The following post contains violence, nudity and sexual content that may be disturbing to readers. Reader discretion is advised. 

O ignoble contagion of the depressives, neurosis as the only illness consisting in making others ill; the permissive structure: let me deceive, rob, slaughter, kill! but in the name of the social order, and so daddy-mommy will be proud of me; the double direction given to ressentiment, the turning back against oneself, and the projection against the Other: the father is dead, it’s my fault, who killed him? it’s your fault, it’s the Jews, the Arabs, the Chinese, all the resources of racism and segregation; the abject desire to be loved, the whimpering at not being loved enough, at not being “understood,” concurrent with the reduction of sexuality to the “dirty little secret,” 

-Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, “Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, 

Posting on a Euphoria discussion board 

(A euforum, if you will) 

I was a model citizen, once, before I watched Euphoria. I’m a real boy now, and I’d very much like to go back. Euphoria retroactively shattered my illusion of childhood, the detritus scattered over that rug with the roads and little houses on it in snarling, denticulate fragments. Then I stepped on one, which hurt, but not as bad as seeing Kat leave Ethan to hook up with Daniel. That was an emotional pain, deeper than any tendon, tarsal, or talus. Now I have tetanus. My memory’s a bit rusty.

Euphoria isn’t the guy in the alley with the trenchcoat offering you free drugs. Euphoria is the drugs, and the trenchcoat, and the alley. Sam Levinson is maybe the guy in the trenchcoat, A24 is the buildings betwixt the alley is situated, HBO is the zoning commission, and you are me, who watched all 16 episodes of Euphoria. Which makes you a huge loser. 

Here is a list of the risky behaviors that Euphoria caused me to engage in:

Drugs

Seen what I’ve seen, you’d be slumped up in an alley

Out here you lucky if you’re not a junkie or an alkie

-Mach-Hommy, “Separation of the Sheep and the Goats”,

On attending the Season 2 premiere of Euphoria

BCE (before consuming Euphoria) my drug use was limited to: brewskies, jazz lettuce, Duncan’s juul, research chemicals, whatever the CIA gave me that one time, and industrial quantities of pseudoephedrine (I have a suuuuper stuffy nose. Like, the Thanksgiving turkey of noses). After Euphoria, it would be easier to list the drugs I haven’t used:

(1) My friends’ drugs. 

You can take drugs, and you can drug your friends, but you can’t take your friend’s drugs. 

-Either Euphoria, or a dream I had about Euphoria.

The problem is that Euphoria makes drug use look super cool. In the first episode, Rue takes some pills at a party, and the room starts spinning vertically (hamburger, not hot dog). Enticing, as I have really high walls in my apartment that I can’t reach the top of to put stuff on without standing on a chair but then I get kind of nervous that I’m gonna fall off the chair and hurt myself so I don’t do it. If the walls were to rotate under me, I could mount more record holders. Instead, I became the record holder. Of drug use. 

Within 10 minutes of finishing the first episode, I had a needle in my arm. The needle was for a blood test, administered by the international Olympic committee. I had been accused of doping. And for the first time since I severed ties with the Russian government, they were right. The Paraguayan men’s curling team will be furious. 

Rue’s opiate withdrawal in Season 2 leads to the sickest parkour sequence in television history. She goes from lanky, unathletic, entitled, Gen Z phone addict to the O.J. Simpson of absconding. I guess O.J. Simpson is the O.J. Simpson of absconding, but Rue is, too. And she gets rewarded with a nice morphine bath, like a sickly Victorian child. If the “treat others how you wanted to be treated” rule was followed, that’s how it’d be for all of us. But society doesn’t want it that way, or my landlord would’ve given me a bathtub. Do you know how hard it is to do morphine in a shower? Let’s go find out.

In the fourth episode, Cassie and Maddy do Molly (with Grace), renewing their Hope, Joy, and Faith they wouldn’t Rue attending the carnival. If you didn’t like that sentence, stop naming your kids words. Sue me. Every time Cassie does drugs, I’m torn. On the one hand, she looks like she’s having an awful time. On the other, the shot composition gets all quirked up and bokeh. Between the two, I choose cinematography. And so I choose drugs, in the hopes I too will be the centerpiece of that one gorgeous frame right before Sam Levinson tells me to take my clothes off.

In episode 7, Jules does drugs in a nightclub, subsequently receiving “brain” from her friend’s roommate. My attempts to replicate this have been complicated by the fact that my friend is my roommate, and I theirs. I guess I’ll go fuck myself? Another time she self-injects hormones. This confused me as, according to my sources (20th century comedians), women are overburdened with hormones? The fairer sex eludes me. Please answer my calls, Gretchen—I’m sorry for mistreating you. I swear, I had no idea mixing atorvastatin and erythromycin could cause rhabdomyolysis. But it’s like they say: 

Malpractice makes perfect.

-They 

Rue’s narcotics anonymous sponsor, Ali, is the coolest person on the entire planet. Now you might think since he’s an ex-drug user, this would connote “clean over lean.” It is in fact the converse. Ask yourself: how did Ali get so cool? How did he become so knowledgeable about jazz, and amass such a rich collection of kufis? That’s right: drugs, probably. At the very least, my takeaway from the Ali subplot is that to get a sexy father figure who gives good life advice, you need to do drugs. If you’re lucky, the drugs will manifest one for you. What if the hat man were an avuncular aide? What if the machine elves chorused affirmations at you? What if the Elmer’s glue cow came to life-

The only character who explicitly doesn’t use is Nate. Nate is cool and makes good decisions, but he’s a full 7 inches taller than me—I look up to him, I just can’t relate. Come to think of it, I don’t think Lexi does either (theater doesn’t count, get over yourself). But she’s 6 inches shorter than me; while I’m not fully prepared to disregard her experience, my plans to do so are half afoot.  

Euphoria doesn’t just glorify drug users, it glorifies drug dealers. Fez and Ashtray are the show’s most entertaining characters, and there’s that whole one-off episode about a pharmaceutical executive reviving the spirits of a downtrodden rust belt town by supplying free opiates to the residents. I don’t know exactly how that fit into the overarching narrative, but it gave me a strong urge to buy Johnson & Johnson stock.

Along with my drug habit (not recognized by most convents), I’ve developed an exigent oral fixation, satiated only by holding no fewer than 3 cigarettes in my mouth at each point in time. 

This makes speaking difficult, improving my personal relationships immensely but thwarting my plans to “dominate the slam poetry circuit.” Maybe next year. Speaking of oral fixations,

Sex

At any rate, when a subject is highly controversial—

and any question about sex is that—one cannot hope to tell the truth.

-Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”,

Talking about her boyfriend that goes to another school 

Pre-Euphoria, I’d describe myself as “sex-neutral,” insofar as I rolled down hills to the lowest point of elevation before stopping. Post-Euphoria, I can confidently say that I’m “sex-positive”— positive sex is a sin. That includes you, marrieds. Go have kids some other way. People will really watch Euphoria but not want to experience the euphoria of heaven by accepting Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. 

Take Cal. Cal cheats on his wife in a motel, sometimes with minors, and non-consensually records the affairs. This is a very bad thing to do, and those of you without my ace media literacy skills may imagine the show condemns Cal’s actions. But notice, if you will, that Cal is both the series’ protagonist and a family man, two intertextual details that portray him in a positive light. Euphoria exalts Cal, elevating him to the same status of all-American hero as Atticus Finch, Senator Ted Cruz, and Grimace from McDonald’s. Luckily I was able to resist Cal’s influence, as I would never cheat on my wife. However, I went from never having stayed in a motel to being a Super 8 rewards member. I shudder every time I look at that damned card.

Of course, there’s more than just Cal—other characters in this show have sex, too. Worse yet, some of them have gender. Gender dysphoria got a separate classification in the DSM-5, now gender euphoria is gonna make it into the DSM-6. I can’t fathom what it is, but it’ll be there. Is this what you want your kids exposed to? 

But Bod, you (liberal) say, kids are gonna explore their identity and sexuality no matter what. It’s better to talk to them beforehand so they’re ready to process and engage with these topics in a healthy way!

Oh, really? If only there were a cure for that … Oh wait, there is: abstinence. At least that covers the sex thing; I don’t know about gender. Maybe… abstain from thinking about it? 

