I THREW IT ON THE GROUND !

I'M NOT A PART OF YOUR SYSTEM...MANNNN!!!!

I bought a jacket at the local vintage market recently. 100% Virgin Orlon acrylic, walnut brown, 70s adjacent, groovy. Suede detailing by the collar, zipper, and outer pocket. Tonal color blocking and that gay little circle zipper (you know what I’m talking about). All the bells and whistles. I felt like I had seen a jacket like this somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I let the thought pass and continued on my merry way. A couple days pass and I end up stumbling upon the very genesis of my desire for a jacket like this. Adorned by a character I did not understand on my first encounter, I now look upon him with new eyes. Perhaps I have become a product of my fears.

I just rewatched an SNL sketch called “Threw It On The Ground” in which a man performs slam poetry about how he’s disgruntled with “the system” and how he obliterates social situations as well as whatever the hell he’s currently holding in his hands by throwing it on the ground. Just absolutely spiking that shit to the ground in a grand display of rebellion against the social order. Throughout all of this, he’s dressed in the most exaggerated “hipster” fits you could fathom. I’m talking about the modern 2009 Beatnik jazz man with the newsie hat and puka shell necklace and all. His fits get increasingly more metrosexual throughout the sketch as his anger spreads to increasingly more absurd subjects. Here’s how it goes.

As he’s walking, minding his business, he comes across a man handing out samples of an energy drink. “Run Faster, Jump Higher.” he says.

“MAAAAN I’m not gonna let you poison me! I THREW IT ON THE GROUND”

Andy throws the energy drink on the ground much to the shock of the energy drink man.

“You must think I’m a joke! I’m not gonna be part of your system…MAAAAAAAN! Pump that garbage in another man’s face” Andy exclaims.

You might call me crazy but I see where he’s coming from in this case. Don’t you feel poisoned by the world of advertising? Isn’t everything marketing? The manipulation of language to garner influence and profit. In a similar way to politics, they’re trying to talk their way into your wallet. Does it mean I’m just a miserable person that I am not amazed by the vibrancy and grandeur of the billboards in Times Square but am rather annoyed by the incessant light pollution and wasted energy going towards pavloving my consumer modules? Are we considered so silly to be marketed towards how we are? There’s one ad that drives me insane it’s that “Last War” ad with Anthony Star (Homelander from The Boys) doing the most monotonous podcast ad read in his Homelander character’s voice while pretending to react to the footage of this purposefully incompetent gameplay. It has to be rage bait marketing for how absolutely shitty and low effort the ad is and I’m more so pissed that I feel absolutely anything about this at all.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen an Instagram ad and just been blown away at the absurdity of what is being churned in the algo-machine. Why is a white man painted in gold face paint in an oddly orientalist pharoh cosplay telling me to gamble on professional counter-strike games using meme-coins? It’s enough to drive you crazy. Our bread and circus consists of a giant football game with the Birds vs Native American Iconography in which many folks are heavily invested in the advertisements that go on during the game and their favorite celebrity being sighted in the box. Who the fuck cares about the new Doritos ad. I digress.

Andy continues on his day, approaching his favorite hot dog stand. The hot dog guy offers him a free hot dog because he’s a regular. Andy, offended, hurls the hotdog towards the ground with incredible force and gusto. “I DON’T NEED YOUR HANDOUTS…I’M AN ADULT! Please…you can’t buy me hot-dog man!”

I can somewhat relate to this as I find it harder and harder to ask for help. I’ve been able to yap my way by but at a time where my screams become quieter and more muffled under the weight of expectation, I go quiet. I try to think of the silliest calls for help possible, but I fear they get lost in the bit under the layers of irony and veiled sincerity. I’ve grown more fearful of hands offered in help as I feel my patterns of self-destruction and self-sabotage may injure others as well as myself. I fear that perhaps I’ve put up walls in response to perceived manipulation that may only exist in my mind. In full honesty, though I don’t like hot dogs, never did. I don’t know what’s in there! (as I destroy my body with known poisons) Plus they’re haram. Samberg’s character acts in loud defiance of perceived attempts to purchase his loyalty whether out of some self-righteous glory or out of spite against this “system”…man. I don’t know if I would have thrown the hot dog on the ground, but I would be metaphorically denying my blessings in other ways.

