Sigh. As I pointed out a while ago, I have an issue with people who have an inability to rein it in. The very first thing a person needs to learn in order to become an actual adult is to control *themselves,* and an important part of that is not losing ones damned mind over minor stuff. Obviously, this means keeping your cool in public. But this *also* means not intentionally exaggerating reactions in selfies (and, of course, not taking a ridiculous number of selfies, because WHO CARES).
It seems that there is a pretty specific reaction image called the “Nu-Male Smile,” where men – oddly, it seems to be mostly bearded men – photograph or video themselves “unboxing” some product or other and reacting with a ridiculous and undignified chimp-like gaping maw indicating unbridled enthusiasm. It’s just… disturbing. These men are largely what are now being called “Nu-Males” or “Soy Boys,” generally millenial males who have abandoned all pretense to masculinity in favor of Feminist Approved emasculinity and a focus on trivial and empty materialism coupled with self-hatred and an abundance of Social Justice and not a whole lot of STEM.
I don’t friggen’ care *what* Exciting News has just come your way, but that level of reaction is just… disturbing.
So let’s say you’ve just discovered that The Best Of All Possible Pop Culture Products is going to be released… and you are going to be allowed to beta test it. Maybe it’s a fully functional light saber. Or a phaser pistol. Or a WestWorld REDACTEDbot. Or they’re building you a full replica Millenium Falcon, or there’s news that the USAF actually built a fleet of Orion vessels and they’ve invited you to tag along as the US Colonial Marines set up settlements on Mars and Enceladus. This is all exciting news. But reacting with a face like (and especially willingly and intentionally posting a photo of it) that shown above is so truly awful that that beta test product should not only be taken away from you, you should be legally prohibited from ever approaching within 100 feet of it. And you should wear a sign, and all your social media tagged, that warns off all females to avoid you like the plague and never reproduce with you for the good of the genetic health of the species.
If you are a man… freakin’ act like it. Did Elon Musk just come to you and tell you that SpaceX actually has a fully functional warp drive and they’re going to start settling colonies of Western Civilization on the fifteen nearest just-discovered Earth-like planets? That’s about the best news imaginable… and it should be met with something like this:
