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The Internet will kill Thanksgiving.

And it won’t stop there.  The Internet is after all those other holidays where family members gather to share a year’s worth of news and, after a day or two, rub each other the wrong way.

Why?

Because thanks to the Internet, we don’t have anything safe left to talk about.

Thanks to Facebook, etc., we know all about Uncle Al’s colonoscopy or Aunt Emma’s hysterectomy.  Hell, not only do we know the details, we’ve seen the video.

So before this holiday season gets rolling, I already know of the medical challenges overcome by my new niece Iris and her brother Scott.  Seen the pictures, maybe even saw their medical charts.  By Thanksgiving or Christmas, this is all old news.

So what’s left to talk about?

None of the safe stuff, like bumps and bruises and illnesses, the successes in school or on the athletic field or at work.  Been on Twitter, seen that.

All that leaves us for those holiday gatherings with family is the weather, and politics.

Want to strangle the happiness out of a family gathering?  Mention Barack Obama or health care or death panels.  Scream out “You Lie” when your mother starts in on one of those stories of the idiot things you did as a kid.  Praise or criticize the political wingnuts on the left or the right.

Thanks to the Internet, that’s all we’re left with.  That, and the weather.

It could be worse.  Thankfully, social networking sites are fairly new.  Imagine that classic movie A Christmas Story, which often plays for an entire day, over and over, until you either fall asleep or try to kill yourself.

What if Twitter had existed in the movie’s time?

Ralphie: My aunt got me this stupid bunny outfit.  If I ever get a BB gun for Christmas, gonna shoot her.

Ralphie:  Mom made me wear the stupid bunny outfit.  Gonna shoot her too.

Ralphie: I got a gun! My dad got me a Red Ryder BB Gun!!!

Ralphie: i tink i put my i out.  #@%!!*&

We’re saved at least this.  But come holiday season I expect to read Tweets about mediocre turkey dinners or lousy Christmas presents, maybe catch video of sleepy people dragging their sorry selves up too early on a Christmas morning — all captured by smartphones and instantly uploaded to the Net.  Oh the memories, the instant memories, ones shared with an indifferent world.

But don’t think for the moment the Internet is satisfied with just killing Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Oh no, the Net has other holidays in its sights.  Like Halloween.  It’s never officially the holiday until some TV network plays  It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.   Without that, it’s just another day with free candy and future cavities.

There’s a Wikipedia page for The Great Pumpkin.  You knew there had to be.

Talk about sticking in a pin and hearing the magic rush out in a sincere woosh.  The Great Pumpkin, according to Wikipedia, is a holiday figure “that seems to exist only in the imagination of Linus van Pelt.”

Seems to exist?  Argh! I feel like Lucy yanked the football away just as I was about to kick it.

The Wikipedia article also recounts a 1961 Peanuts strip (from a newspaper, one of those old media things) in which Charlie Brown says he heard on the radio (another old media thing) the Great Pumpkin had appeared in a very sincere pumpkin patch.  In New Jersey.

The article ends: “Charlie Brown always in his heart believed, but he was afraid what Snoopy would think.”

Okay, maybe Wikipedia isn’t so bad after all.

So now I have to think up a whole new list of safe topics over the holidays, stuffing not provided via Facebook or Twitter or Youtube or whatever new social networking flavor-of-the-month site family members use to update me on their lives. All the details we’ve covered again and again.

I suppose we can just talk about Facebook.

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2 Responses to “The Internet is killing our holidays”

1. TheWordWire says:

   November 21, 2009 at 1:17 pm

   Thanks for the great laugh — I’ve noticed that lots of conversations these days start with… “I don’t know if you saw this on facebook or not, but….”

   There is a silver lining about the loss of so-called safe topics though. When you find yourself sitting around with a pink elephant, there’s nothing safer to discuss than someone else’s problems. Facebook offers enough material to get you through the New Year and beyond.

   Reply
2. bobby wallace says:

   November 22, 2009 at 12:51 pm

   Nice piece……You are so right……I shared this on Facebook………..

   Reply

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