I have never snorted, smoked or shot heroin, and now I don’t ever have to: I have discovered “reels.”
Oh, these reels!
They’re not just for TikTok teens anymore. They’re big on Instagram, which I have mostly avoided. But now they’re on Facebook. And now I am fucked.
Watching reels, especially while sipping a cocktail, is like nodding out with your eyes wide open. Well, maybe not wide open.
And the blissful buzz lasts as long as you want it to. Through the holidays, for instance.
Interrupted only when your wife comes down the stairs and you furtively mute the reel you’re watching and put a look on your face that suggests you’re about halfway through a long-form journalism piece on child labor.
Soon as she goes back up, though, you grab another drink and return to the parade of humanity:
People drunk and sober, falling down stairs, hitting their heads and running into plate-glass windows without that reassuring “America’s Home Videos” guarantee that no one got seriously hurt.
Dumb golf shots.
Great golf shots.
Regular golf shots, by women golfers.
(So many golf shots.)
Excerpts from interviews with people like John McEnroe, Joe Namath, John Daly and Mickey Mantle. (Hey, I’m sort of learning stuff!)
Random drug addicts and alcoholics telling stories of recovery.
A video from a woman attended a pro-Israel “private event” talking about the pro-Palestinian “animals” who were protesting outside.
A middle-aged son talking on-camera to his hapless 91-year-old father who has Alzheimer’s. (I object to this son’s exploiting and influencer-monetizing of his father’s illness—I know I would absolutely *never* have done this to my own father—and yet I’ve seen at least 50 of these videos.)
A man recording his wife while he accuses her of cheating on him.
The late Jean Stapleton, explaining in all her exquisite intelligence and humanity, the circumstances of her leaving “Archie Bunker’s Place.”
A guy tearfully talking about grieving his dead brother.
A nurse talking emotionally about how she helped a terminally ill person who wanted to die, to die. “The patient drank the drink, and was like, ‘What should I do now, just go to sleep?’”
My various influencer lady crushes. Look up Elle Cordova. She is brilliant. (And a lesbian. [And she doesn’t play golf.] {Great Scott, Facebook knows what’s on my mind more than my wife does. And that’s just the way I want to keep it})!
Do not look up Bobbi Althoff. Something is wrong everyone who watches her—and she knows it. What’s wrong with everyone who watches her? The Mayo Clinic is looking into it. I repeat: Do not look up Bobbi Althoff.
Chevy Chase explaining to Howard Stern 15 years ago why he and Bill Murray didn’t get along.
Some shit I skip over because I don’t understand it within the first four seconds. If I wanted to think, I wouldn’t be watching reels, would I?
A bad umpire’s call made against the Pittsburgh Pirates at some point.
A pilot crash-landing an airplane.
A video from a woman living in a customized van.
Louis C.K., riffing apparently from from experience about being an AA sponsor.
A clip from The Big Lebowski.
A bad stand-up comedian I’ve never heard of.
A trauma nurse talking about telling a family their loved one died from a motorcycle accident.
A couple of more grief videos, plus one on a “cancer journey” and another video from a woman who is terribly sad during the holidays. (Is this Brooke Shields?)
A video of a city council meeting, somewhere. A man with a badge on his belt being asked, “Isn’t it true that you were recently accused of viewing pornography … while on duty and while inside the internal affairs office?” (Gallery gasps.)
That’s about an hour’s worth, from one night last week during a holiday binge.
Oh: And I’m dealing now. Facebook occasionally finds a popular video I’ve posted on my Feed and urges me to turn it into a reel. I usually say no. Sometimes I say yes. Facebook pays me in praise: “Only 16% of reels get as many views as your last one!” Show me the money.
Over the holidays I was going on about all this and my father-in-law said, “I’m surprised you have time for that.” Me too, Pops.
This is not life. This is death. If not death, then it’s purely passing time, waiting for death. It is palliative care.
Isn’t that what we thought television was, 50 years ago? The “boob tube,” we scoffed? But television at least did something to contribute to a common culture, however cheap and cheesy. “Didja Johnny Carson last night?”
But when I find myself telling someone a yarn about a hilarious reel I saw a couple weeks ago, I think: This is why many super old people are so boring. They are no longer living, they are just waiting to die.
Reels should be a feature of hospice. There should be a big screen TV showing reels, and everyone should sit around the bed and watch, until the death rattle.
Or is that what we’re already doing?
Now that you’ve brought it up…didn’t the science fiction classic SOYLENT GREEN include feature some reel-type segments of deer running and other “peaceful nature”-type themes that are supposed to provide some peace to Edward G. Robinson, just before he expires?
It reminds me of reading, years ago, a study done about e-mail, when it first came into common use, and the possible psychology behind it. ”You’ve got mail.” Researchers were concerned that users were getting addicted to checking their email. Dopamine spikes were a concern even back then?
And then there’s the sheer volume, and disparity of the subject matter that may lure the viewer in, all in one minute increments. At times, the mundane immediately followed by the tragic. Seemingly, the entire pallette of the human condition, at the touch of the fingertip. I’m not sure what negative effects might be attributed to prolonged viewing, but I’m pretty sure there is someone much smarter than myself studying it right now. They’re probably talking about it on their very own “reel”…