I have a doctorate in hot takes

like everyone else

Following American politics makes you so much smarter. When the Supreme Court closed out its recent term, everyone was suddenly a legal scholar. Since the first Presidential debate, everyone is a neurologist, although it might be better if more people were suddenly gerontologists. Maybe next week, Joe Biden and Donald Trump will take a page from Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and a chorus of newly-minted ethnomusicologists can provide hot takes on a Biden-Trump rap battle.

This isn’t a new thing, of course. We’ve been hot-taking our way to pseudo-expertise ever since social media made talking out of your ass a viable way to chase clout and an actual business model for anyone #blessed enough to achieve society’s highest title: influencer. Lord knows I’ve been a hot-take machine ever since I created a MySpace account.

Three of my greatest hot takes:

• Prediction for the 2008 election? No way America elects a guy named Barack Hussein Obama President. We should nominate that Edwards guy because he has zero baggage. Otherwise, it’s McCain in a landslide.

• 2012 Mayan Apocalypse? This is the year the world ends. My advice: don’t pay your bills, eat all the junk food, do everything on your bucket list, kiss your fat ass goodbye.

• This new virus called Covid that everyone is suddenly talking about instead of making plans for 4/20/2020? Look, I do my own research, and I just Googled “pandemic,” so believe me when I say, it’s just like the flu, which didn’t kill anyone, except for that time in 1918, but only if you were in Spain. Also, a framed epidemiology degree is the ultimate Zoom background flex.

Sometimes TV talking heads say things like, “Public trust in experts is declining.” They might even back up that claim with Pew Research data. But I think the talking heads have it wrong. It’s not that our trust in experts is declining, it’s that our definition of expert is changing. An expert used to be someone who had mastered their field. Now, an expert can be anyone and everyone.

I first became aware of my newfound expertise after the Game of Thrones finale. Like everyone else, I immediately knew the writers had cocked-up the ending. At first, I was mad. Bran the Broken for King of Westeros? Fuck that noise. But then I thought, I can write the shit out of this show, even though I haven’t read the books and I keep mixing up the characters. So I tweeted my revisions at HBO. Then I got NBC on the horn to give them my take for how to end Seinfeld the right way. If anyone can put me in touch with Netflix, I know how to make Squid Game even better. Step one: change the title to Calamari Contest.

A good word to describe someone who thinks they know better than everyone else is moron. Since most of the activity on social media boils down to neophytes shouting down expertise, you could call social media moronic. But maybe a better word here is certitude. Linguistic experts who do their own research will tell you that certitude is a portmanteau of certainty and attitude.

I envy people with certitude. I think that’s always been the case, but it really hit home the week of July 4th. The news inside my political bubble was bad. Half my friends were certain that American democracy was over. The other half were certain they knew how to save it. That’s certitude.

Pushing a shopping cart through Trader Joe’s, I wasn’t even sure if we should grill hotdogs or hamburgers to honor America’s birthday. Did Thomas Jefferson say anything in the Declaration of Independence about which meat products represent freedom? Which one of the Federalist Papers included a guide to grilling? Isn’t it the 18th Amendment that prohibits the sale of alcohol, while mandating that hamburgers must be purchased in conjunction with hotdogs? I wasn’t sure about any of this, so I bought both just to be safe.

Whatever certitude I strive for online turns into a mushy porridge of hedging and equivocation IRL. Consider a recent example ripped from the headlines. On July 4th, after eating a hotdog and a hamburger, I told a friend that Joe Biden was definitely dropping out of the race. “He’s out,” I declared. “It’s a matter of hours, maybe a day or two.” On July 6th, I told the same friend that Joe Biden was definitely staying in the race. “No way he quits,” I insisted. “Even if he’s dead, his team will Weekend at Bernie’s the shit out of this election.” My friend called me out on my flip-flop, but what she didn’t know was that on July 5th I had flip-flopped at least three hundred and forty-six times. Like I said, a mushy porridge of hedging and equivocation.

If you Google Socrates, you’ll find a quote that goes something like, “the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.” But that quote comes from Plato, so it’s possible Socrates never said that. Personally, I’m willing to believe that Plato made it up and attributed it to Socrates because that made him sound smart to a bunch of Athenians who were feeling mighty guilty about that hemlock snafu. Here’s why I can believe Socrates never said that: it’s very fucking hard to admit that you don’t know the answer. That’s part of the human condition. But ever since we evolved into a species called Homo Googler, we’ve gotten really good at tricking ourselves into believing we know everything. Ask Joe Rogan. He’ll ask Jamie to Google it.

Everyday, I’m tempted to go with Google, or as Johnny Utah never said to Bodhi at the end of Point Break, “Vaya con Google.”

I’m trying to fight that temptation. I’m trying to be humble. I’m trying to really hard to channel my inner Edie Brickell:

I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean

But it’s hard out there for a Homo Googler. The sum total of human knowledge is at our fingertips, and it’s socially acceptable to get high on your own supply. Even if I’m wrong, you know I’m right.

Shout out time!

A big thank you to the newest Situation Normal paid subscribers. Situation Normal is totally free, so their decision to pay really means a lot to me.

Thank you to Marty KC! Sending you good vibes and instructions for turning off K-Fuck Radio, Marty.

Big shout out to Lorna! Sending you good vibes in the hopes that you name your inner critic and give them their walking papers.

Big shout out to Matthew W! Matt didn’t leave a note, but that’s totally fine. Look for your good vibes in the mail, Matt.

Stick around and chat!

I ask, you tell.

1. When it comes to certitude, are you Socrates, Edie Brickell, Joe Rogan? Bonus if you contain multitudes like Walt Whitman Disney.

2. How should Game of Thrones or Seinfeld have ended? Wrong answers encouraged!

3. If MySpace is for me AND you, shouldn’t it have been called OurSpace?

4. What’s your real area of expertise? Right answers only.

5. You can totally use Weekend at Bernie’s as a verb, right?