Mean

Mathematically speaking, it's the average. Middle-school speaking, it's just how a lot of kids act. Pop musically, it's a Taylor Swift song. And right as I was planning this, that song was being played by the company with whom our own shares an office. Now I dig that song, but that won't prevent me taking digs at it here. Away we go.

Swift is assailing a bullying type in the song, for his physical and verbal abuse. But the problem I have is that she tells him how one day she (or the song's protagonist) will be living in a big old city, and all that individual will be is mean. Living in a city that I enjoy, I still resent the notion that living in the city makes you any better. It's precisely the kind of city superiority that makes people loathe cities from time-to-tim. How exactly does living in a big old city equate to a superior stance to being mean? The protagonist can still be a bitch/asshole, but because they will be living in a big ole city it's okay? People are people. Some are great, some are shit, some are in between. Some of them live in cities, and some of them live elsewhere.

I was also thinking that this song reeks of spite. But I realize that some day has not arrived yet for the protagonist, so perhaps this song is a little ditty or extended mantra that the protagonist tells themself internally to deal with the constant bullying they receive. Plus, there is the acknowledgement of the cycle of abuse, and it closes with "why you gotta be so mean," so there's that nice return, after all the hatred aimed at the "mean" person, to an attempt to be sympathetic.

As this shows, you can [over]analyze anything you like, but here's a lengthy analysis (and not of a Taylor Swift song) that I think is worth the read. It's about the role of the political comic or perhaps a better distillation is to say what the relationship of comedy to politics is versus what it could and maybe should be.

Also, a quick open letter to my legs and feet: please resume somewhat standard operation. I mean, I just want to run like maybe forty or fifty or more miles a week, and that's pretty normal right?

When I don't run, I'm liable to be more mean (jerk), when really I want to be mean (average) for what mean means for my body (running forty-plus miles at a variety of paces).

Oh, and have a nice weekend.