Escapism isn’t good or bad in itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. — Terry Pratchett
Growing up, when something was unpleasant, we cranked up the tunes. Music was a way to escape something unpleasant. My mother could play the piano, and my father had a massive collection of Dixieland jazz records. I took piano lessons, so each week I would bash the keys around, usually when my mother was using the mixer to drown some of it out. My brother learned to play the guitar, and he is still a rockstar.
When my mother couldn’t stand the loud cartoons we had on television, or the constant squabbling, she’d snap off the set and put on some records. She was a fan of Elvis and the Beatles, as well as anything from a Broadway musical.
No matter how awful it got, though, we never shut off the news; both of my parents read the Boston Globe every day, and Walter Cronkite was our nightly dinner guest, flickering from our little black and white TV in the corner. I grew up being a news junkie, and my father would always find some random news story and say, “Hey, Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter, what do you think of this?”
So, when I’ve finished my work and I’m done annoying people on social media, do I scroll around the news websites and catch up on world events?
I do not.
Between COVID and the rest of the circus acts that the last few years have brought us, I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to check out of reality for a little while. I stay informed on the basics, but I keep out of the comment sections and any debates about current events. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion on, well, everything; I’ve just decided that sharing it is doing my head in, and I’ve hit my limit.
Honestly, I’m more than a little bent about it, because I have always been the one doing a “deep dive” on a news story. I enjoy researching, reading more than one source, and getting into the details. I just can’t anymore, though. I have to turn to other pursuits because going into the nitty-gritty of the fresh hell that arrives every single day is more than I can take right now.
During COVID, I got away from the news by watching murder shows. How is watching Dateline specials about serial killers better than keeping track of a public health situation? I don’t have the answer to that, but the good news is I’ve never been murdered, and I’ve never had COVID. I did, however, watch every episode of Tiger King, because nothing takes your mind off a pandemic like a lunatic with a zoo full of deadly animals.
Once the world opened up again, I nearly decided I liked it better staying home, cracking cold cases, and snarfing down chips. That’s about when I noticed the “Reels” on Facebook and Instagram. Who knew there was a whole world of fainting goats, epic kitchen fails, and throwing cheese slices at babies (look it up, it’s a thing). I’m sure there are hundreds of reels featuring recipes, helpful hints, and other topics.
What makes me laugh, though, are the completely ridiculous ones. I guarantee that if you are having a bad day, watching 30 seconds of one dog catching frisbees and another dog falling off a couch because someone sneezed will help.
I have a dear friend who is my “Reel Buddy.” We send short videos back and forth on a near-constant basis, and I genuinely believe it’s keeping both of us out of trouble. We probably shouldn’t laugh at some of what we see, but, well, we do. Laughter is restorative, and if it keeps me from telling off yet another Internet troll, who probably isn’t even human, then it serves a worthy purpose.
Social media can be a real mess, but we don’t all have to get down in the mud and throw raw sewage at each other. We can send videos of cats dressed like sharks riding on remote-controlled vacuums. What sounds like more fun? Trying to reason with someone who is never going to come out of their echo chamber, or watching a raccoon stumble out of a dumpster with a greasy bag of fries?
The horror parade isn’t going to stop anytime soon, so for now, I’m sticking with chickens that dance along to the Macarena. I might branch out a little and look for dogs that can say “I WUVVVVVV YOUUUUU” when they howl, because who doesn’t need that in their life? Is it just an escapist fantasy land? Yes. Do I care? No.