It’s not the mere depiction of sex that’s an issue, it’s the portrayal. Nearly every time two characters on Euphoria “eufornicate,” they both look really sad afterwards. While one could argue that’s because having sex with someone you’re in a toxic or unhealthy relationship with as temporary reprieve from other woes is unfulfilling and will ultimately exacerbate your regrets, loneliness, and even underlying trauma, I think the simpler explanation is that they liked the sex a lot and are sad it’s over. With all the misinformation out there, I’m not sure how many people will have my (correct) interpretation, but I’m confident at least one person will walk away from Euphoria with the message that sex is a panacea for all your problems, even if that one person is me. 

And if kids are going to be exposed to the notion of toxic, unhealthy relationships, I think it should be first-hand, witnessing it from their parents. This will give them a more immersive understanding of the issue and equip them with the emotional tools to deal with it in the future. The lasting effects of such treatment are minimal, especially compared to the scourge of this country’s true nemesis, Euphoria. 

Also, what’s depicted in the show is simply not “safe sex.” I mean no sex is safe—from God’s judgement, that is—but Euphoria’s is extraordinarily bad. First episode, Maddy and Tyler are fucking in a pool. Water is not a lubricant! It’s an abradant, eroding the natural lubrication provided by your pet Giant African Snail. If you don’t have a pet Giant African Snail, one will be appointed for you. Plus, do you really want to get chlorine in your reproductive organs? That’s how my great-great-grandpop died in WWI. MFs do not be cognizant of proper sanitary practices. Like DOOM said:

You like the way she shakes her back area

It’s like a sex machine that makes bacteria

It just gets worse from there; subsequent episodes have sex with drugs, sex with firearms and, most egregious, Nate and Cassie going at it in an active construction site with no hard hats.^[1] I’m literally two seconds away from calling OSHA.

How was I victimized by the sex in Euphoria? While I’ll spare you the details of my personal life, rest assured they are salacious as they are licentious, licentious as they are prurient, and prurient as they are concupiscent. That’s right, ladies. I’ve been fooling around with my GRE practice book. 

Mental Illness

Now I know some people will find the notion that Euphoria romanticizes mental illness to be a little out there, but bear with me. He’s over there, eating from the garbage. While the show depicts neither the experience of having a mental illness, nor the experience of being treated for one in a particularly alluring light (purple), having a mental illness is a soft prerequisite for being a character on Euphoria, which is the coolest possible thing you can be. I don’t know if Euphoria gave me any mental illness I didn’t have already, but now every time someone tells me they have anxiety I suppress the urge to ask for their autograph. This might be a hot take, but given skyrocketing rates of mental illness among Americans, especially youth, I just don’t think it’s something we should be depicting in media.^[2] Out of sight, out of mind.

Euphoria has given our citizens, in the diction of the Beastie Boys, a “license to ill.” Covid already meant people actually started taking sick days off work—now they’re gonna take “mental health days,” too. Soon there won’t be any work days left, just a constant cycle of PTO, Sick Leave, Bank Holidays, Jewish Holidays, and the like. Before you know it we’ll have a Three Bi’Shvat, or even a Four Bi’Shvat. Passover’s gonna be 40 years long. I can’t survive 40 years in the desert, I have a melanin deficiency. And I definitely don’t want to play tic-tac-toe with doors, I’m terrible at it. I never know if they’re push or pull. 

Gold bolted from his chair. “What holidays?” he demanded. “When is this Shmini Atzereth of yours, anyway?” 

His father’s scrutiny was denigrating. “That was, already, you dope. A week ago, before Simchas Torah.” 

“Then what holiday? What are you waiting for now?” 

“Shabbos Bereishes.” 

“Shabbos Bereishes?” Gold was dumbfounded. Even in his own voice those words sounded unbelievable. 

“Sure, you skinny shaygetz” his father began in a modulated tirade. “It’s what comes after Simchas Torah, you damned fool. 

-Joseph Heller, “Good as Gold”,

Describing the future liberals want

This is a blatant erosion of America’s core values, our protestant ethic. I’m glad Max Weber is dead, so he doesn’t have to witness this atrocity. If Americans are no longer willing to put in the work, someone’s going to have to force them to go the distance, at the cosine of the angle. And I don’t think you want this to get physical.   

