on Twitter.com

Circumstance forced Casey from the war before it concluded. His left leg had been torn off in an explosion. The fighting blinded him to the point he didn't even notice the detonation until he struggled to his feet and, when he attempted to take a step, promptly face planted into a pile of wet shit.

Had this changed his outlook on war? No. It was a useless appendage anyway.

Since his return to the states, Casey moved out of his parents house and relocated to New York City. Arriving in the middle of the Spanish Flu pandemic made the adjustment more difficult, but Casey enjoyed the challenge. His initial job search led him to the newly constructed Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, where he quickly found employment as a camera operator.

Living at the epicenter of a booming post-war economy had seemingly endless perks, chief among them his stable, well-paying job that helped him discover a passion for film-making. He reveled in the excess of New York parties that featured fast music and faster women. But the most exciting moment of any given evening came with particularly loud symbol clashes or the start of a fireworks display. The chaotic noise always took him back to his favorite memories. Ducking into a foul trench with a hundred terrified men as bombs tore apart the earth around them.

Soon he would get to return. Very soon.

The good times couldn't last forever. The soaring economy experienced a crash the likes of which no living human had ever seen. Casey, along with millions of other workers, lost his job. His apartment followed soon after. Desperate for work, he wandered the streets of New York for weeks, searching for employment. He found none. What he found was much better than a “job” or “food” or “stable shelter.”

What he found was a Hooverville.

More specifically, after striking out on his job search yet again, Casey took a walk through Central Park and discovered a homeless settlement in the empty reservoir. After all these years, he'd finally found a suitable replacement for the trenches. Though it lacked the stomach-squirming anxiety and constant rumblings of an active war zone, Casey was nonetheless taken in by the unnecessary indignity. He was home.

Squalor though was too comfortable. Casey grew discontent with the lack of food, clean water, and shelter from the bitter New York winter. He wanted more immediate threats to his life. He wanted to go back to France. He wanted to go back to war.

Casey attempted to re-enlist hours after news of Pearl Harbor reached NYC. Due to his advanced age and missing leg, he was denied entry. Casey attempted to use makeup stolen from his old place of employment to look younger. He used a fake ID and even attempted to hide his missing leg. But eventually, he was reduced to a new low. Begrudgingly, he begged for enough money to call his parents. Casey hardly spent any time in his upper middle class Connecticut home before moving to New York, and this was the first time he'd spoken to his father since. After a few minutes of arguing, his dad relinquished. He pulled a few strings and just like that, Casey was granted entry into the officer's academy.

For a time, he enjoyed wielding power over the volunteers and draftees. Calling them “maggots,” and “worms,” and forcing them to run through drills, but it didn't last. Despite his repeated requests, he was never moved to the front lines, and, at the conclusion of the war, was discharged.

Upon his second return from combat, Casey was met with greater support. Congress passed the G.I. bill, which made it possible for him to obtain medical care and a college education at no cost. Though he wanted to return to the film industry and make his own movies, he was unable to do so without serious connections. Though his joy at avoiding even the possibility of an anime-avatar calling him a dipshit online could not be overstated, he despised the idea of going through film school. But since equipment was prohibitively expensive and distribution was an impossibility without studio support, Casey took advantage of the government's rare generosity and enrolled in film school.

While at university he met his wife, Candice. Upon graduation, he got a job at a New York studio and quietly began to work towards his ultimate dream – directing his own film. In his spare time, he joined the civil rights protests of the 50s and 60s. Though he believed in the cause wholeheartedly, he lied to Candice every time he said that was his only reason for joining the marches and demonstrations. The real reason was, every now and then, when the cops showed up, he could go back. The indiscriminate gunfire. The clouds of chemicals blowing in the breeze. Even though the protests lacked the pleasures of those trenches Casey loved so much, they were still the closest he ever got to returning to The Great War.

Casey lived out his years attempting to recreate those few months he spent in France from 1917-1918. He climbed through the studio system and even got to direct a few rigidly-controlled films but was never granted the creative freedom he pined for. In 1985, even as he lay dying, he still cracked a smile. When Candice managed to ask, “what are you so happy about,” between body-shaking sobs, Casey answered, “at least I didn't have to deal with that internet bullshit.”

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