Hivemind Times Issue #45

Welcome To The Hivemind Times!

Howdy my pals. Wow what a week - things sure AREN’T looking up anytime soon. So let me attempt to provide you with momentary escapism into a world of random facts, tunes, and pictures of people you may or may not know. 

I’m writing this at 4pm Thursday so in case OKC won the finals congrats? And if not lets fucking go we got a game 7! Dad rock bracket got demonetized because Riley said too many fucked up jokes so please continue to support us through these trying times every little bit counts. But we are sure to bounce back because we have a very special guest here at the moment and I can’t wait for you all to see the videos we have shot this week! No spoilers tho. 

This week's Times is sure to be packed with some of the all time great tidbits you’ve ever sunk your beady little eyes into, enjoy and prosper.

- Riley & Graydon

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS FRIENDS

Happy Friday Hiveminders! Gavin from Damage here with an exciting announcement: Fellow loyal soldiers, I recently dropped an extremely high quality tee-shirt on buydamage.com for only $8. Who’s doing that? Who’s giving you exactly what you want at almost unreasonably low prices? Almost feels too good to be true, almost...

Believe it or not these “Fight tee’s” are an incredible deal, amazingly comfortable and uniquely distressed. Yes, it’s true. If you’re feeling especially unreasonable today, possibly itching for that sweet warmth only retail therapy can bring you, then head over to buydamage.com and snag an $8 tee-shirt while they last. We restocked all sizes, just for you. 

RETURN OF SHVINGI INGËBÖRKSEN

Moth to Butterfly: the Karen Metamorphosis

I have had a series of low-level Kafkaesque interactions with a local parking authority beginning early this year.  Essentially, I received a ticket for having last year’s parking pass while I was in the process of paying/acquiring this year’s.  Since then, I have gone back and forth to the parking office to dispute this ticket.  After getting oral assurance from someone in charge - who talked to me out of eyesight from a back room - this ticket has resurfaced some eight months later for no apparent reason.  I had to go back two more times before receiving a call this afternoon that it had been dismissed.

The embarrassing truth is I was technically in the wrong - I had months to renew my parking pass and didn’t out of laziness.  Had I run up against a more Weberian parking administrator I would have been SoL.

What’s disturbing is the feeling of immense frustration I felt with each interaction.  Because the car was originally registered in Michigan the tickets are all mailed to my parents house.  Each text from my mom containing photos of each freshly mailed update raised my blood from a simmer to a boil.  I felt pressed to resolve the issue quickly.  Not a natural follow-upper, I have done so consistently here.

The 10,000 foot view is that I am ridiculous and pathetic and overreacting.  I do not dispute this.  To a large extent, any human emotion felt at all is ridiculous given the profound smallness of the individual.

Maybe more interesting is how something like a $50 parking ticket metamorphosed me into temporary Karen.  To be clear, I was always polite to the woman at the parking office and never raised my voice.  Maybe I am being too hard in defining my behavior.  At the very least I felt like a kind of Karen–wide-eyedly checking in on probably underpaid, low morale bureaucrats to make sure that my $50 ticket (again, my fault) was dismissed.

Part of this might be the nature of the ticket itself.  It is knowable - it has a number and value.  It was assigned at a date and a time to a specific vehicle at a specific location.  There is a knowable system for disputing the ticket; maybe an imperfect one, but it exists.  A ticket is an exception to the normal world where we hurtle through space with no control at all.  At least with the ticket there is the illusion of control.  We can at least pretend we have it and go through the charade of trying to exercise it.

Which makes me think of what is going on in real, foaming at the mouth Karen world.  That Karen varietal has no respect for service employees, often raises her voice; nothing will stop her from expressing whatever inner creature is screaming to get out. Is she so distressed by the lack of control that she has completed her metamorphosis into a lashing beast with gnashing teeth? Is that our final defense mechanism to the unknowable?

- Shvingi

RILEY’S TWITTER DRAFTS

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