When I was in second grade, I came to school demanding my classmates address me as “Naruto” (this actually happened, in case you were wondering how long I’ve been cringe). Now kids are gonna watch Euphoria and come to school telling people to call them bipolar, or OCD. Just don’t call them late for dinner!! They’re going to start popping pills like tic tacs, tic tacs like pills, bottles in the ice, like a blizzard, when we drink we do it right, gettin slizzard, sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6, now I’m feeling so fly like a G6 like a G6 like a G6

We’re in the midst of The Sorrows of Young Werther part 2, except now you don’t have to be literate to participate. This has disastrous consequences for the human race. If we’re not taking literate people out of the gene pool, what are we doing? It’s like J. Cole said:

No role models and I’m here right now

No role models to speak of

Searchin’ through my memory, my memory

I couldn’t find one

Last night I was gettin’ my feet rubbed

By the baddest bitch, not Trina, but I swear to God

This bitch will make you call your girl up and tell her “Hey, what’s good?

“Sorry I’m never comin’ home I’ma stay for good”

Then hang the phone up, and proceed to lay the wood

I came fast like 9-1-1 in white neighborhoods

Ain’t got no shame bout it

And if that’s not prescient, I don’t know what prescient means.  

Violence

Can I kick it? 

Yes you can!

Can I kick it?

Yes you can!

-A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”, 

Deliberating proper course of action after finding an injured animal 

I used to view violence as a last resort, and not a very nice one. Not a terrible one, either. Maybe like Sandals-tier? Violence was the Sandals of resorts. I just didn’t see the purpose; few things settled violently are incapable of being settled non-violently. I think one of the Gandhis said that. Probably not the one that attacked those temples, but you never know. 

Now I do see the purpose: entertainment. Two guys fighting is the most engaging thing they could do, outside of starting a podcast. It adds stakes to interpersonal drama. When Cassie and Maddy fought after the play? That slapped. Fez beating up Nate was awesome. I got so excited I hit my friend over the head with a bottle of goose (in my defense, he didn’t duck.) Nate beating the shit out of a guy and then coercing him to confess to a crime he didn’t commit? Our boys in blue would be proud. I killed my drug dealer with a hammer, 

Thanks to Euphoria, I’ve been inured to violence. “What does inured mean?” Asks my nephew. “Well buddy,” I lean down to say, “it means I’m gonna put this gun inure god damn mouth if you don’t get da hell outta here, capisce? Fuckin’ mook.”

I suck at finding stuff. Inner peace, keys, my drug luggage (druggage, if you will). I’ve forsaken all the teachings of Steve from Blue’s Clues. Now when I lose something, I smash miscellaneous objects and roast people over their deepest insecurities. Not a generally effective strategy, but damn if I’m not good at hide and seek. My foes’ options are limited to running. And if you can’t run faster than a 12 minute 14 second mile, I’m gonna be right behind you. 

Here’s the thing, right? Toxic masculinity is bad, there’s no denying it. Men are incapable of showing their emotions, sure. But that’s just it: violence provides a way to express themselves. When McKay’s frat brothers decided to break into his room, forcibly remove his clothes, and film him, that was just dudes bonding. And when there was all that tension between Cal and Derek, they just wrestled it out. All that anger and resentment, dissipated through some friendly, platonic exhibitions of force. 

Acclaimed Marvel movie hater Martin Scorsese once said:

Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred… The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion.

Well guess what Marty? We’re not in that century anymore. We’re in a new century, in which even greater atrocities in the history of the world have occurred. We have the greatest atrocities, everybody knows it. And I’m not cultivating anything unless Monsanto tells me I’m allowed to. We’re in Euphoria world now. No rules, baby—state of nature. The suburbs. You ever play football, Marty? Ever throw around the old pigskin? Didn’t think so. Cause if you had, you’d have an appreciation for what actually matters in life. And CTE. Which is that smashing other dudes is awesome. Sometimes you just want to handle balls, get to third base, “touch down” and score. Remember when men were men? Like in Rome, where they fought each other in gladiatorial combat, and had slavery and stuff. Then those fruity French had to ruin everything. The gaul of some people. 

Lying

Lie, Cheat, Steal, Kill

(Everybody’s doing it)

-Run the Jewels, “Lie, Cheat, Steal”,

Testifying against the student body of Euphoria High School

Before Euphoria, I was under the impression that lying was bad. This had deleterious effects on my life; I was forced to out myself as the serial cherry tree chopper, and I slept standing up. Euphoria deftly disproves Kant’s “categorical” theory—everyone lies all the time, precipitating no issues or conflict. It also disproves the Yoneda lemma, with the episode 5 postscript stating simply, “Yo neda get some bitches.”  This encouraged me to begin lying, and now I can’t stop. 

When I go to a coffee shop, I tell the barista my name is “Dob.” When they tell me they didn’t ask for my name, I insist they did. If they still don’t believe me, I burn the establishment down and collect the insurance money. This is because I watched Euphoria. 

My stance on gaslighting has changed drastically. I’ll admit, I felt the practice was cruel, unnecessary, archaic, hazardous, and energy-inefficient. But if gaslighting can achieve that crisp contrast in some of those character-spotlight shots in season 2, then damn if we can’t all do with a bit more fracking in our lives. Peep the difference:

Renewable just won’t cut it. And yeah, there might be damage along the way. Ecosystems decimated, drinking water flammable. And yeah, you might have to lie to some people. Tell them half-truths, deny reality, make them doubt their sanity. Hit ’em with the ‘ole: “there’s not a well head in our backyard honey, don’t be ridiculous. Are you sure you’re well in the head?” But if those aren’t sacrifices you’re willing to make, you’re not a true cinephile, buster. 

I haven’t filed my taxes in years. I believed, with the utmost conviction, that taxation is theft, and it was thus morally correct to recuse myself from the illicit affairs of the IRS. After watching Euphoria, I think theft is cool. Combined with my newfound proclivity for lying, I have no choice but to report fake additional income, paying more taxes than I’m obligated. Imagine if that extra revenue went to schools, infrastructure, or social security! I don’t think socials should have security, not after those zookeepers tranquilized me at senior prom. Speaking of schools,

Going to School

Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At the state university he took his studies so seriously that he was suspected by the homosexuals of being a Communist and suspected by the Communists of being a homosexual. He majored in English history, which was a mistake. 

-Joseph Heller, “Catch-22”,

Describing me

By far the most repugnant, reprehensible, rebarbative, reactionary, and regressive thing the characters in Euphoria do (if, I may add, insouciantly) on a daily basis is attend their classes. Before Euphoria, I hadn’t attended a class in years. I didn’t know what I was enrolled in, or my major, or where I was. Now I know some of those things, and it sickens me. I have 2 degrees in economics?? .0175 radians in math?? What the hell am I supposed to do with that? 

What of my dream, becoming a musician?

(My editor reminds me I’m tone-deaf)

What of my dream, becoming an artist?

(My editor reminds me I’m color blind)

What of my dream, becoming a financial analyst?

I was really banking on that.

I don’t think school teaches you anything. When I was fourteen, a mad rat scientist put me in a big maze that became electrified if I took too long. I never figured out where I was going, or what the non-cocaine lever dispensed. That bastard had the nerve to remark I “lacked geo-intelligence.” After he said I was spatial!!! What’s worse, the research was funded by tax-payer (rat) dollars. I feel like they didn’t get their money’s worth. Sorry guys, I’ll try harder next time.

Wait. There is one thing. In Season 2, Episode 8, Lexi tells Fez she plans on having 3 kids at age 30, each a “year and a half apart”, and “dropping the last one off at college” when she’s 58. If that were the case, she’d have her last child at 35, so by the time she’s 58 they’d be 23. Unless Lexi expects her third child to be held back 5 years or join the military, this seems like an odd timeline to plan out. My degrees equipped me with the tools to be an asshole pedantic enough to notice this. 

Other Things

Inspire a thousand “Our Fathers,” people start calling their priests:

“We’ve never seen a man so vehemently drawn to the beast!”

“I heard he plays a pipe organ and changes form when he feeds.”

I’ve never played a pipe organ, the rest my lawyer concedes

-Aesop Rock, “Crystal Sword”,

On trial as a member of the Euphoria high school student body

I now wear makeup to bed. I don’t really wear makeup outside of bed, but I gotta be ready in case the creature comes.

I’ve started an OnlyFans, where you can find the refuse of my abandoned creative projects and some hot pictures photoshopped by my editor, Aaron. I wanted to make a Patreon, but my work was deemed “lewd and of insufficient quality.” 

My “scaring the hoes” alternative rap playlist has been replaced with hip hop and pop music from the mid-2010’s. I’ve listened to 74 Drake songs in the past two days. 

