Anonymous Satire
I don’t know how it happened, but every morning I wake up to Apple News roundhouse kicking me in the teeth.
I never asked to be added onto any mailing lists, I never clicked any “subscribe” buttons. I’ve never even opened Apple News on purpose. But like a needy boyfriend, the Apple News banner demands to be the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. It’s disgusting.
I think I’d be alright with it if the headlines weren’t so upsetting, but it seems like Tim Cook has a personal vendetta against me. I’d really prefer not to roll over at 7 a.m. on a Monday, hit snooze on my alarm and immediately be accosted by The New York Times screaming something to the effect of “DOCTORS SEE NO END IN SIGHT: ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.”
The writers at The New York Times are utter fatalists. They can’t write a single headline without throwing in a dash of depression. Solutions journalism doesn’t exist for The New York Times — only pain.
The one positive thing about The New York Times is that it gives me a nice jolt of anxiety that forces me to be fully alert in time for my morning Spanish class.
The downside is that I end up musing on the crisis in the Middle East while mindlessly repeating phrases like “el perro está en el horno.” I almost want to give each of the writers at The New York Times a hug, but they’d probably think I was trying to pickpocket them or give them some sort of infectious disease.
I should give the Times some credit though. At least they aren’t The Washington Post. My hatred of The Washington Post fills me with black, bilious rage. I used to like them because of that movie with Meryl Streep, but then I realized that I just like Meryl Streep and it has nothing to do with the quality of the publication.
The Washington Post likes to make wild proclamations without even pretending they’re unbiased. Plus, their headlines haunt me all throughout the day.
I walk out of my afternoon holy hour in the Port and all of a sudden I’m hit with something like “Kamala Harris makes women proud, proposes law allowing parents to cook and eat their children for breakfast.”
Thanks a lot, Washington Post. I was really feeling the presence of the Lord and now you’ve taken a sledgehammer to my spiritual kneecaps.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the random “This Day in History”-type stuff from, like, The Guardian. I would prefer not to kick off a Tuesday with “24 Years Ago Today: John Denver’s head found on Monterey County beach.” The algorithm needs to back off. The number of times I’ve listened to “Rocky Mountain High” does not indicate that I am interested in the details of the singer’s fatal plane crash.
You may be asking yourself, “Anonymous, why not just turn off notifications?” Well, dear reader, I … you’re right. I haven’t actually thought about that.
I could probably solve this issue very easily. I am not necessarily technologically inept, just lazy. Same reason I haven’t gotten the flu shot since eighth grade; I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I’m just anti-Doing Things. But I digress.
In conclusion, I would suggest you take these three pieces of advice: boycott The Washington Post, stop listening to folk music and get an alarm clock. You’ll be much better off than I am.