Anyways next scene.

“At the farmers market with my so-called girlfriend, she hands me her cell phone, says it’s my dad. Maaaaan this ain’t my dad, this is a cell phone! I threw it on the ground! What you think I’m stupid?! I’m not a part of your system…my dad’s not a phone…DUH.”

The delivery of the “so-called girlfriend” line has me in tatters every time I rewatch. The idea that Andy’s character is so antagonistic towards any form of social institution or “system” manifests in his doubt about the sanctity of his relationship. Even a place as peaceful or innocuous as a farmer’s market can be the stage for an emotional falling out between two souls as their ties are weathered by time and the way they’ve been carried by the wind. Or something like that. Being a real stickler about semantics is hilarious in its own ways but I feel the sentiment of being further disconnected in our digital age. As our ability to stay connected has expanded through social media, messaging apps, League of Legends/all chat, it is true that more avenues of connection are created. Yet do we not crave the feeling of one’s presence, their physical presence in the same room. The exchange of warmth and a closer resonance to understanding. So much is lost through our communication over these devices as I’m not speaking to you directly, I’m speaking to you through this vessel with a thin veil of invulnerability, and security in my isolation.

Anyways, he continues.

“Some poser hands me cake at a birthday party, what you want me to do with this eat it? Happy Birthday to the ground! I threw the rest of the cake too! Welcome to the real world jackass!”

I need to preface that the poser in question here is some 10-year-old kid. Presumably, the birthday boy, as signaled by the gold crown atop his head. It’s difficult to have your cake and eat it too. Sometimes you gotta learn these lessons early. I see this bit as being a reflection on how the conditions of capitalism lead to the death of one’s inner child. One is told to grow up, conform, and abandon the pleasures of childhood in pursuit of hegemonic “maturity.” One is made to grow up too soon and become a cog in the machine as a result of the material conditions they face. We’ll get into this more in-depth another time, I digress. This is also the scene where Andy’s character wears the jacket I was referencing prior. That’s right, I wanted the jacket that he wore in the scene where he threw a kid’s birthday cake on the ground. Drip or drown, learn how to swim motherfucker.

Samberg’s character then throws a fish bowl, a roasted chicken, a vase, and a bowl of Skittles onto the ground before exclaiming “I’M AN ADUUUUUUUULT!”

The scene cuts to “two Hollywood phonies” (Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood) eating dinner at a presumably upscale restaurant. Samberg’s character flips their table in anger at their attempts to give him their autographs. This doesn’t happen at all in the scene and is most likely a manifestation of Samberg’s character’s mental state as he states “Nobody wants your autographs, phonies!” as he leaps over the table and attempts to flee the scene.

The absurdity behind the idea of “celebrity” or idol worship is something that perplexes me in certain ways. Now, keep in mind John Wall highlights speak to me like Taylor Swift songs speak to sad white women. I acknowledge I’m a hypocrite in my own right but I don’t really care, it’s different I swear totally. It’s not unreasonable to admire people for their talents or their abilities especially when the consumption of their work allows you to feel. The parasocial nature of “standom” on the other hand, reeks of absurdity. I’m not saying this as someone who had been harassed and doxxed on twitter for a week for making a joke about a Taylor Swift concert in the rain smelling like pennies, nickles, dimes, and wet dog, but rather as a concerned unemployed member of society. (It was supposed to be a joke about people saying “I know it smells crazy in there” to a video of a night club in India. I don’t need to unpack the racial connotations behind this. ) Don’t get me started on the Kpop stans, colonial era racism, shit our grandparents probably never even heard. I fuck with TWICE, but I am not dying for any of these people. Kanye stans are a different breed as well, I don’t even wanna get into that. These are people who do not know us; we do not know them. They are folks with platforms and products for us to consume, but they are people nonetheless. Why the fuck do we care about what goes on in these folks’ lives, it could not be more inconsequential. Maybe it is for that exact reason that we tune in. Our bread and circus. The sheer disconnect between our lives and what we see theirs as.