The last time I went on a date, I tried to open a beer bottle with my mouth while driving. My date was screaming at me to “slow down,” but I told her I’d never get the cap off without enough torque (I later realized she meant the car, not the speed at which I attacked the bottle). Unfortunately it was not a twist-off, so I sustained numerous lacerations in my mouth region. When we got to our destination, I turned to her and exclaimed, “I’m da jokah, baby!” She flung open the door and ran off. Luckily I had a swiss army knife in my cigarette lighter, so I got the bottle eventually. No cap. 

I’ve gotten 6 abortions. Despite the litany of lawsuits filed against me in Texas, the courts have deemed me “unfit to stand trial” and (unlike a fetus) “not legally a person.” If you’d like to help those even less fortunate with regard to their status of personhood, you can donate to the national network of abortion funds. 

In Season 2, Episode 7, Maddy repeatedly calls Cassie a coward, but never takes the lay-up of calling her “Cassie Coward” (her last name is Howard). It was right there, Maddy! Right there! Oh and uhhh I lost my duolingo streak. 

Conclusion

“You stand on the lowest rung of evolution!” Philip Philipovich outshouted him. “You are a being just beginning to take form, still weak from the intellectual point of view, all your actions are purely bestial, and in the presence of two people with university education you dare to let yourself go in the most unforgivable manner and offer advice of a positively cosmic nature with positively cosmic stupidity about how everything should be divided up … and at the same time you do things like eating the tooth powder…”

-Mikhail Bulgakov, “Heart of a Dog”,

Satirizing kids these days

The worst thing about Euphoria—worse than the hundreds if not thousands of impressionable children it maims or kills each day, assassinating the hearts, minds and very character of our youth—is that you’re not allowed to dislike it. It’s like K-Pop, if K-Pop weren’t super freaking awesome!!! With all the rabid Euphoria stans on twitter and in places like Ohio, one must heap the show with unctuous, undeserved praise lest ye be torn limb from limb by the feral bacchae, prancing the fields to the entrancing tune of top 40 radio hits. Fearing for my life, on the occasion I’ve encountered these wildebeests in the wildeness, I’ve taken to placating them by saying something like:

“Euphoria is a wonderful show, a masterful entry in the canon of emotional realism. While its writing can be chaotic and (at times) messy, the show compensates for its clumsiness with sheer ambition. The engaging, unconventional narrative structure, gripping performances, meticulous set design, gorgeous costuming, and absolutely brilliant lighting, blocking, and cinematography make Euphoria one of the most exciting—and by far the prettiest—shows on television today. I can’t attest to the veracity of everything Euphoria portrays (I went to a normal high school which was mainly filled with asbestos), but the show’s treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and, more obliquely, eating disorders is some of the most honest, authentic depiction I’ve seen in media. In the interstices of its melodrama, Euphoria presents and represents a stunning array of issues, conditions, experiences, and identities, in a way that feels organic, granting depth and texture to its narrative. Calling art ‘important’ is a lazy critique, surely—but Euphoria is important. Not for its social impact, but to its audience, which finds solidarity and validation under the warm embrace of its effulgent, purple-tinted aura.” 

Yuck. I threw up three times writing that, and only two were from the benzos.

Euphoria fans in general have a reputation for being a bit rabid, but in the immortal words of Cassie Coward, “I’m crazier.” Feel free to post this article with the caption “least insane Euphoria viewer,” or something like that. Quoth JPEGMAFIA, I don’t care (x11). I don’t care for my haters, my detractors, or my critics. And if that makes me a bad doctor, and an even worse friend, so be it. Because it also makes me a damn good American. So to those who sneer, jeer, taunt, mock, scorn, snipe, jab, gibe, heckle, hector, boo, hiss, bitch, moan, question, answer, catcall, cold call, climb to the rooftops and yell, “impropriety!” I have one thing to say you:

Hi Propriety, I’m Bod

The horror! The horror!

-Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”

^[1] If you thought “hard hat” was an innuendo, I’d suggest an immediate visit to your local house of worship. Don’t pass Go, and only collect $200 if they’re untaxed. On second thought, it might be too late for you.

^[2] But Bod, you (liberal) say, those rates reflect improvements in detection, screening, and care, as well as the wane in stigma against mental illness over the past several decades. Yeah ok dude. Stigma balls.