Eric Reads the News: The Federal Dept. of Group Chatting

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet?
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Welcome to the return of Eric Reads the News, my now-monthly humor column covering pop culture and politics (derogatory). Normally, these posts will be sent to paid supporters of the Here for It newsletter only (join here!) but, like a top secret military plan discussed over Signal, I'm telling any ole body about this one.

In case your group text with a number of highly ranked government officials hasn't talked about this yet, I gotta tell you that yesterday The Atlantic dropped a real wig-snatcher of an article detailing a recent incident in which the editor-in-chief of the magazine was accidentally added to a Signal conversation in which JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hodgepodge, and a bunch of other secondary characters from a Left Behind movie discussed [checks notes; eyes pop out of my head] dropping bombs on Yemen.

Accidentally adding a journalist to a high level government chat is giving WickedBroadwayPoster underscore original dot jpeg

After said plan (bombs) was approved, the group of officials, who were last employed as the villains from Pete's Dragon, sent around congratulatory emojis in the following categories: fist, flag, fire. And, folks, is warmongering cringe?

🔥 - This emoji is only for gassing up your friends' selfies. However, if you open up a DM thread and it's nothing but this emoji on your side and nothing from the other person, step away from the computer. Stop contacting Bad Bunny. He knows he is hot! Actually, I think we've reached chaos rules at this point. Send him every fire emoji you got. It's the end of days! Who cares!

👊 - According to the program I'm using to type this, this fist is actually called "facepunch" which is what I'd like to [redacted in a futile attempt to stay out of trouble]. If this emoji had a sound it would be "HELL YEAH BROTHER" and unfortunately for this emoji, the only person who can say "HELL YEAH BROTHER" and still be cool is Samantha Irby. Can you imagine if JD Vance had accidentally looped Sam Irby into a group chat? The recap that came from it would fix my credit and my digestion. It would clear my skin and turn back the clock to a time when things were actually slightly sane (the year 2000-and-never). It would be like when Superman flew around the world backwards in order to reverse time, which is exactly the kind of nonsensical way that I try to solve problems. I love that, in reality, if the planet suddenly reversed, we'd all be thrown into space or something. But the writer of the original Superman movie was like "[huge snort] seems fine!" Anyway, I do not like this emoji.

✊ - this emoji? In the original yellow flavor? Feels like something I would need to call HR about. It's giving this:

Is it controversial to say that maybe you should not be using emojis when talking about military actions? Just a thought! 🤷‍♂️

Ay-yi-yi, I say! I mean, what even?! And can you think of a worse person to include in this chat than the EIC of The Atlantic. Like, if you put me in there I'd just be like "UNSUBSCRIBE" but this dude actually knew what was going on. And I, famously, do not.

The whole chatting over Signal thing has this energy but, like, bad.

I read the article and I was like "I can't believe this is happening (popcorn eating GIF)" and "I can't believe this is happening (bleakly staring into the horizon GIF)"

I have been dealing with a lot of the news (derogatory) by taking action where I can and practicing mindfulness, but, you know what, I think I'd like to try mind emptiness. Take it out! Turn the empty space into a Costco!

I'm walking into the nearest Cold Stone Creamery and asking "Hey, skip, does your ice cream scoop do lobotomies?"

Actually, maybe this whole "whoopsidoodle" of including a journalist in a top secret conversation with the VICE PRESIDENT (derogatory) is my fault. Like, I wanted more government transparency. And the government was like "What, so now you don't want me to send you 'Sup' messages on SnapChat, followed by the nuclear codes? Pick a struggle!"

I pick literally any other struggle. You know how in Interstellar (Lord, he must be stressed, he's out here talking about Interstellar again), Anne Hathaway's character went to an empty planet with thousands of embryos in an attempt to restart civilization and at the end of the movie I was like "Now how is Anne Hathaway supposed to raise all them babies?! Who is running the schools?!" That's a struggle I would pick over this.

Also! I do not want to be in any group chat but I definitely don't want to be in a group chat about my job. Like, I wish to be included in a friend group chat, but my friends need to understand that sometimes I am not in the mood to cut up about memes. And sometimes that mood lasts for two-to-three years. But when you're in a group chat with your coworkers and they're like "What if I just said the names about a bunch of confidential CIA operatives right now? Would that be wild?" (a thing that occurred), you really can't opt out. You gotta be out there posting the facepunch fist and hootin' and hollerin' like the rest of them.

But yellow original-flavored fists only, of course. None of that beige or brown business. Wouldn't want to be out here in the streets doing DEI. Now that would be embarrassing.