Hell, Joe Rogan is one of the most famous people in the world and he’s a self-declared massive idiot with a generation of men wrapped around his finger. Do people love Rogan because they see themselves in him, as massive fucking idiots? Do they like Rogan because they can relate to the idea of claiming one’s self as “apolotical” or “not left or right” but consistently platforming and regurgitating right-wing talking points with little empirical backing? Does the rise of anti-intellectual figures such as Joe Rogan into the public zeitgeist mirror society’s own attitudes towards intellectualism and thought? I don’t know, but I know that I do not enjoy seeing that walking malteezer on my feed. This guy hosted Fear Factor, what the fuck does he know about (insert anything here, no literally anything, fuck it I’m not even deleting this I want you to understand how much I mean ANYTHING) I digress.

Ryan Reynolds had a wedding on a plantation. Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, with nine slave cabins referred to as "Slave Street." Fuck that guy. The best part about a mint mobile ad is skipping it. Devoting yourselves to a cult of personality when you should be devoting yourself to touching grass and forming ties with your community is silly billy business.

We cut back to the scene and turns out Ryan Reynolds has a taser as he and Elijah Wood chase down Samberg’s character and repeatedly tase his asshole. Samberg’s character describes how as he screamed and squirmed and they repeatedly tased his asshole, the moral of the story is…”YOU CAN’T TRUST THE SYSTEM…MAAAAAAN!”

*Fade to Black*

I had a lot of dreams as a young boy. I remember wanting to be a paleontologist when I was younger, I was obsessed with fossils and dinosaurs and dreamed of unearthing a complete T-Rex skeleton somehow. I remember wanting to be a herpetologist, taking trips to the herpeteriam, and feeling sad whenever they milked the snakes for anti-venom because I thought they were in pain. I remember growing up and dreaming of being on SNL one day. Either hosting, being in a sketch, or as a writer. Yelling out “Live from New York it’s Saturday Night!!!” I loved watching SNL every weekend, usually with my dad, as we stayed up and watched an hour and a half of bits performed for our viewing entertainment. Weekend update was always one of my favorite segments, as I too enjoy processing the downfall of civilization through humor. The digital shorts were something else. The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer) shines bright with unbridled silliness and a taste for the absurd.

I found this sketch again at a bit of a strange point. As I find myself drawn closer to the idea that nostalgia is a prison in the way that one searches for a feeling locked behind the walls of time, I also find myself looking back as the future looks less and less guaranteed. As I grow older and grumpier, perhaps it makes more and more sense to throw shit on the ground. What other kinds of nonsense do we engage in for the sake of self-righteousness? What bridges are we willing to burn for the sake of principle? What is the boldest moral grandstand one can make in a farmer’s market? These are all questions I’ve found myself asking more and more these days.

There is an almost primal rage in the destruction of these objects throughout the sketch. The shatter of the glass containing the energy drink, the crash of a cell phone slamming atop the concrete, the slinging of a child’s birthday cake onto the ground, and its visceral expansion over the floor. As a path of destruction is carved in his wake, it is clear that Samberg’s character is himself broken in a way. The repeated acts of social self-destruction in the name of some greater purpose he himself does not seem to understand. Been there, brother. I’ve seen myself walk this path, and I feel no (ok maybe a little) shame in acknowledging this resonance.

I’ll be the guy standing on my soapbox yelling into the void for only the birds to hear. I’ll be the guy to persevere out of spite. I’ll be the guy to

Throw it on the ground.

(You can’t trust the system…

Man.)

Here’s the sketch referenced: