I'm no astronaut

Outer space is really weird. It's beautiful but dangerous. It's the unknown. That's also what's so cool about it. Like that handsome kid at your high school wearing the leather jacket. I feel like there have been periods of time in my life so far where outer space has been really cool in an actually sincere way and then other times it borderlined between unimportant and cringe. I mean that in a societal view sense.

Sometimes the people closest to outer space are the ones responsible. Like Elon tries so hard to be so cool and to be so into space stuff that he actually made the premise of seeing another planet really uncool. The whole Katy Perry space trip thing. Still not sure what that was about.

Remember when Pluto was switched over to being a dwarf planet instead of a "normal" planet? Felt like that was a big deal. People were up in arms. Talking like not my favorite planet! Hell no. No fucking way! I was also in the 6th grade then.

Neil Degrasse Tyson? Was he cool? I can't remember for sure but I feel like there was a moment. Another case of a thing catching steam and getting launched into virality only to burn out as quickly as it came. How something can only be good for so long.

Have you seen Alien though? That's still good. In my opinion pretty fucking cool even.

Below is a little thing I wrote back when Kim Kardashian started talking about the moon landing being fake.

I'm no astronaut

She knew with confidence the moon landing was fake. The evidence is right there on TikTok she explained. Why is the flag blowing? Why are there no stars? Questions asked by one of the country’s biggest celebrities. Actually probably the world at this point. In terms of followers she must have some of the most out there I would think. Based on a quick internet search she has 354 million currently. That’s good for #8 among all accounts on Instagram. My hometown has just over 6,000 people in it and this lady has more people looking at her posts than there are in all of the United States. Not so much united anymore I’d say but we definitely have states. The united part of the name was probably a bit overzealous of the founding fathers to be honest. Her posts must be really good is what I’m trying to say. And I’m no astronaut but I’m pretty sure it happened. The moon landing of it all.

I don’t post much anymore myself. It’s draining and no longer personal and scrolling kicks my depression up to an unhealthy gear. I can’t even see my friends’ posts anymore without almost buying 10 different pairs of sneakers or watching a couple I have never heard of play this game where the boyfriend is seeing how many NFL logos his girlfriend can recognize. No honey that’s the Indianapolis Colts not the Horseshoes you big dummy.

Do you think that posting will be a merit we evaluate each other on in the near future? Mary at work comes over to your desk talking about how Tom can’t post for shit he only has 800 followers. At the interview for the next job and the hiring manager is asking me about my posting rate and efficiency. A new kind of analytic to judge people who need work on to see if they meet company standards.

Will we remember the posts of the ones we love? Watching your cousin get lowered into her final resting place while your one goofy uncle whispers to you about how he’s gonna miss her weekly Reels. Remember the one where she did a Mentos into Coke type of experiment in the backyard but all the bottles were aimed at her? The stuff was coming out of her nose. Haha. Her hair smelt like Coke for a week after that.

My mom did a wellness check on me the other day saying how I haven’t posted in months. I told her I’m all good I just don’t see the point anymore and we’ve been texting every day even if it’s just the Wordle score most mornings. Well Nancy from down the road came over asking if everything was okay she used to love seeing photos of your dog my mom explained. Well you can tell Nancy he is doing just fine. Let me send you a couple of pictures you can show her I said.

While she had me on the phone my mom started telling me how this lady at work was showing her these videos about the moon landing and how there were no stars in the background and the flag looked like it was whipping in the wind. That one famous lady is pretty sure the whole thing was faked apparently. I think we’ve been there though. It would be kind of sad to think otherwise. The government lies about a lot of stuff but the moon? Oh wow Nancy is going to love these pictures.

I brought the moon thing up to a guy at the bar the next night and showed him an article that was discussing what the famous woman had said. Not in a serious way but more in a wow this is funny huh way. This was a mistake though because he responded by saying how excited he was that someone with a platform like hers was finally speaking up about all of the lies we’re being told. She has like 100 million followers the truth will finally come out! Well technically she has 354 million I started saying but that’s not important to what I was trying to get across. The acting NASA administrator even responded in their own post saying how they’ve been to the moon six times actually. Well that guy is an idiot. Yeah we can agree on that at least I said cheersing in light of our similar distaste. I asked the bar guy if he knew that the NASA administrator guy had been on that show The Real World. I don’t watch reality TV he said. That stuff will fry your brain.