Angie's Right Leg and other matters of national importance

I thought Angelina Jolie flashing her right leg at the Oscars was funny because you could tell she was in on her own joke. Even from the still photos, she’s smiling and almost winking. I heard the photographers kept asking her to flash her leg through the slit in her dress and I guess she just thought the whole thing was ridiculous so she played it up. (I was also entertained by Jim Rash imitating Angie’s pose when he collected his Oscar.)

The reason that “meme” entertains me is because it was intentional. I’m less amused by these poses people strike unintentionally that are supposed to become a “thing.” When he lost the Super Bowl, Golden Boy Tom Brady was slumped on the field with his feet straight out in a Pieta of anguish. The next day, I saw on CNN that people were imitating his slump in something called “Bradying.” Christ, who gives a shit? I was over this whole phenomenon after glancing at the photo online for 2.3 seconds. Luckily, Bradying doesn’t seem to have caught on.

Bradying is, of course, the sequel to Tebowing, in which massive amounts of Americans genuflect in a prayerful moment to emulate Tim Tebow’s post-touchdown ritual. Because Tebow started that whole thing. It’s not like Christians have been praying that way for centuries.

Some of these poses that people assume are just asinine beyond words. I do not understand planking, where we’re all supposed to lie prone in unexpected areas and someone takes a picture. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. I just can’t imagine anything more uninteresting than doing this or watching people doing it. If I actually did plank, I would have a moment of clarity, take a look in the mirror and re-evaluate my entire existence. It would just seem so empty.

I don’t care for this new “breading” thing the kids are doing. This is where you cut a whole in the middle of a piece of bread and stick your pet’s head in the hole. I’m sorry; I’m not a drunk frat boy, so no. First, it’s a waste of food. Second, I’m uncomfortable when people do “cutesy” things to pets like this. It’s not quite abusive, I guess, but just … exploitative? This would not fly with our cats. With a piece of bread around her neck, Cerys would tear around like a Tasmanian Devil and Jarvis sometimes has very human expressions so I could see him turning his big green eyes on me with an expression of “Why, daddy?”

I breathlessly await the next pose people will strike. Maybe we’ll sit on everything like it’s a bench and we’ll call it “benching.” Or we can put our hands on our hips and call it “akimboing.” Just something highly clever like that so the smart set can entertain itself for hours.